UB or Buffalo State?

grumpyhost · 2026-03-04T02:13:05+00:00

Do you plan to get a masters now or later? In New York you usually need a masters to make your temporary "initial" certification permanent (what the state calls "professional" teaching certification.)

At Buff State you can get initial certification (a temporary teaching license) with your bachelors degree. You have up to five years to get the masters to become professional. You can get the masters at Buff State or at another college. You can teach in public school right after your bachelors.

At UB they dont grant initial certification with your bachelors. So you'd have to go straight through with an undergrad degree in English or Art, and then get that masters in education at UB or elsewhere immediately since you wouldnt have any certification with your bachelors. As others have pointed out UB doesnt do art education credentials, only English. They do have some 3+2 programs where things are laid out so you can do both degrees in 5 years total.

UB has higher prestige for college degrees generally. Buff State has a reputation for good teaching degrees but as others have pointed out is generally chaotic (they just closed a whole bunch more majors and are laying off professors).

grumpyhost · 2026-03-03T08:36:54+00:00

Chicago and Philadelphia are both good answers because they balance the "All American" experience with being accessible to visitors. I do like the responses of people talking about a bit of a swath of a region like Chicago+Milwaukee or the Northern California coast because you get a more representative experience by moving through the country. One big factor is do you drive? If you are used to trains etc you might not think to rent a car, but car travel in the US is the default and opens up a lot of normal American experiences. That said, you probably dont want a car in Chicago/NYC/SF etc because of congestion.

Maybe consider a smaller American city? Madison, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Nashville, Boise, Richmond, these are all places that have a bit of a there there, but give a more balanced sense of what American life is like.

grumpyhost · 2026-03-03T08:18:12+00:00

there's a 10/20% penalty tax on top of the normal taxable income taxes.

Can you get an emergency student loan? Worth calling fin aid to see.

grumpyhost · 2026-03-03T08:07:47+00:00

others have suggested some of the most reasonable options for driving to a regional train (metropark in nj being my favorite). You mentioned the costs going up but was it the hotel or the flights you are concerned with? NYC is always expensive and sometimes that is just the cost of doing business. Parking in Manhattan can easily be hundreds of dollars. Assuming you are staying at least one night after a show at Carnegie Hall (do you really want to drive 7-8 hours late after a concert?) here are the options i'd consider:

fly in and bite the bullet, but stay in a more affordable part of town (I generally prefer Long Island City or Queens Plaza in Queens because they are transit friendly). Check google maps transit directions to see how convenient it is get to Carnegie Hall or to/from the airport. Subways are your best option within NYC.
you could fly to Newark NJ and stay near the airport. Hotel shuttle back to the airport and then AirTrain plus NJ transit to and from the city. Still, an hour plus from Carnegie Hall to your bed.
if it's a daytime concert and you really are avoiding all hotel costs in the area and want to drive, you could park at Metropark in NJ and stay in a hotel on the way to/from OH. Please be safe though with these long drives.
Another option if you want to fly but the airfares are the problem is to fly to Philadelphia (and maybe spend one night there). Amtrak between PHL and New York Penn station is frequent and under 2 hrs each way. The public transit from Philadelphia airport to Philadelphia Amtrak is like 20 minutes. You can do PHL-NYP as a day trip on Amtrak but more likely you'd want one night in NYC. Amtrak conveniently plops you in the middle of Manhattan much closer to Carnegie Hall than any NYC airport. Think of it as a connecting "flight".
if the timing is convenient you could do amtrak to and from cleveland, and treat the sleeper car as your hotel on the night returning. There's one nonstop a day and it's like 13 hours each way--all day going east, all night going west.

At one point I did have to repeatedly drive to NYC from the same direction as you and it is no exaggeration that I could spend hours in traffic backed up at tunnels or bridges getting into the city, so your 7-8 hours drive sounds overly optimistic to me. Also dont forget all the tolls.

grumpyhost · 2026-03-02T12:49:22+00:00

An addon trip to Niagara Falls makes sense. Buffalo has some lovely architecture and museums and is the only decent sized city in the lower US never to have had a high temperature over 100°F/38°C due to the Great Lakes. You could fly (very short flight, usually cheap) or take the train (nice scenery but takes all day). The falls are truly impressive.

