Best place to live /trade-off to settle down between Amherst and Boston (Worcester: apartment)

[aykutt]

Hello,

My fiancee and I looking for a long term rental to commute in both directions towards Amherst and Boston. To make is more clear, I will start my Ph.D in downtown Boston and she will do her at UMass Amherst, next fall. We are both living at Boston more than a year so kind of familiar with the state and living. As we both no longer want to keep roommates or live separate we would okey to take one more car and commute on the each direction both way.

Most straight forward option to look google and find 50/50 distance such as Worcester/Auburn or maybe Fitch-burg. Things we consider are as follows:

Unity of the family: We dont want to split up and relocate each year. Just settle down at least two years or maybe 5.

Manageable driving distance: For both directions, it should be balanced or slightly heavy on me given she is inexperienced driver. But we both will be phd candidate so times matter)

Neighborhood: Should be relatively nice and safe we don't worry about our belongings when we leave the home or during stay.

Back-up to car commute: We will be rolling 5 times a week so reliability is important. However, as you know well, mostly risky transportation is the one with rubber wheels. So occasional public transportation (preferably train) would be great.

Budget: Given the limited TA stipends and cost of running two cars, and creating budget for wedding we would strongly prefer something around $1000-$1100 or less or at least something cheaper than the Greater Boston.

I am well aware that there is a trade-off among all those parameters and we might not maximize all of them at once. At this points, you suggestions for the neighborhood, which corresponds the optimal trade off is extremely important and helpful for us to make a decision.

Regards and many thanks

[newmassphd]

aykutt,

May I offer my opinion. During the first 2 or so years of your PhD, it will require all of your time as you will be taking a number of advanced classes, getting acclimated to your new program, establishing what will ultimately be the research that gets you graduated, and satisfying obligations to the entity (research grant, department, agency) that is funding your education.

The classes and the last part I mentioned will take an immense amount of your time. Your research advisor will certainly NOT take kindly to your taking off all the time. He or she will expect you to be in the lab, library, etc. working on his or her research project. Secondarily, embedding in the culture of your department, particularly among the other graduate students will serve you well in terms of study partners, people who will be invaluable to your research, etc. Whether it is reviewing a manuscript you are writing or a paper you are about to submit or perhaps someone who is very conversant on a certain statistical analysis helping you with that portion of a paper is really important.

So, my advise to you (perhaps it is not what you are expecting) is to choose to have 1 party commute and the other part be local. By this I mean that perhaps you should live right at the institution you would be attending and your fiancee commute if living in the same space throughout your PhD is the goal for both of you. Since you mentioned you fiancee is also pursuing the PhD,
you may want to just consider living apart during the week, then on weekends someone commutes
to stay with the other.

I feel for you because I've been there. Don't underestimate the time commitment you will need to invest for your PhD. Particularly the first few years. If you were to say you had defended your proposal and were working on your dissertation, your situation would be different.

Unfortunately, if your fiancee is also working on her PhD, then I would say you both would be best served to do the housemate thing a while longer.

I earned my PhD at UMass Amherst. Certainly finding housemates in Western, MA particularly with other PhD students is very easy in the Pioneer valley (I would recommend Hadley, MA) but certainly there are many available in Amherst and Northampton. If you do live apart, perhaps living somewhere off downtown Amherst would be ideal as it is not hard to walk to the Amtrak station (train only ran 2-times per day when I was there) or catch a Peter Pan/Greyhound bus right there in the center of town. Whatever you do, make sure you have graduate student (PhD level) housemates so that the culture of the house is such that everyone understand one another's experience. Also rent a house and not an apartment, townhouse, etc. Being in a house makes the experience more livable and civilized- you'll feel like a real human being. Also landlords in western MA are thrilled to have PhD tenants because they are mature (over 21), busy (no all night parties), typically rent for extended periods of time (5+ years), and generally hand the house over to another set of PhD students they know. Never ever be a housemate with undergrads. No offense, but it just doesn't work (tried it for a summer, not good).

That being said, the climb is steep and you will quickly find out what you are good at, what you need improvement on, and grow tremendously. I'm excited for you, your fiancee, and with you both all the best.

Commuting from the halfway point, in my opinion, is the worst thing you could do. It will burn your time (most precious resource), your resources (money) and add many random variables to your ability to do anything. Things are great in the summer, but what about the winter? What if there is an accident that snarls traffic? What happens when you need repairs or maintenance on your car. What if you need to meet with an advisor, fellow student, or stay late to use the library, piece of equipment, or other resources? Your frequent departure to commute will most certainly not over well with your research advisor. You both will certainly be very busy so you probably won't have opportunity to
spend time together until weekends anyway. And, even then you'll probably eat breakfast together, go for a stroll, and spend the majority of the day in the library or lab, followed by late afternoon activities.

Sorry if it is so contrary to what you have planned. The world needs more good PhD's and you want to position yourself for success.

A fantastic "memoirs" about one person's PhD experience is something you should read. It is aptly named the "the Grind."

Hopefully the link goes through:

Philip Guo - The Ph.D. Grind

So, I think you are making a horrible mistake. My fiancee and I got married while I was in graduate school. We did it in Western MA. By commuting to central MA, you will both be spending a lot of time commuting; not the best use of your time and negatively impacts your disposition and productivity.

[massnative71]

^This post contains a lot of good points that should be taken into consideration, and especially valuable coming from someone who has been in those shoes before. Keep in mind that if you choose to commute by train, that is time that can be spent on reading or catch-up work.

If you still decide to do the halfway thing, I would focus around the North Grafton, Millbury, Auburn area. Shrewsbury too but it might be hard in that price range. The east side of Worcester could work. The commute from there west to Amherst is over an hour but should be fairly stress free under normal conditions (or most days classes are still on). From North Grafton to downtown is well over an hour. You will probably learn to hate the T, but like I said at least there you could get work accomplished.

Good luck.

[gf2020]

I'm friends with a guy who works in West Concord and his wife works in Amherst. They live in Auburn. That said, I have no idea if you can find a decent place in Auburn for $1100 or less per month.