<p>I have a few questions about this...
Would I have less or more free time?
How much should it matter to me if the university I was going to was 'well rounded', as in would I even have the time to soak in the culture and participate in non-academic activities?</p>
<p>Well, I don’t know too much about humanities fields like English or History, but in science and social science fields, grad school is very research-oriented. In PhD programs, students are given research stipends and expected to continue an investigative research project for several years before defending their dissertation, in addition to classes. </p>
<p>I work in a lab with several grad students and they’re really busy! Some are married and even have kids. Many have jobs, and all are required to work as TA’s which means a lot of grading papers and teaching recitation sections. This varies from college to college, I’m sure. </p>
<p>But i’m sure you’d still have time to enjoy the culture and sports and stuff of your college, so pick a college that’s a good “fit” in addition to having good academics.</p>
<p>Well, the thing is I’m only 21 and I haven’t gone to college in the US before… So I’m really kicked about the whole ‘experience’.
Even though I’m academically inclined I have a pretty active social life where I am now. So I’m asking mainly because I don’t want to get there only to find out that grad students have no life beyond books.
Not that, that would change anything…but I’d rather be prepared.
As far as picking a college is concerned, I’m almost set on UMich. From what I’ve been able to find out so far…it seems to be pretty well rounded?</p>
<p>I recall one time a bunch of drunken math graduate students crashed my house party. (I know they were graduate students because I ran into them in their offices later.) I’m at UC Berkeley, so these are not slackers. So apparently graduate students have time to have a social life, however strange it may be.</p>