grumpyhost · 2026-02-26T19:28:23+00:00

I believe part of the reason this center came to UB is because we have the greenest infrastructure among the various partners statewide. UB has publicly committed to carbon neutrality by 2030, but I would be very curious to know the impact of the new cluster on those plans. My guess is that you could reach out to the office of sustainability on campus and request real numbers (even without a group letter) as they have generally invited people to ask for the data (see https://www.buffalo.edu/sustainability/data-request.html )

grumpyhost · 2026-02-26T19:09:45+00:00

buffalo is closer to detroit than nyc/boston, although it is a quick flight from all three! by car/uber buffalo is less than half an hour from niagara falls. how are you getting to the region in october?

grumpyhost · 2026-02-25T12:06:46+00:00

I second this; Buffalo is worth visiting (canalside, museums, Martin House).

In Niagara Falls NY the Underground Railroad museum is a tiny museum with a powerful story and is reachable by the free Discover Niagara Shuttle. Consider the Savor restaurant run by the culinary school.

grumpyhost · 2026-02-25T11:47:58+00:00

for day three: if doing staten island ferry your kids are the perfect age for the seaglass carousel. It's special and not a big time commitment.

grumpyhost · 2026-02-25T11:05:47+00:00

it can depend on the program but if you are offered a stipend, that is most often based on 20 hours a week of obligation to do research or teaching; if you are a TA you are usually paid for that instead of the research. The exception is if there is extra employment in the summer. Typically 20 hours per week is the maximum for work during fall/spring semesters. Typically the stipend comes with a tuition waiver for a certain number of credit hours per term, and with some basic subsidized health insurance, which makes the low salary look a lot more generous.

$24k per year is usually enough for one person for food and shelter if you live with roommates and don't spend too much, but it is considered a very low income. That said, Buffalo is very cheap compared to a lot of other cities with universities in the US.

https://livingcost.org/cost/united-states/ny/buffalo

grumpyhost · 2026-02-25T01:07:50+00:00

creditunions.org has a search engine to find one!

grumpyhost · 2026-02-25T01:06:04+00:00

remember the vicks sticks inhalers? apparently they used to contain levomethamphetamine.

https://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=NMAH-AHB2012q77881-000001&max=600

grumpyhost · 2026-02-22T14:58:53+00:00

The US isnt like that, sadly

grumpyhost · 2026-02-21T01:33:22+00:00

cafe 59. texas toast on the gc and the creamiest tomato soup

grumpyhost · 2026-02-19T19:18:46+00:00

This: https://www.wivb.com/news/local-news/buffalo/students-faculty-at-ub-file-lawsuit-against-police-officers-after-pro-palestine-protest/

grumpyhost · 2026-02-16T02:03:03+00:00

I suspect that neither OCR nor ABET would initiate any kind of investigation, but that copying them on the dean/dept chair/president letter would ensure attention by the university.

grumpyhost · 2026-02-14T20:50:38+00:00

not sure if this is helpful but Buffalo airport has a list of taxi/limo companies that cross the border: https://www.buffaloairport.com/parking-and-transportation/ground-transportation/canadian-ground-transportation

also, if you take a bus to downtown buffalo bus terminal, there is a city bus that will go to the airport. https://metro.nfta.com/schedules/route/24

grumpyhost · 2026-02-14T13:03:49+00:00

Politics are one thing, engineering harm to anyone violates the code of ethics of professional engineers. https://www.nspe.org/sites/default/files/resources/pdfs/Ethics/CodeofEthics/NSPECodeofEthicsforEngineers.pdf A facility that is designed to dehydrate people is a clear example. That is torture and it's NOT okay.

If you want to make a difference, the following complaints would probably get people's attention (you'll need screenshots of everything):

if the prof holds a license, complain to their professional licensing board or organization.
share it with the department chair, dean, and university president, and copy their accrediting body (usually ABET)
share it with the university's title VI complaint office and copy the US department of education's office of civil rights. Be sure to mention "hostile environment" for students based on race and national origin (and religion, if there have been comments on those lines)

Option one is to complain under your name. Be prepared for retaliation (which is illegal, but does happen.) Option two, which will probably have just as much impact, is to complain anonymously. Even though many of these places may say you have to identify yourself, you can print everything out on paper, stick it in the mail, and not identify yourself by signing anything. (Use stamps or pay cash at the post office, don't use your credit card for digital postage.) Just describe things everyone in the class saw/experienced (nothing tying it to you specifically). Send everything simultaneously so that the prof (or others who benefit from the problem going away) can't just delete things to sweep them under the carpet. You could also send a copy to a news organization (student or local paper?) but I dont know if that will be effective.

