I have until April 15th to make my final, official, no take-backs grad school decision. I'm still waiting to hear back on the NSF graduate research fellowship, but even once I know about that the choice is going to be REALLY tough. I've been accepted to both the University of Wisconsin (in Madison) and the University of Florida (in Gainesville). I hope that taking a few minutes to write down my thoughts about each school will help me put everything together before next week's big decision.
Pros of UW
-Always been on the top of my list, the first grad school I visited and the first program that interested me in getting a Ph.D. in toxicology
-One of the best schools in the country and one of the top toxicology programs (somewhere in the top 5 I believe)
-The tox grad students form a very cohesive group and have weekly student seminars
-Beautiful campus that's right on Lake Mendota
-The city is really neat, reminds me a lot of Omaha, especially in the downtown/State street area
-Beautiful summer and fall
-Bike friendly town, awesome parks (like the arboretum)
-Fried cheese curds and beer = delicious
-Close to Chicago, Milwauke, the Great Lakes, and a drivable distance from a lot of east coast states I've never visited
Cons of UW
-Their tox program has a very strong focus in cancer research/human health stuff that really doesn't interest me as much as the environmental side of toxicology
-The professors have HUGE labs (7-8 grad students), a bit intimidating for someone who's coming from a much smaller lab environment
-Nasty winter weather that lasts until May
-Fried cheese curds and beer = fat Erica
Pros of UF
-The two professors I met with were really nice, are doing research that excites me, and seemed genuinely in what I wanted to do as a graduate student
-Even though the labs are small (3-4 students per professor), they still do a lot of work and publish quite a few good papers every year
-Nationally it's a very good school (not as highly ranked as UW); two weeks ago at a conference in Florida, my dad spoke with a guy from Ft. Lauderdale who said UF was the school that "everyone in Florida wants to get into"
-Beautiful campus surrounded by lots of natural vegetation
-Bike-friendly town, awesome parks (like Paynes Prairie)
-Nice winter and spring (I am NOT a winter person...)
-Gators roam around campus and in some of the parks, which is awesome. Gators!
-Close to Jacksonville, Atlanta, the ocean, and anywhere in the "deep south"
Cons of UF
-The program is very small and the students are not nearly as cohesive as the group in UW
-The town is small with a culture that's very rural/Southern, and the move would be a big change from living in Omaha
-Ridiculously hot and humid summer and hurricane season in the fall (not on the coast so there's no imminent danger of being blown away, but nasty storms are always possible)
-Gators roam around town and may eat my face off, which is frightening. Gators!
Sadly this probably only helped me in putting off studying/homework/school stuff and not really in making a decision...
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