Tag: Grad school

(Dis-)Orientation Week!

“Bright lights, big city, gone to my baby’s head…” – Jimmy Reed

These song lyrics seem to be running through my mind all day, like a soundtrack playing in the background as I’m living and navigating through my new life in New York City. Because the bright lights, the sights, the sounds of this city have pretty much gone to my head. I have fallen head-over-heels in love, and oh, it’s an amazing feeling 🙂 I feel like I know this place… I’m hit by a strong feeling of déjà vu every now and then… I feel like I know the streets, the shops, the buildings. Too many movies and TV shows have been filmed in NYC! I love the street system, how everything is numbered systematically… so even I, with my appalling direction sense, feel like I can find my way around without too much of a hassle. In those moments, it feels familiar and comforting, but then every now and then I’m hit by a wave of awe and surprise, some sort of mingled pride and gratitude… that I’m here, that this is really where I’m going to be for the next few years. I can’t believe this is my real life now, I can’t believe I actually made it here. I feel like I am living in a dream, a wonderful, fascinating, beloved dream, and I’m going to wake up any moment now and find out that I’m actually still waiting, waiting for grad school applications, waiting for exam results, waiting for a visa… waiting for my ‘real’ life to begin. But it has, it really has, and how!

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That’s the skyline 🙂

The institute seems amazing… the buildings, the halls, the corridors… very impressive, though not the easiest to navigate. And oh, the people! My program directors talked to all of us for less than an hour, and I’m already bowled over by their wit and warmth, and although I’m slightly intimidated (Ivy League school! Can I live up to it?!), I feel very welcome and wanted. The researchers here are extremely smart, extremely talented, and on top of that, they seem like really nice individuals as well. Classes haven’t started yet, so I really don’t have much to go on at the moment, but I’m sure it’s going to be brilliant.

My fellow students are all from completely different backgrounds, both culturally and education-wise. We’re a very diverse group, and we’re still getting to know each other. So far it’s been really fun, talking and laughing, learning how to pronounce names, hearing different accents… let’s see how it goes!

Now that I’ve got the obligatory ‘so how’s grad school?’ answer out of the way, (since after all, isn’t this what I’m here for? :P) let me move on to what else I’ve been doing in my orientation week, which has mostly been fun, more fun, followed by even more fun.

We went to the US Open!!! Granted, I’ve never been into tennis before, I used to think those matches go on waaay too long, and what’s the point of having so many games anyway! And I never really understood the scoring system, so basically, I just went to the US Open for the experience of actually being there, at the Arthur Ashe stadium in Flushing Meadows, watching a Grand Slam match… which, let’s face it, is a pretty awesome thing to be doing. I just expected to have a lot of fun, and get instant bragging rights 😛 But what I didn’t expect was to see Andy Murray, whom even I have heard of. I didn’t expect to end up understanding the scoring system. And I definitely didn’t expect to actually get into the spirit of things, loving the crowds, loving the charged atmosphere, loving to just be there and cheer on Andy like everybody else. It was one exhilarating experience, and I’ll never forget it.

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Arthur Ashe stadium!

The next thing we did, which was what I was looking forward to the most, was the yacht cruise. I had supremely high expectations from this event, and it didn’t disappoint … in fact, it actually exceeded them (I hadn’t factored in a buffet lunch on the yacht 😛 Wow!). It was a bright and sunny day, a bit too sunny at times, but I was all set, I had my new sunglasses 🙂 There was a lovely breeze, there were occasional waves, and the yacht would bounce up and down, sending me into delighted squeals and whoops. We were out on the water for around three hours, and I loved every moment of it. I took hundreds of photos, jumped and pointed excitedly when we first glimpsed Lady Liberty, and basically acted like the tourist that I am. The people were great, I talked and laughed a lot, and was thrilled when the captain walked up to me to strike up a conversation. It’s moments like this which make me feel like I’m starring in my own personal movie!

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Here’s what the yachts look like!

Apart from tennis and cruises, we went to Central Park, which is surprisingly very green. You don’t expect to see such an idyllic spot bang in the middle of Manhattan. The park is huge… (just like everything else here) and crowded. Crowded in the American sense though; being an Indian, I feel right at home. We went on a ‘sweets and eats’ crawl in Lower Manhattan, and I discovered the loveliest little cupcake shop ever! Cute, colorful, delicious cupcakes, made of pure sugar and happiness… the ultimate comfort food. I don’t care how far the shop is; I can feel its magnetic pull on me. I am so going back!

I saw Times Square, and attended the Smorgasburg in Brooklyn… I had a discounted shopping trip at Bed, Bath and Beyond where I bought myself a nice fluffy pillow and a huge comforter… I went with a group of people to China Town for dim sum, and they had the most enormous variety of hitherto-unheard-of food… and a bunch of us had brunch together in someone’s apartment today, where we made pancakes, frittatas, french toast… had fruits with dollops of whipped cream, all washed down with orange juice and/or caffeine – and it was so yummy, and so much fun!

