GRAD SCHOOL WTF

>International and Public Affairs
What part of "Science & Math" do you not understand?

He's not really in grad school. Programs like MPAs and MPHs and the like are mostly coursework with maybe a small paper at the end. It's really just an extension of undergrad.

not a whole lot you probably don't know, desu. chapel hill downtown is super expensive, but if you get away from campus you can find some reasonable places to rent but still be near buslines, like out east on 54 or north on 15-501 or north on MLK. carrboro is pretty cheap to live but also it's pretty undergrad heavy

whatever you do, make sure where you live is near a bus line, parking sucks and even if you're a postdoc you're last in line in the lottery system behind all the faculty, basically waiting until enough faculty have said no to parking permits for you to get the chance to buy one. the lots and decks open up after 5, but that doesn't help for normal work stuff

hard to say anything useful about campus wihtout knowing what part of it you'll be on

Linda's is the de facto grad student/postdoc bar and it's easy walking distance from campus. Zog's is an awesome pool bar/dive bar, and they have a bottle shop downstairs that just opened up that's pretty nice. sunrise biscuit kitchen is amazing hangover food

Thanks for the info, esp. around parking. I'll be around the CS department. Are you in Coker?

Thanks for the bar suggestions, I also want to add The Crunkleton to my list of places to go to.

Overall, what is the student body like?

>I'll be ~$50K in the hole after grad school
What the fuck? I don't know anyone at all who is paying for grad school. Do not borrow $50k dollars for a non-professional graduate degree.

Ah ok. You're sort of across the street from me, I'm in gsb. You're gonna be in undergrad territory, cs is right on the edge of the lecture hall part of campus.

I don't know what the cs culture is like but for biomed and related the grad culture is pretty focused and dedicated but not overstressed or miserable. People work hard but still make sure to have fun now and then and unwind. The undergrads I can't speak to

Crunkleton is nice, they have a good liquor selection and nice atmosphere. Expensive though.

Also there's farmers markets every weekend in carrboro and chapel hill so if that's what you're into its pretty nice. A good music culture too, lots of good shows coming through cats cradle in carrboro

Cool, good to know. Since your into music there is a music fest. coming up in Durham: moogfest.com/

Just curious what is the difference between molecular biology and computational/bioinformatics?

Also, what is the difference between Davis & UL? Which is the primary library (or is there one)? Best places to study in/around campus? Also, not usually into these kind of things but any night clubs? Someone told me 'The Library' was one such place but heard it's undergrady and honestly from google searches it looks cruddy.

Anyone here manage to get the NSF grad fellowship? One of my reviewers saw through my bullshit "broader impact" statement.

I'm not a night club person so i have no idea about that. I do know The Library is a shithole, though.

The main campus library is Davis - all typical library subjects, thesis storage, study carrels (including carrel towers with locking rooms), lots of periodicals, whatnot. The UL has lots of undergrad-centric stuff, it's open 24 hours during the semester (Davis is not), it's where you find all the half-suicidal students trying to cram before an exam at 3am. there's a media library in there, plus it's where the IT repair department is.

you probably will have no reason to ever go in the UL, not if you have a proper desk to work at in your lab in the CS building. you might sometime go into Davis to get a book or maybe try to rent a room once it's time to start writing heavily but really there's not much reason to go there either.

molecular biology is about the basic biology of cells - how their genetics works, how their proteins work, how the regulatory networks in their genome work, how that contributes to higher level phenotypes and diseases, stuff like that. computational bio/bioinf can be a few different things - it can be anyone in a wetlab setting who uses big data tools, like applying machine learning techniques to their data or doing large sequencing experiments, or it can be someone doing hardcore algorithm and tool development for problems specific to biological datasets, like how to properly normalize messy data from multiple centers, how to improve or implement state of the art methods, how to tease out subtle effects from noisy data, stuff like that.

Thanks man, you've been extremely helpful in your responses.

Last question for now... where are the best places to eat on campus?

TL;DR

there's a good bagel place in the student union, and there's a neat place in the food court that has local food that's pretty good. those are both smack dab in the middle of undergrad territory though, so do NOT try to go those places during class changes or near lunchtime. there's also a Med deli place in the food court, they have good food

aside from that, there really aren't good places to eat on campus. it's just shitty convenience stores, subway/chikfila/wendys/whatnot. my food decisions tend to be based on "where will I not spend half an hour in line" instead of "where can i eat well"

if you want actual good food, you're gonna have to go off campus. if you want to make the trip, Mediterranean Deli down Franklin is really good.

the biggest change in general food-wise between wherever you're coming from and Chapel Hill is that CH doesn't allow drive-throughs except for like... two places that got grandfathered in (Sunrise, and a burger king in Eastgate). there's like no fast food here unless you go into Durham or Carrboro. there's a MCD's on franklin but it's walk-in only

Cool, thanks again!

no prob, welcome to unc

how hard is it to get accepted into the math department?

>bait