Hello, noders.
Here are the
gory details of my present
dilemma. Help help help!
I need at least a
Master's for my personal and career goals. As you know, I
didn't get in
to
Berkeley. I did get admitted to
Stanford, last year, but took a year
deferral because I couldn't find a place to live (and I thought I might get
into Berkeley in the meantime).
Now I have a place to live, but it's in
Alameda, which is 30-some miles and
1.5-2.5 hrs drive (depending on the
traffic) each way, from
Palo
Alto/Stanford. I can't move, because Marty's health (that's my
cool mom, who is much older than I and has
fibromyalgia, so she lives with me) has gotten worse in the
last year. I've just learned that
carpooling and
vanpooling to Stanford
exists--leaving as early as 6:45 a. m. but they only take a little more than
an hour to get there because of using the much speedier
carpool lanes.
There's also
public transportation, but I live in Alameda, which is an
island and has no
BART station. I'd have to take a bus or drive to BART,
take BART to
Union City, take the
Dumbarton Express bus across the
Dumbarton
Bridge (remember it from
Sneakers?), and then take the Stanford "
Marguerite" Shuttle from Palo Alto. I'm going to test
this on
Friday, but my calculations put the optimal best time at 1.5 hours
(if there are no delays or missed connections).
And, of course, the real catch is the cost.
Tuition was raised again this
year and is now _
$25,000_ a year. *gasp* I have received no
financial aid,
and most of the national
fellowships (Mellon, etc.) are aimed at students
who are already in their first year of
grad school. There's no way I could
work during the school year between the rigors of the Stanford curriculum
and that long of a commute. And because
Asian studies isn't a hot field like
desperately recruited computer science, there aren't going to be
TAships and other sources of
money flung at me the way such opportunities have been falling into my SO's
lap.
I'm almost guaranteed to get into
CSU Hayward, which even if I didn't get a
grant/fellowship there, costs about a tenth of what Stanford does. And it's
only about 35 minutes away. However, it's not a respected school, has a tiny
anthro department, no China specialists, and I'd have to make up the
requirements for an anthro BA. So it might take me longer there (guessing 2
1/2 years) than at Stanford (guessing 2 years).
Additional considerations: At Stanford I'd have to quit my cool job at the
museum, and I would rarely get to see my SO. Hayward's research/library
facilities probably suck. Hayward is having a speaker from the
TALIBAN next
week (coughcough!). Stanford is one of the top three Asian Studies
programs--so
they have great resources, *and* it would be an extra edge in getting a
rare college teaching job.
So, if you have any kind of advice on
decisionmaking strategies or finding
financial aid (no
loans!) or your own experiences, please share them with
me. I really, really need
help.