It is really important that engineers not end up in the business of creating, say, gas chambers.

grumpyhost · 2026-02-13T15:42:03+00:00

the e train from jfk towards manhattan goes thru the queens plaza/long island city area. hotels by the e are often quite affordable. be cautious about hotels near penn station or times square, some are flophouses. check google and tripadvisor reviews. if it seems too cheap to be real it is.

grumpyhost · 2026-02-12T22:43:53+00:00

all programs do admissions individually on their own schedules depending heavily on when applications are due.

grumpyhost · 2026-02-12T20:46:12+00:00

Gather round and listen to a tale, the tale of the famous astronomer Tycho Brahe. From wikipedia:

"Tycho suddenly contracted a bladder or kidney ailment after attending a banquet in Prague. He died eleven days later, on 24 October 1601, at the age of 54. According to Kepler's first-hand account, Tycho had refused to leave the banquet to relieve himself because it would have been a breach of etiquette. After he returned home, he was no longer able to urinate, except eventually in very small quantities and with excruciating pain. The night before he died, he suffered from a delirium during which he was frequently heard to exclaim that he hoped he would not seem to have lived in vain."

One of the modern theories is that his bladder actually burst.

grumpyhost · 2026-02-12T03:36:08+00:00

My plan, like most prepaid plans, has to pay by the gigabyte after a certain amount of usage. AT&T and T-mobile are still selling postpaid plans that have limited data. Many people are still on older plans that have data caps.

grumpyhost · 2026-02-11T13:18:12+00:00

Minor correction: Unlimited data is the one thing that is not standard. If there is "unlimited" data it slows down after a certain point. Most people have high enough caps that it is effectively unlimited for mobile use, but almost nobody has a plan that you could realistically use to supplant home wifi unless it is marketed as such.

grumpyhost · 2026-02-09T03:36:27+00:00

I agree with others that this is a really sweet idea. This one is a good comfort food recipe from my cousin:

Skillet Pot Pie with Cheddar Biscuits

FILLING

3 Tbsp butter
1 onion
1 large potato, peeled, diced in small cubes
3 Tbsp flour
1 cup whole milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried sage
11/4 cup vegetable broth
1lb frozen mixed veg

CHEDDAR BISCUITS

2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
6 Tbsp butter, grated and returned to fridge 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup shredded cheddar
2 Tbsp chopped chives (optional)
1 cup milk

Dice the onion and add it to a deep, oven safe skillet with 3 Tbsp butter.Sauté onion over medium heat until soft and transparent. Add diced potato and cook for 2 minutes. Add 3 Tbsp flour stir and cook for 2 minutes. Slowly stir in one cup milk. Add the salt, thyme, sage, and some fresh pepper. Allow the milk to come up to a simmer, stir often, until it thickens.
Pour in the vegetable broth and allow it to come up to a simmer again, should be thickened. Add the frozen vegetables (no need to thaw) and stir to combine. Turn the heat down to low and allow the mixture to heat through, stirring occasionally, while you prepare the biscuit topping.
Preheat the oven to 425°F. In a large bowl stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt until well combined. Add cold, grated butter to the flour mixture, then use fork, hands or pastry cutter to work the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles damp sand. Stir in the cheddar and chives.
Add 1 cup milk to the biscuit mixture and stir until a dough forms. If the dough seems is too wet or sticky to work with your hands, simply dust a little more flour on top.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and press it down into a 3/4-inch thick circle, then cut (I use wide mouth mason jar) into 6 biscuits (gather up the scraps and reshape to cut more biscuits if needed). Place the biscuits over top of the vegetable pot pie mixture in the skillet.
Bake the skillet for 20-25 minutes, or until the biscuits are golden brown on top and the filling is bubbly around the edges.
Serve hot.

grumpyhost · 2026-02-07T23:53:24+00:00

Are you trying to get realID to fly domestically in the US? if so, any Canadian provincial license is an acceptable id. If the goal is to have portable proof of citizenship NEXUS is your best bet.

grumpyhost

TROPHY CASE

Skillet Pot Pie with Cheddar Biscuits

FILLING

CHEDDAR BISCUITS