Intramurals

Hi everyone!

I hope you are doing great! This week we played for the Volleyball Coed Graduate Intramurals (the Coed format is the one where men and women play together). Although it is a competitive tournament, there is nothing like professional level playing, so we basically play just for fun.

In most of the universities in the US, the intramurals sports are divided by season. So you will have sports that are played on Autum, Winter, Spring and Summer. This is good because you always have something to do and you can always join a team and play for a huge variety of sports. However, the only bad thing is that this format doesn´t allow you to sign up for a team an practice for long periods. Please notice that this is only for the graduate students. The undergrads do have a varsity team for every sport. Off course, they also spend a lot more time as students.

In any case, I guess that the University of Chicago is not particularly known for their sports´ competitors hahahaha.

So take this into account if you will be traveling abroad for your graduate studies. If you are an athletic person, the university´s facilities will provide you hundreds of options to do some physical activity, especially those related to cardio and working out.

Elected Admissions Chair

Hi everyone!

I hope you are doing great. After warming up in the quarter, these weeks have been crazy, full of problems sets and homeworks due every week for each class. However, in the midst of the classes, the Student Government at the Chicago Harris School held elections for the new positions available for the incoming students.

Fortunately, I've been elected Admissions Chair for the year 2011-2012, so I'll be working closely with the Admissions Committee at the Harris School! Also, I'll comunicate throught this blog every tip that I think may be valuable for your application process. I will try to learn as much as possible and bring that to you! So feel free to contact me any time regarding your application process, because I believe there are many things in common between Harris' application process and other universites.

As part of your experience studying abroad, getting involved with some student organization will be key to fulfill your networking and learning skills. At the Harris School, there are dozens of students organizations of every issue you may be interested. From Education Policy to Social Issues, you will find people who have things in common that they like to share.

As I've said in previous post, it may sound threshed to you, but getting involved with your colleagues IS REALLY IMPORTANT when you are pursuing a professional degree. This becomes especially true when your are doing it in an environment where your are not familiar to and you may have to learn how to establish relationships, how to do business or how to find a job or internship in a culture different than yours.

Find a complete list of all the student organizations that make life at the Harris School of Public Policy to see what I'm talking about:
http://harrisschool.uchicago.edu/students/current-students/organizations/

Chicago Harris School: Exposure to Leadership in the real world

Hi everyone!

I hope you are doing great! After recovering from my cold, I had the opportunity to meet in person to one of the strongest candidates running for the Presidency of Mexico next year (Josefina Vásquez Mota), in a talk organized by one of my colleagues at the Chicago Harris School. This was an incredible experience to have, even if as an outsider I might lack of a strong or informed opinion about her. However, been able to compare the impressions of my Mexican colleagues was priceless, and God knows how we as Latinos enjoy talking about politics!

Also, this same week I had the opportunity to meet reputed academic Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Even though I might disagree with almost everything he said, I deeply believe in the courage of debating ideas in any context. This is so especially because in Venezuela, where I come from, the debate is an activity that has been widely forgotten in the political scene. And for this reason, I enjoyed very much Dr. Sachs´ presentation. Especially, I am truly thankful with the people that make this this happen at the University on a daily basis.

One of the most important things about studying abroad in a top university is the access you have to a huge net of figures, personalities and colleagues who are in fact related to business, politics and decision-making in the real world.

The real value of your experience abroad is not merely academic. In fact, the more valuable insights will be provided by your colleagues outside the classroom, in any extracurricular activities or even in the Pub! So don´t forget to work on your social relationships and in your professional networking, because that will define a lot more than you believe for your graduate experience.

Weather changes and illnesses

Hi everyone!

I hope you are doing great! At least better than me. This week the weather changed dramatically in Chicago and I got a cold that got worse with an earache! I don't know if you have ever had one, butit  is one of the worst pains you can feel.

Check the weather news by the Chicago Tribune here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-high-wind-lakeshore-flood-warnings-issued-20111019,0,98419.story?obref=obinsite)



The first thing I would like to say is that, before coming to any other country where the weather is different to the one you are used, you should get the vaccines they recommend you. I personally got the Flu vaccine before coming and they strongly recomend you to take any other preventives actions you consider necessary. Also, you should definitely invest money in buying appropiate attire for the winter season. It worth every cent of it!

