- Joined
- Mar 13, 2012
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Hi Everyone,
So I've literally tried to restrain myself for months on posting on this topic, but literally I cannot decide where to go and am definitely grateful to have this opportunity. I already made a complicated pros/cons chart of my own and both seemed to fair almost exactly the same but did help me narrow down other choices.
My research interests: Neuroscience. Specifically i'm interested in possibly brain cancer, neurodegeneration, or psychiatric diseases. All with a pharmacological approach. Ideally I'd love to go into academic medicine at a powerhouse institution.
Tri-I Pros:
So I've literally tried to restrain myself for months on posting on this topic, but literally I cannot decide where to go and am definitely grateful to have this opportunity. I already made a complicated pros/cons chart of my own and both seemed to fair almost exactly the same but did help me narrow down other choices.
My research interests: Neuroscience. Specifically i'm interested in possibly brain cancer, neurodegeneration, or psychiatric diseases. All with a pharmacological approach. Ideally I'd love to go into academic medicine at a powerhouse institution.
Tri-I Pros:
- Love the administration. I know that I would have amazing support system here in this aspect.
- Amazing research, lots of choices especially because I could see myself being happy doing a cancer/pharm project even if it's not neuro (but I highly would like it to be neuro related)
- Lived in Manhattan for the summer loved it. But my situation has changed since then: I now I have three small dogs and a fiancé and I'm absolutely bringing my dogs.
- Friends in the area. I have a few friends that live in NYC and/or will be living there in the near future.
- Cost of living: This is almost the only thing keeping me from being sure I want to go to Tri-I. My living situation would require me to live off campus for at least the first 5 years. My fiancé is about to finish up a Master's in Sociology and wants to do work with non-profits and/or eventually go to law school. He's willing to take any job he can when we get there though. We will probably be getting around $700-1000 from his family per month to help with living.
- If I can't live in Manhattan, I'm worried that it'll make life really difficult/scary to be walking around other parts of NYC at night coming home late from lab...
- I'm sad that my dogs can't have a yard, but we could deal with it.
- Amazing research as well. I have an organic chemistry background and neuro background and I know that they have many great chemistry collaborations that I could really see myself getting into.
- My fiance's awesome sisters both live in Chicago. One is an anesthesiologist resident right now BUT both his sisters are going to be leaving in two years...
- I got along with the Northwestern MSTP students best of all. I had an absolute BLAST with them. (But Cornell students were definitely a close second)
- I feel like the housing is cheaper/more likely to have more room in Chicago. I'm also from an area where I've ALWAYS had a car. I can live without it... but a car is nice and both my fiancé's sisters have managed having a car in Chicago.
- The administration was very nice. Though I felt as though it was more important to them that people finish fast rather than do the best quality work they can in the PhD phase. I want to have support even if I have to stay a little longer in order to have better quality work.
- I feel like overall Cornell has better research since it has all three powerhouse institutions as opposed to Northwestern. Maybe this is an incorrect assessment?
- The cold and snow is super intense, but I could live with it (I'm from a very warm area of the country).
- His sisters are only going to be there for two years and then we won't know anyone there (of course I expect to meet people, but still...)
- I'm also very interested in Bioethics. I could see myself wanting to do some work with it in the future. Especially if I end up wanting to do psychiatry research/residency.
- Fiance does not have a preference of place. Of course he would like to be with his sisters, but the fact that they will only be there two years makes it easy for us to objectively feel that that isn't solely enough of a reason to go there.
- I did do the Gateways program. So I feel as though I'm inherently biased towards Tri-I, but I really could see myself being happy at Northwestern too.