Berkeley or Duke for Developmental biology

<p>I am going to UCB. Wish me luck.</p>

<p>mac, I'll be at Berkeley as well! You should join my facebook group "UC Berkeley MCB - Entering Graduate Class 2008" so that I'm not the only one in it, haha!</p>

<p>bioangele: I will do that.
BTW, do you know who what you want to do? and with whom?</p>

<p>Bioangele - I will join facebook. I think Ovaldia is also going there for MCB. So that is three of us from the CC forum!</p>

<p>ovaldia, my interests lie in biochemistry/molecular mechanism/structural biology. There are tons of amazing structure labs at berkeley, so I'm hoping to rotate with Berger, Alber, Kuriyan, just to name a few!</p>

<p>bioangele: That's cool. I have not decided for sure but I am interested in evolutionary stuff.
I posted this at another place but did not get areply. Do you know the answer? :
The award letter reads $27000 (based on a 12 month appointment). Entering students' stipends is based on an 11-month appointment.
Does that mean that the award is less for the 1st year?</p>

<p>I think it means they pay by the month ($2250/month), which will not begin until you start school... a possible exception might be if you decide to do an early rotation. </p>

<p>Since you do not start school until August and the academic financial year begins in July, you will only receive 11 months of pay in your first academic year. However, the amount on each paycheck will be the same.</p>

<p>But, your stipend does go up a little when you're a GSI in your second and third year, to about $2400/month.</p>

<p>Assuming they let me defer for my Fulbright, I'm coming to Berkeley in 2009! Hopefully you second-years will be kind to the new grad student!</p>

<p>I think buffkitten has the right of the whole stipend thing, you wont get paid "less" as long as your workin!</p>

<p>Hope to see in 2009, buffkitten, the current grad students have already been super amazing to me - maybe that's part of my decision to go there, but berkeley is just filled with cool people!</p>

<p>Thank you. That makes sense. Coming from Oklahoma, CA is going to be very different (culture shock) and expensive! Where are you guys from?</p>

<p>I grew up in Alameda (right down the bay from Berkeley) and went to UC Davis in the central valley. Now i work in SF - bay area CA born and raised, haha!</p>

<p>Why did you go east for your Ph.D.?</p>

<p>Oh, haha, I'm not! I interviewed at Harvard/MIT but have decided to attend Cal this fall instead :). So maybe I'll see you there!</p>

<p>Sorry, I meant: Why did you NOT go east?</p>