I’m loving it here. Life is Good, Good with a capital G. I’ve had one of the most terrific weeks of my life, and as someone warned me, grad school life is probably just going to go downhill from here … 😛 Ah well, I don’t think that’s true, but making the most of it nevertheless. NYC is amazing, it’s as good as it’s hyped up to be. My grad school journey has started out great, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the ride is like. Bring it on!!! 😀

Admissions – Part 2

I’m back … got my silver lining, and how! It’s bright and sparkly, almost dazzling … lighting up my whole sky … seared across my vision, even when I look away, down on the ground, watching my step, pruning my garden … I can’t help but be aware of the sparkle in my sky … it’s always there now … a constant, a beacon of happiness … right there, in the background, even if I’m not looking. This indeed is the loveliest lining of silver one can ever have.

Admissions season is over, and so are the long days of waiting – now is the time to exult, to rejoice, to jump up and down whooping in celebration. Or on a quieter note … to feel good about yourself, to thank your lucky stars, to keep smiling on the inside, knowing that something wonderful awaits you.

I got accepted, you see. I got into my dream school! And not only that, I got options – some really good options – and isn’t it simply fabulous to be able to make a choice and decide? To have several wonderful people wanting you to join their place … to be courted, wooed, coveted? It’s been amazing, and I have finally made my choice. And yes, right there … I’ve committed the next five years of my life! It’s terrifying and overwhelming at some level, but I’m mostly just really,  really excited. A whole new life, rich and varied, lies ahead of me. I know it won’t be an easy road – there’ll be obstacles, potholes, fallen trees – but oh, it’s a new un-trodden road … and I simply can’t wait to start on my journey.

So it’s true – every cloud DOES have a silver lining. Even when the clouds are dark and menacing, covering up the whole sky, blocking out every possible sliver of light … it’ll be there. Sooner or later, we will have our silver linings. And then we can fling away our umbrellas, lift our merry faces up to the heavens, and dance away in the rain. 🙂

Admissions – Part 1

Prisms may exist, but you can’t get rainbows without sunshine. It’s been a little cloudy, folks …

I always knew the grad school applications process would be stressful, but I never realized exactly HOW incredibly soul-crushingly gut-wrenchingly stressful it would turn out to be!

The exams … oh my goodness. They kept coming one after another, like a lineup of cold, emotionless controlled knights in midnight black armor, ready to slay me, ‘coz how dare I try to cross the borders! I swatted and deflected the blows, in some cases winning outright, in some, not so much, and a couple are still being battled out. I studied and prepared and did countless practice tests, and believe me, it took a lot of time and effort.

However, exams turned out to be child’s play in the entire duration of the application season. Giving exams is the one thing where I actually have some (or in this case, a LOT of) experience, and it is essentially clear-cut: you study, you prepare … and in the exam you can solve questions using standard tools and techniques, and a dash of common sense. The real complications arose when I started looking up schools and programs I would like to go to.

Here, there is no correct answer … no formulae, no constants, no helpful assumptions. If you want to figure out how to go about the process of applying, you are on your own. And the questions never end. How many schools should you apply to? Which schools should you apply to? How do you know a school is ‘safe’? How exactly do you judge one school’s program against the other, based on the information on their websites? Won’t every school be advertising and selling itself as the best? Should you go for a school’s reputation – apply to top places, or mediocre places are alright as long as you know that you will have a ‘good Ph.D. guide’, which is again solely based on his or her webpage?

You trawl through a myriad of murky questions with no clear-cut answers. The more people you ask, the more opinions you gather – the more confused you end up being.

Alright, so ultimately … you manage to make a decent list of places you have decided to apply to. Whew, what a relief. Barring all the second-guessing, you are good to go, and can actually start the application process. Smooth sailing? Oh no, the rough seas have just begun. This is where you start writing your statement of purpose, if you haven’t begun yet (and honestly, it really should have begun long before … two weeks before the first deadline is not the best time!). This is when you go around procuring transcripts, and calling up delivery services to post them off in the shortest possible duration of time. This is when you log onto the testing service sites and pay them ridiculous sums of money so that they can send your official test scores to all the schools you have shortlisted. This is when you make sure your referees are ready with your letters of recommendation. Along with all this, you start filling in copious and tedious details in the online application forms. And one way or the other, you always end up spending a lot more time on this that you’d think is necessary. This is the point when you realize that although you had finally ‘finalized’ your SoP, you need to add/edit/delete a million things for each school. If you are a persnickety being, this time is even tougher on you as you will obsess incessantly over every sentence, the construction, the flow, the commas, and spend forever making sure it ‘sounds right’.

And now for the checklist. Online form completed, transcripts posted, test scores mailed, receipt of reco letters confirmed … fees payment done … aaaaand … submit! Congratulations, it’s over! Apart from a few worries about whether your transcripts and scores have been received and acknowledged, your work is pretty much over. Now it’s out of your hands, and into those of the admissions committees. Step back, heave a sigh of relief, and change back your life’s status from distressed to de-stressed.

And wait for the silver lining.