Here are some questions visiting prospective graduate students frequently
ask the graduate students. The answers are just the informal opinions of one graduate student!
- What are the academic requirements for the M.S. and Ph.D.
degrees?
It is possible to qualify for the M.S. degree after one full year of classes (3 classes per quarter, each for 3-4 credit hours) if you pass the written
qualifying exam at the 60% level (roughly). The qual is a 6-hour written test offered each June during which you answer at least 10 of 15-16 problems, most of
which are based on the Astronomy classes offered to graduates in a two-year cycle, with a few testing more general knowledge. Students are not expected to pass
the exam at the Ph.D. (70%) level until their second year, but a few do pass at the M.S. level their first time, and a very small number pass at the Ph.D. level
on their first try!
Passing at the Ph.D. level does not admit you to Ph.D. candidacy, however. It simply allows you to
proceed on to the next exam: the General, a 45-minute talk followed by rigorous oral questioning on a subject related to your thesis topic (you get one full week
to prepare). Then comes the dissertation writing, of course. The last step is the Final Exam: a thesis defense, usually a formality. You also have to complete a
certain number of credit hours, but that's never a problem.
The typical student completes the general exam during the first half of their third year. (There are exceptions in both directions.) Two+ years later you should
be completing your thesis and looking for jobs.
- What will my class schedule look like?
The classes offered here are described in detail in the official UW course catalogue (see also the link to the curriculum).
Generally, enough classes are offered per quarter to give you a full schedule, though you have the option of taking or auditing any class at the University (for
which you are qualified). You may also choose to sign up for research credits (this is what is known as a "600" course) with a faculty member of your choice, as
long as you both agree beforehand on a topic and so forth. This can go from a small one quarter reading project to a labor intensive several quarter
observational/data analysis one, and often results in some work (either theoretical or observational) that is published.
Most students take standard classes for their first two years here and then concentrate almost exclusively on research classes with faculty in later years.
- Will I need to be a Teaching Assistant?
Everyone must serve as a T.A. at least three times before they get their Ph.D.; typically, grads T.A. their entire first year to meet this requirement. In
addition, some of the night and summer classes have traditionally been taught by upper level grads. Most astronomers eventually end up in jobs which involve some teaching,
and we try to prepare our grads for this.
Being a T.A. involves running a discussion section that meets in conjunction with a large lecture in one of the introductory Astronomy courses offered (here is
the page for one of the courses offered every quarter, Astro 101). Typically, 5-6 grad students will T.A.
for a particular course; more experienced T.A.s are mixed with newer T.A.s so that they will have some help with their responsibilities.
If you aren't supported on a fellowship or the research grant of a professor, you will be given the opportunity to earn salary by being a T.A. This is not
guaranteed during the summer, but traditionally, the department has not had any problems finding support for graduate students who choose to stay with the
Department during the summer (good thing because summers are so nice in Seattle!).
- What other responsibilities will I have besides my own
classes?
You'll only be responsible for your classwork and any research you choose to pursue. If you're a T.A., you'll also be responsible for teaching two sections of
about 25 students each and some fair fraction of the grading for the course (the maximum number of hours you can spend on T.A. work is 20/week. In practice the
number of hours varies significantly, with the peak being around exam times!).
But always bear in mind that the Ph.D. is not a free ticket to a job. Being fully prepared to win a professional position is your goal. To this end watch the
job market and fully prepare yourself for a bumpy ride. This means that you may wish to hone secondary skills such as instrument design, software development,
and highly effective teaching. These are the extras which can give you the edge in the battle for a satisfying career upon graduation.
- What is Seattle like?
It doesn't rain here all the time. We just tell people that so they won't move here. During the winter months, the days are pretty short and it rains for much of
the day for at least half of the days. The other half of the days (from October through April or so) tend to be partly to mostly cloudy with rare periods of a
few sunny days in a row. On the other hand, the summer months (from May to September) are just gorgeous, with long warm days and temperatures rarely going above
85.
There is plenty to do here; but don't take our word for it--try following some of the local links from the Life in Seattle page.
- What is the cost of living in the Seattle area?
Most first-year students make in the neighborhood of $1300/month after
taxes (your salary goes up when you pass the qual and again when you
pass your general exam). Typical rent for a single-occupancy livable apartment in Seattle is around $700-$800/month, but you
can save a lot by finding shared housing. There is a housing board over at the Union building that makes it very easy to find places to live and roommates who
are looking for other people to share with. Several grad students are recent home buyers and would be happy to discuss the current market with you.
