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Considering a PhD in German. Need Advice!


roxyshoe

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Ha, I had a similar experience with my great-uncle: he speaks Yiddish to me and I answer him in Hochdeutsch, and we can have basic conversations that way. :D

Germans do swear a lot (at least the ones I know) and so do I, so I will have to practice the self-censoring. I notice that their swearing tends to be very...scatological. I so wish I could share Monty Python's sketch (NSFW) in my conversation courses. But I'm not ready to be fired *just* yet. Northern Germans also have some funny (clean) expressions... my current favorite is "alter Schwede." I've heard a smattering of Plattdeutsch up here too -- also very entertaining.

TAship is how I ended up here too -- stayed on after the grant ended.

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I've encountered only the minimum of swearing in Baden-Württemberg, or rather maybe just Stuttgart - which made it all the more hilarious when I heard a ten year-old girl yell Scheiße like three times in a restaurant the other day when she thought she had lost her scarf. I personally love swear words, and when I lived in Paris I felt pretty let down by the utter lack of voltage a swear word in French carries.

PS is "olta" somewhat like "alter"? During NYE festivities everyone was using it to punctuate sentences, and I assumed it meant like "dude!"

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Haha I don't know, after a year in Paris "putain sa mère" or "merde" weren't as impactful as "non mais laisse tomber" or "excuse-moi mais tu rêves" or "vous vous trompez, monsieur..." - I always felt like the back-handed, polite insults were also the strongest ones :)

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olta = alter, and you're right, it does essentially mean dude or is simply just an expression of wonder a la bill and ted

yeinalem - i wanted to thank you because i was retroactively able to include my cv with my cornell application and now i feel much (read: slightly) more confident about my application.

i really appreciate harvard giving its applicants a timeline - i wish i knew what to expect from the other schools i've applied to.

does anyone have any idea how small/large a german phd applicant pool generally is?

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olta = alter, and you're right, it does essentially mean dude or is simply just an expression of wonder a la bill and ted

yeinalem - i wanted to thank you because i was retroactively able to include my cv with my cornell application and now i feel much (read: slightly) more confident about my application.

i really appreciate harvard giving its applicants a timeline - i wish i knew what to expect from the other schools i've applied to.

does anyone have any idea how small/large a german phd applicant pool generally is?

Agree re: Harvard, it's nice to KNOW when to freak out and when to relax. :)

Just from skimming the websites and available data, it seems that programs like Harvard, Yale, Princeton get ~20 applicants every cycle. Northwestern seems to get around 10. I would guess that programs that offer a linguistics track (ie, Berkeley) get slightly more applicants, but that is pure speculation on my part.

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did anyone else apply to utexas at austin? i just got an email a few hours ago that they would like to have an interview. i'm now wondering what kinds of questions will be asked and how i can prepare. anyone have any advice?

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did anyone else apply to utexas at austin? i just got an email a few hours ago that they would like to have an interview. i'm now wondering what kinds of questions will be asked and how i can prepare. anyone have any advice?

Didn't apply there, but congratulations on the interview! When will it be? If you look about halfway down (sorry, idk if TGC does permalinks to individual comments), there's a solid list of possible questions. The Interviews & Visits forum has good stuff too. Crossing fingers and pressing thumbs for ya. :)

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hi - thanks for the link! the interview is on tuesday - supposedly it's only 10 minutes "in German and/or English." i intend on telling them what i'm doing currently, the impetus behind my suggested research topics and how that all relates to their work in the department. still have to work on preparing some questions though - i really think that will be a key part of indicating my own interest in the program but right now i'm kind of at a loss because im nervous/anxious.

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hey everyone!

new to the thread (can't believe my neurotic gradcafe behavior didn't lead me here earlier, haha!) I've applied to U Penn, Cornell, Harvard, and Princeton. ivy or bust. which was obviously a terrible decision, but oh well.

my interests are mostly 20th century hyphenate lit (Jewish-German, Turkish-German, etc) and I'm in Turkey right now on an ETA Fulbright. we just began our semester break this weekend, which gives me even more time to stress out about all this, woohoo!

Good luck re: Harvard interviews, everyone! Know that somewhere in cyberspace will be 20+ others compulsively refreshing their own email accounts, and take some solace in that ;)

p.s., fgreen is a pseudonym because I'm *that* paranoid. though with the aforementioned info, you could find me on google in about 45 seconds. the world we live in!

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so, 5PM has come and gone on the east coast. has anyone received any word from Harvard?

Not I. And honestly, even though there's technically one more day of "hope," I am pretty sure I won't be hearing from them, so good luck to y'all.

Completely unrelated but totally more fun: fgreen, have you read Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn, and if yes, would you recommend it? Or something else instead? I've been looking for some Turkish-German/German-Turkish lit but don't really know where to start.

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well, it's about 6 minutes to 5 and they haven't emailed me, so I guess I didn't get an interview. harvard was my third choice, so I'm not too heartbroken. I just wish they'd make it official and tell me for certain that I didn't get in so that I could move on with my life (and my vacation).

good luck to all of you who got interviews!!! hope it goes well and you end up there if it's the best fit for you :)

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Alrighty Kumpels, don't all go quiet now. Who's heard from where? I got an e-mail from Peter Fenves at Northwestern last Thursday night and was really excited about it, because I'm a big fat theory head and all the faculty there are like former Adorno protégés. They accepted me with full funding, which I'll get word of in the coming days. Yay. I also had my Harvard interview Friday, and flubbed the German portion, though they were quite nice anyway.

Anyone? hat ihr Nachrichten dann?

Edited by vertige
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To the person who just put up the Berkeley admit -- will I be seeing you there in March? :)

Edit: Also, an etiquette question: Is it appropriate to ask to Skype with a POI and ask questions about the program, or is that best left until admit weekends/visits?

Edited by coffeeplease
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If you've already been admitted, I'd say bring up potential for a phone/skype convo subtly, ie "I hope you don't mind me asking questions about the program - I also have skype, if that's a possibility" all neutral-like. A lot of programs seem to be hip to it these days...

And congrats again on the big B! And again, best of luck to everyone! Let's hope we hear something this week (for instance, Yale results historically get posted the first or second week of February...)

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admitted to yale and u chicago, with funding etc. very happy. all i wanted. now it will be a tough decision.

i did mess up the harvard interview though, lol. love profs burgard and ryan, they are wonderful :) but my interests are kind of less in tune with harvard's...

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