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thirty_birds

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    New York, NY, United States
  • Application Season
    2015 Fall
  • Program
    English/American Studies PhD

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  1. Accidentally started a new thread for this, not realizing how great so much of the advice is here on this one! I wonder in particular, how much are you weighing funding vs. fit?? I only applied to places where I felt like the fit would work well, but I'm already having one hell of a time weighing a school with a ridiculously nice funding package against two places that seem to have the best faculty fit over all... I'm particularly worried as a POI at the school with the most money may be leaving this year. At the same time there are other faculty there that I could work with, though I know less about them & I feel more gravitationally pulled toward POIs at the other two places... Time to inform myself more about people's work, I suppose! One thing that I'm starting to look at is where extra financial support (beyond the standard package you receive) might be at these schools. For ex: what kind of fellowships might be available after year 2? If I needed to extend my time to finish my dissertation, is money more or less guaranteed or would it be really hard to patch together? What are each program's policies about fellowships from outside the university, i.e., do they reduce university aid as a result, or do I get to keep the full outside funding? Also, two other important considerations for me, that others may want to think about as well: commitment to diversity in each department/school – I don't just mean subfields; the humanities at most institutions tend to be incredibly homogenous, and I certainly want to be in a place that isn't ignoring the fact and has resources for me, as a POC in particular. Also: what are maternity leave policies at each institution? As an older graduate student, it's very possible that I may have/adopt a child while in my program, and I want to be sure I'm in a place that will be supportive of me should I make that decision.
  2. Wow, somehow I totally missed that thread. OK, shifting over there.... Thanks allplaideverything!!
  3. Hi folks – I'm a rare poster here, but I would like to start a thread to talk about some of the things we're weighing when choosing a program to attend in our particular discipline (hence by posting this specifically in this forum). I feel incredibly fortunate to have the choice between three amazing programs so far and have yet to hear from a couple more, but already feel like I'm agonizing between the decision. One is at an Ivy with an incredibly generous funding package that seems impossible for anyone to beet (it's been almost week since I heard but I'm still in shock about it). The other two are amazing, very reputable state schools: one where I'm finishing up my MA and which totally adore (and where I could transfer a huge number of credits if I wanted, and would gain great teaching experience), the other with particularly stellar faculty in my subfields of interest – probably the best fit of all – which happens to have an exchange program with the aforementioned Ivy. On paper, I feel like placement records are comparable at each. I'm weighing them all equally with each other and am processing the pros/cons of each – they all feel like very different options from each other. Campus visits/conversations with DGS/faculty/students will certainly help, as those happen over the next few weeks. In the meantime: how are you feeling about the decision-making process so far? What are you agonizing over? I'm especially wondering as to whether anyone else is weighing the funding vs. fit question (though to be clear, I wouldn't have applied to any of these if I didn't feel like they weren't good possible "fits," it just feels like the latter of the three feels the best).... Anyway, OK, enough agonizing. Curious to hear what's on other people's minds, and what you find helpful in the process!
  4. I got a phone call from Princeton a few hours ago and I totally hadn't been expecting to get in. I've been in a daze and haven't really been able to do anything all afternoon. Oh my goodness. Me!?!?
  5. The painful introvert in me is not one for really posting on forums, but I was so moved by proflorax's post that I decided to come out of the shadows (just this once) and tell you, messily, what happened to me too. I didn't apply to graduate school right out of college. Many moons ago, I finished my undergrad degree at a high-ivory-towered institution, after having struggled with depression, rocky grades, and general out-of-placeness throughout those four years, and having constantly been pushed by my father to absolutely stay in school while I was still young (a push that I think was the result of his own sense of failure as a working-class immigrant man in the US, though that's another story entirely). A professor of mine talked me out of doing it right away, knowing that I had mixed feelings about it and wanted to spend some time with music instead– so I didn't even try. I didn't feel like I was even good enough to try, so in my mental state at the time the choice made me feel both relieved and awful at once. I was still incredibly depressed when I finished school, but I knew that if I went back home I'd be even more miserable. So I spent the summer in New York alone in a sublet room of a friend's apartment, trying to get myself out of a funk. The economy was a total disaster at that time, so I had tough luck getting a job for a few months, but I was able to make ends meet with some odd jobs/teaching music lessons through the summer, and eating LOTS of PBJ. I finally landed a part-time office job at a community music school that I loved when I started, and I kept doing freelance music work on top of that. However, as some months went on the unstable office dynamics of that workspace began to show (with poor pay and long hours), I felt uneasy and felt myself veering toward misery again. A year into that job, I applied to a part-time Liberal Studies MA program at CUNY – not so much as a route toward a PhD but for the sake of having *something* constant to do if the job fell apart. I got in but didn't go. Two years after starting there, surprise surprise, I got fired from that job – and on Valentine's Day to boot! Oy, things felt pretty awful at that point. Well, a few weeks later I got a call from the Liberal Studies department at CUNY, saying they still had my application on file and that if I wanted to come that year. Figuring that I had nothing else to use (and that I could stay afloat on a small bit of loan money as I tried to sort things out), I said yes. I started my MA while subsiding as an after-school music teacher, and eventually I landed another much better part-time non-profit office job. I was making pennies and living frugally –but I felt so much happier to having this balance of things in my life that I could explore before committing to anything in totality. As I took graduate-level classes I realized that I loved what I was learning, and came to shape an MA project that brought together my interests in experimental aesthetics, racial identity and the role of art as activism. This was totally, totally different from what I thought I might be interested in as an undergraduate! And I came to realize genuinely that maybe academia and teaching was something that could make sense in my long-term future There are lots of other nooks in this tale, but long story short: four years after starting that MA program, I've just about finished my thesis, I've held stable work that's allowed me to live comfortably for the last two years, and in midst of all that I've found a new artistic life as a poet with a wonderful creative community around me, and a dear loved one who has been so much of my backbone along the way. AND last but not least, this week I got two notifications: a rejection from my undergraduate alma mater (which I wasn't too sad about), and an acceptance to the CUNY Graduate Center (which I am TOTALLY stoked about). I am still waiting to hear from other places, but I have no doubt that I got into a place that is right for me. I feel 100 times more prepared for a full-time academic future than I did fresh out of UG, and I now have all this experience that will be useful no matter what I do when I finish my PhD. All that being said, the simultaneous time spent doing other things has made me realize that I'd be just fine if I hadn't gotten in anywhere for a year, and would have probably cherished the extra time, actually. The last few years I have totally fallen back in love with life, and I am so grateful for every major letdown that has occurred over the last 7 years. My Plan B and all its sub-routes– though I hardly knew it was a Plan B when I started– worked out in the best way.
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