An informal survey of the grad population in March 2006 forms the basis for
the following table (note that in several cases the rent is split two to four ways):
| Area |
Description |
Total Rent |
| Capitol Hill |
studio/1 bedroom |
$650 |
| Capitol Hill |
1 bedroom apt. |
$800 |
| Capitol Hill |
1 bedroom apt. |
$823 |
| Capitol Hill |
1 bedroom apt. |
$950 |
| Capitol Hill |
2 bedroom apt. |
$800 |
| Capitol Hill |
2 bedroom apt. |
$1345 |
| Capitol Hill |
2 bedroom apt. (3 people) |
$2200 |
| Central District/Capitol Hill |
3 bedroom apt. |
$1000 |
| Eastlake |
1 bedroom apt. |
$700 |
| Eastlake |
2 bedroom apt. |
$1195 |
| Fremont/Phinney Ridge |
1 bedroom apt. |
$765 |
| Greenlake |
1 bedroom apt. |
$800 |
| Greenlake |
3 bedroom apt. |
$2200 |
| Greenlake |
4 bedroom house |
$2000 |
| Madison Park |
3 bedroom house (4 people) |
$1800 |
| Queen Anne |
2 bedroom townhouse |
$1050 |
| University District |
studio |
$710 |
| University District |
2 bedroom apt. |
$1000 |
| Wallingford |
2 bedroom apt. |
$1100 |
| Wallingford |
2 bedroom apt. |
$1175 |
| Wedgwood |
1 bedroom house |
$1100 |
| Kenmore |
2 bedroom apt. |
$1080 |
Quarterly fees must be paid by all non-fellowship grad students, and this amounts to around $273.
This is good for a universal bus pass and access to the athletic facilities (the intramural athletic center here is very nice).
- What about transportation?
The bus system in Seattle is tremendous. There are several routes that go to and from the University in a variety of directions at regular (small) intervals
every day. It's quite easy to find a good place to live near a bus route, and many students here survive easily without owning cars. If you want to live even
further away from Seattle itself in order to save a little money, there are a few good inter-county public transportation options, but you have to suffer from
less flexibility as far as bus schedules are concerned. Commuting on a daily basis in and out of Seattle is not fun, though.
- I would like to pursue research in "x". Does anyone here do "x"?
The best way to find out is to check out the faculty research page. You can also look at the most recent
Annual Research Report for our department.
If you're planning on doing mostly observational research, you should check out the information we
have here on the Apache Point 3.5m telescope. It is available to the department for about 1/4 of the nights each year, and the proposal cycle is currently
quarterly, with greater priority given to thesis-related proposals by graduate students. The telescope is capable of optical and infrared imaging and
spectroscopy and the plans are for more capabilities in the near future. See the APO web page for more details.
- What health insurance benefits am I entitled to?
You can visit the University's Graduate Appointee Insurance Plan page for all of the
technical details. Here are the basics: you get free dental insurance, free optical insurance (good for exams and lenses/frames/contacts up to $100 or so) and
free health insurance with the preferred provider being the University of Washington Medical Center, probably one of the top five hospitals on the West Coast
(the insurance pays 90% of the cost of using the hospital, and there's a $75 per quarter deductible). You get totally free health care for minor health problems
at the campus clinic, Hall Health.
- What kind of facilities do the grad students have here?
The new building we have here is state-of-the-art, with plenty of windows, spacious offices and nice classroom facilities. There is a large Physics/Astronomy
library on the 6th floor of the building with beautiful views and all of the major research journals in the sciences. There is also a coffee bar
down on the first floor, the H-Bar (get it?).
All grad students have offices shared by at most two other people. Undergraduates who wander in to
office hours always compliment us on how nice they are.
Astronomy graduate students at the University of Washington have access to
an extensive array of superb computing resources. Each grad student in
our program has his or her own Linux desktop computer. When these
computers are not being used by their owners, they are added into our
department's "Condor Pool." This is a system which manages a network of
idle computers (usually 30-60) and allows them to be utilized for
high-power research tasks that require the use of many computers
simultaneously. All of our grad students have accounts for this pool and
many use it on a regular basis.
To run simulation programs that require parallel processing, the grad
student body has recently acquired funds and purchased a 108-processor
supercomputer that is solely dedicated to astronomy graduate student
research projects. Furthermore, our astronomy department has gained a 30%
share of the another 500-processor supercomputer just purchased by the
physics department. An additional resource for parallel computing are
national supercomputing centers. In 2007, research groups in our
department have been awarded over 3 million CPU hours to be used over the
next year. This has made us the seventh largest computing time user of
the Teragrid, a national supercomputing network funded by the NSF.
In addition to large amounts of processing power, the graduate students in
our department have a vast amount of disk space for data storage. In the
last three years, our graduate students have acquired 8.5 terabytes of
disk space to store research data. This breaks down to roughly 300
gigabytes per student.
Lastly, many of our students spend a great deal of time traveling to
conferences, collaborations, etc., and continuous access to their research
projects is essential. Because of this, our graduate students maintain a
community pool of 6 laptops that can be checked out by any student. These
can be used to prepare and give conference presentations as well as work
remotely.
- What do grad students do in their spare time?
The grad students regularly put together softball (Infrared Sox) and
ultimate frisbee (Scattered Disks) teams to compete in intramurals. Recently
we've been playing basketball (no clever name yet) at the IMA once a week, typically Fridays; the addition of a foosball table has also contributed to
"camaraderie." All in all, it's a very sociable department, with weekly pizza fests on Friday, daily coffee get-togethers (both events for students, staff and
faculty) and Friday afternoon "whine time" for grad students. Students keep wildly varying schedules since the only real constraint on your time once you're done
taking classes is any T.A. responsibilities you might have.
