<p>This is purely hypothetical, but I am planning on applying to Berkeley for graduate school (as of right now, though, I'm still a senior in high school). I live about an hour or two from Berkeley, but with traffic it would take a lot longer to drive, so were I to commute I would probably take the BART to the station nearest my house. I would prefer to live at home rather than rent an apartment closer by, as I like living at home, and I don't like big city life all that much; but the main reason for that is that it would be significantly cheaper, and with the kind of stipends that graduate students get, that money would make a difference. However, I assume that sometimes as a grad student I will be working late in the labs, doing research and such, and I might have to take the BART at night. I have been to the Berkeley BART station in the daytime and noticed some shady-looking people around there. I am frankly a scrawny kid and anyone with criminal intentions would pick me as an easy target. I am worried about how safe it would be to walk across Berkeley's campus and to the BART station at night, probably alone. So, 1) Could I get a escort service from whatever building I'm in to the BART station at night? I'm guessing Berkeley is not the sort of place where a little guy like me can walk around freely at night, so if the escort thing is not offered, I would probably have to rent my own apartment nearer by, but that would be really inconvenient. Again, this is all far in the future, but I'd just like to know.</p>
<p>You are not going to want to add a two to four hour round trip commute to the schedule of a typical grad student. Cal has safe, affordable housing available on campus and nearby for graduate students.</p>
<p>You can save worrying about graduate student housing for a few years, anyway.</p>
<p>^If I take the BART, it will be about an hour each way (2 hours round trip). However, even if I do get housing nearby, there would still be some sort of commute - maybe 30 minutes with parking factored in (whereas the parking at my BART station is pretty easy to get).</p>
<p>However, since I know nothing about grad school life - what is a typical schedule? How many hours would I spend working on research and studies, if I want to do well and get my PhD in 2 or 3 years? Maybe you’re right in that it would be impossible to do, if the answer is something like 10-14 hours a day (although for book studying, or writing papers, I would not need to be on campus, so I could do that part at home).</p>
<p>And yes, I know I don’t need to worry about this now, but I’m a person who likes to plan things ahead, and I know for certain that Berkeley is one of my top choices for grad school. If I could commute from home, then assuming the stipends would be equal or near-equal, that would raise it to my first choice.</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.bsc.coop/housing/housing-options/our-houses]BSC[/url”>http://www.bsc.coop/housing/housing-options/our-houses]BSC[/url</a>] has two graduate student co-op houses that are inexpensive and near campus.</p>
<p>There are shuttles that can get you from campus to near the BART station, and the BearWalk escort service is available from dusk until 6am. More info here [UCPD</a> Berkeley | Night Safety Services 365 Nights a Year](<a href=“http://police.berkeley.edu/programsandservices/campus_safety/index.html]UCPD”>http://police.berkeley.edu/programsandservices/campus_safety/index.html)</p>
<p>lol “scrawny little guy” haha </p>
<p>I’m happy to see that you care about you’re safety though! We have bearwalk here and everyone is super friendly that walks or drives you so i would recommend taking that. However, it is pretty safe as long as you don’t carry flashy jewelry or look like a complete nerd, etc. But you should always be cautious and try to stay safe. A lot of students tend to walk by themselves way late at night but I wouldn’t recommend it.</p>
<p>I have been a student for four years, three of which I lived in an apartment that involved going thru downtown Berkeley (BART area) to get between campus and home. I often don’t get home until past midnight. I never had any incidents. That’s despite the fact that I’m a very short nerdy guy.</p>
<p>That said, it isn’t exactly a safe area either. The homeless guys are mostly harmless, even though they will be annoyances. It’s an urban area, so you better be on guard.</p>
<p>It’s Berkeley, not east Oakland.</p>
<p>OK, it sounds like it would be feasible in terms of safety.</p>
<p>Could someone answer my next question:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s very rare to obtain a PhD in 2/3 years. Most schools offer some sort of timeline for completion of specific degree programs on their website you can check out. </p>
<p>I work with people who earned their PhDs in science (biomedical to be specific) and they told me they were basically in the lab 10+ hours a day doing research–none of them earned their PhDs in less than ~5.5 years. </p>
<p>The guy who did complete his PhD in 5.5 years worked for a pretty intense PI who was at the lab almost 24/7 (this is an exaggeration, but his PI was definitely much more present in the lab than most I’ve heard of). </p>
<p>After finishing his coursework and examinations, he was spending nearly 12+ hours a day/7 days a week working on his research. Most people in his lab did the same, I think, in part because of their PI. When my coworker left for his postdoc position he had a couple of pretty cool papers in top scientific journals under his belt though.</p>
<p>You have quite some time to figure out your living situation. Maybe you won’t be so scrawny by the time you finish your undergrad studies. Also, it’s not a given you’re going to Berkeley for grad school when the time comes… I guess it never hurts to be prepared (for some) ha.</p>
<p>^Ouch, are you sure? A friend of mine got his biochem PhD in 4 years at a top school (I want to study the same thing for PhD) and he said it was hard but didn’t mention insane things like working around the clock like that. However, it could be he’s an outlier or something. As for coursework, I’m planning on taking a ton of graduate courses in college, so hopefully I could accelerate that a bit. I also heard (not confirmed) of a guy who got his math Phd 1.5 years after his bachelors, but I guess that’s different.</p>
<p>Is the coursework a great deal of the time it takes to finish the PhD, or is it just the dissertation? If it’s the coursework, would getting a master’s first help, as I have multiple friends who got a MS in one year after college, and a couple who graduated with BS/MS? Or would that not help; is the PhD coursework even more advanced?</p>
<p>Many of your questions involving amount of time taken, workload, and courses during graduate study are rather specific to the subject, and can vary considerably from student to student. Course work is usually done early in the graduate program, and many graduate level courses are places where faculty recruit graduate students to research projects.</p>
<p>PhD students may pick up a master’s degree along the way, as a master’s degree may involve course work, or course work plus a master’s thesis (typically much “smaller” than a PhD thesis). At PhD granting schools, some departments only accept graduate students initially intending to do PhD degrees, though not all complete the PhD. Others do accept graduate students initially intending to graduate at the master’s level (this is more likely in more obviously pre-professional subjects like engineering). Again, there is a lot of “it depends”.</p>
<p>Math may be a subject where the 1.5 year PhD is more likely to occur – there are some extremely brilliant mathematicians around, so if one of them proves a major theorem not long after entering graduate school, that may result in his/her PhD without having to do a lot of time consuming lab or field work. It may be different for a plant biologist studying the growth of bristlecone pines.</p>
<p>The Bart is safe, I take it every day from and to Oakland. No worries.</p>