On the other hand, I wanted to talk a little bit about your health care options you have in the US if this happens to you for any reason. If you are coming as a student to any university in the US, the university usually offers an insurance plan (not always the cheapest, but they offer you one). If you are not willing to take this plan, most of the schools impose you to have another private insurance plan. So please consider every option you can afford before coming. Try to research all the options you have in advance, so that you maximize your budget constrains.

However, if for any reason you do not count on a health insurance plan or if your deductible is too high, there are several convenient options. One of them is Minute Clinic, a service provided in some CVS pharmacies locations. They offer primary diagnoses and treat for common illness and minor injuries, as well as health condition monitoring, at very reasonable rates. I was treated by them and my experience was wonderful. I would strongly recommend this option for primary evaluation.

(For more information regarding this service, visit http://minuteclinic.com/)

Here in Chicago, there are other Low-Cost options like ACCESS Community Health (http://www.accesscommunityhealth.net/) and the Lawndale Christian Health Center (http://www.lawndale.org/).

So I would recommend you to look for the alternatives you have in the case you require medical attention near your location. And try stay warm!!!!

Traveling around Boston

Hi everyone!

I hope you are doing great. After finishing the Problem Sets due to the last week, I decided to travel to Boston for the weekend and visit one of my best friends there. Some people would say that studying in Europe has it certain advantages, because you can travel around from country to country. However, this is also true for those who want to pursue studies in the US. Such a big country offers hundreds of possibilities to travel, including beautiful national parks and several of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world (like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, etc).

This time, we travel to Boston and get to know a beautiful city full of universities and with a vibrant life. We went to Harvard University and eat seafood in the waterfront of Boston!

So if you get to manage efficiently your time, don't stay there and go travel around! These are one of the best quality-price cheap ways to travel within the US (some of them also travel internationally):

• JetBlue (by plane)
• Southwest Airlines (by plane)
• US Airways (offers wonderful prices if you're looking with sufficient time in advance)
• Greyhound (by bus)
• Peterpan (by bus)
• Megabus (by bus)
• Amtrak (by train, check for the local train services in every city)

If you're planning to come to the US for your graduate studies, don't miss Boston if you want to learn more about the american history and culture. 

Problem Sets

Hi everyone!

In our third week of classes, we are already struggling with Problem Sets for the core courses (Mathematical Statistics, Advanced Microeconomics and Political Economy for Public Policy).

If you are considering coming to the US in order to pursue your graduate studies, you should definitely take into account that the academic system could be quite different from what you might be used to. In particular, the american system heavily weights homeworks and problem sets. The classes are in general short (90 min on average) and the rest depends on your own work.

In order to succeed, it is important to manage your time and NEVER skip a deadline for assignments. Additionally, proffessors strongly recomend discussing assignments on groups, but always with a big enphasis in delivering your own work. For this matter, assisting to the pre-classes programs like English Camp or Math Camp could help you in your way of building a study group and feeling confortable while working together with your new classmates and colleagues.

The Quarter System: Pros & Cons

Hi there!

As the classes start, I thought about sharing with you the peculiarities of the quarter system, used especially in those universities located at the north side of the country. In the US, quarters usually comprise 10 weeks. According to Malone, academic quarters first came into existence when William Rainey Harper organized the University of Chicago in 1981, on behalf of John D. Rockefeller ( Kemp Malone, 'Semester' , American Speech, Dec. 1946, p. 264). However, less than 20% of the high learning institutions across the US use this system and around 60% uses the traditional academic semester.

Although some people dislike the brevity of the term and the intensity of the classes, it has some special advantages that I personally enjoy. In particular, the quarter term allow you to enroll in a richer variety of courses and extra curricular activities, maximizing the use of university facilities. Also, it allow you to coordinate internships with a big dose of flexibility and teach yoy how to manage your time in a short period basis. Even though this can be especially the case of very organized people, it is a fact that the quarter term encourages you to learn and improve your time management skills.

In particular, I think that the most important advice I could tell you this far is to keep up to date the materials, work on time on your problem sets and NEVER skip a deadline. If you have doubts, ask them during the class, TA sessions or office hours and don´t wait until the next session. Take into account that in a 10 weeks schedule, there is not enough time to catch up!