Graduate School Post 2

This is Ground Control
to Major Tom.
You've really made the grade.
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear.
Now it's time to leave the capsule
if you dare.

~David Bowie

I had originally intended to post something else this week, but was unable to obtain the pictures necessary. The photographer was watching Granite Flats instead. As a side note, I fear that Granite Flats will end much like ALF. There will be a cliff hanger ending to the third season, with good intentions to make another season. But then there will be contractual problems and the show will never culminate. We shall see.

After realizing that I would not have the necessary photos for the originally intended post this week, I decided to post a different post. But the timing for that set of posts did not feel right, so I have now decided to also defer that post for a week or two and present the current post you are reading. Most of the posts that you see on the blog have actually been back stage for some time (Sometimes even several months), including the pictureless one and the posts that I will be putting out next week or so. The post for today is different in that I wrote it this week. This is meant to be an update on where I plan to go for a PhD in Statistics.

Here are the basic facts:

• I will be going to a school in my current state.
• It is not my current school, but it is a school with similar colors.  There is a huge debate over this I believe. I am not sure why we do not go back to the original colors, a move which I have long advocated.
• This school is actually the only school in my state with a PhD program in statistics.
• This school was pretty much a backup to a backup when I was applying to schools. I will explain below why I chose this school over the others. 
• When I went to visit this school, the graduate chair had me meet all the single ladies in the department. I met a secretary, a (young) professor, and several of the unmarried female students. I do not know if this was on purpose. But I did meet one of these single ladies for a total of 1 hour and 12 minutes. She hails from Abraham Lincoln's birthplace. This meeting was planned, paid for, and paired. You be the judge. But if I need to show my religious conviction within the next week, I am totally going to use this as a quota reacher.
• I am going to refer in this post to the aforementioned school as Vester Valley University (VVU). This is not to be confused with VVP (Vester Valley Penitentiary). Although, VVP does have a very good prison ball team (Currently 2nd in the Western Division behind San Quentin Cellblock C).     

In the previous post on graduate schools, VVU only got a cursory consideration. And honestly, I probably would have gone to another school if it had not been for the fact that VVU gave me a pretty good financial offer. One aspect that was especially good about VVU is that I can go there on a fellowship, which means that I will only need to be a student. Usually math/stats PhD students are supported through teaching assistantships or tutoring jobs of some sort. That is what I do right now. It can be a little hard to balance taking the graduate classes, passing level exams,* and also tending to the every need of students stuck on a ridiculously ineffective online homework system. (Why do we insist on using online homework?)

Being able to go back to doing full time work as just a student is what I would say is the leading reason why I chose VVU. Overall, national ranking did not play a large role. I actually declined what is the "best" program in terms of ranking some time ago. If you read the last post on this topic, there was another school (The Paw) I was leaning towards at that time. There were a couple of red flags that started to spring up after I made that post. The Paw took forever to make any sort of decision on funding (Nothing was finalized until April, which is hard when April 15 is the deadline to commit to a program). There were also a lot of technical aspects of the program structure at The Paw that I did not especially like in the end (Such as having no central department offices and a rigid level exam syllabus). They also seemed to be massively disorganized, which was admittedly a bit off putting.

Overall, I am not really sure I found a place that I 100% liked. This would have likely been the case no matter where I ended up. I do not even 100% like the place I am currently at. Sitting on the bus bench between the All-Stars and the freshmen is a strange spot to be. I am of the age where my office mates dates one of my teachers. Weird.

Ultimately I had to make a decision based on what would be the best school situation, taking into account outside factors. There were a few places that I like better in terms of outside factors. But VVU was the best overall combination, so that is what I went with. Comment below if you desire.

Next week will be the start of a three week series.

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*In order to go on with the PhD program, most schools require passing qualifying or level exams. Level exams is a term I prefer, since "qualifying exam" makes it sound like you are trying to qualify for admission into the program or something. If you do not pass the exams after 2 years, you usually  have to leave the program (Oft times with a master's degree as a consolation prize). VVU has a level exam structure that is better than others I felt, so this was one reason I liked it.