ryan785

Applied to programs in Educational Leadership (Ed.D) at 5 CSUs, got accepted to my top program at Fresno State! Weird journey to here, always saw my self as a wannabe professor, but now that I am a staff and faculty member at the same school that I graduate from, I'm glad my deviation into the staff world worked out for me

Hi all, I have been lurking on this forum for the last few months and I know how often you get this question, but I couldn't help but ask since you all know what it takes to get accepted. I received my undergrad in an interdisciplinary field (Human Communication) which focused heavily on English education, communication, philosophy, and history. I am continuing my education at the same state school, where I am receiving my MS in Instructional Science and Technology. This degree is focused on developing an understanding of how to teach effectively, designing online learning materials, and developing an understanding of how to know more about your students and their learning styles. I also have an ESL teaching certificate, which I received online, so I'm assuming it will hold no to little value on a PHD application. I currently teach English at two different locations. The first is an online English school, which is one of the bigger online ESL schools on the internet. I am also going to start tutoring English, with a well-known education company, soon. I have also volunteered as an ESL instructor in the past and have worked as a freelance tutor on the side. While all of this is fine and dandy, I admittedly have little formal education in the field of linguistics. I have learned a little about linguistics while in my MS program, but I've had to supplement much of that by reading journal articles and books about the field. Originally, I wanted to teach English overseas after graduating with my MS, but I have developed a strong desire to research SLA and really want to teach at the college level. Programs focused on SLA, such as those at UC Davis and Arizona, are appealing, but I just don't know if I'll be attractive to any linguistics ADCOMs. TESOL programs don't really appeal to me, because I am someone who prefers to work with theories and also theories that may affect learners of all languages, not just English. Sorry for giving you all a rundown of my life, but I thought it might help when you all give me some honest feedback about where I stand...

Also, I've seen that some conferences will accept abstracts and then not require a final paper submission. In other words, you can just present on what your research project may be without actually finishing it/technically starting that article? Do these types of conferences have any merit? I could see it being useful to some potential journal article ideas I have, but if it isn't worth presenting at these conferences then I'd rather not spend any hard earned money/grant money.

I'm sorry all, this may be a really stupid question, but I thought I'd ask. Do conference papers need to be original research papers with scientific data, methods, etc.? Or more exploratory projects synthesizing other research and its applications (e.g. something you would write in a grad seminar)? If it helps to know, I am a Masters student in Instructional Science and Technology, which is a subfield of education. I'm just really unsure of how this whole process works.

I'm sure this topic is beating a dead horse, but I was wondering how journal articles in student run journals are viewed by PHD programs. I'm currently in a masters program and would like to publish my undergrad senior thesis in a undergrad student journal that takes submissions from those who have graduated recently. The paper isn't that relevant to my current field, since I switched from a humanities related undergrad to an IT focused grad program (don't even get me started on how that happened)! The paper itself may be related to my future PHD endeavors, so I thought I might as well get it published, but at the same time I know it isn't good enough to be submitted to a more rigorous professional journal. So after all that extraneous stuff, is submitting to a student run journal worth it/anything?