lelia

As you are from the UK, your passport doesn't need to be valid for the entire duration of your program. 'Unless canceled or revoked, a visa is valid until its expiration date. Therefore, a valid U.S. visa in an expired passport is still valid. If you have a valid visa in your expired passport, do not remove it from your expired passport. You may use your valid visa in your expired passport along with a new valid passport for travel and admission to the United States.' (http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1268.html) I had the same 'problem' and decided to simply get a new passport, so I won't have to do so while in the US, and because I really don't wanna bring two passports for traveling all the time. (Edit: By the way, there won't be a paper I-94 any longer. They exchanged it for an electronic version on May 25.)

My visa interview was today as well. I was in and out of the embassy in Munich after 35 minutes, even though I had to retake my photo (both ears visible...). I was asked the usual questions: Are you a student right now? Where do you study? What's your major? When will you be done? What are you gonna do in the US? Which university? Why did you choose that university? Were you an exchange student before? Where was that? How will you pay for your trip? Did you consider programs with more costs? (He added that they were just interested in how people finance their education in the US, and that this was not part of the visa interview.) The interviewer was very nice, as was everybody else there. I'm glad this is taken care of now!

I usually use kayak.com to look for flights because it lists prices from airlines and third parties. I've never found anything cheaper. I booked my one-way flight from Germany with Iceland Air for about 500€. I thought that was an okay price for the season. The great advantage is that a second bag is included and bringing a bike from Europe is only 39€. However, they only have a few destinations in the US. Luckily, mine is one of them.

Hallo zusammen, I applied to seven programs and have three acceptances and two rejections so far. I'm still waiting on the last two, but I highly doubt I'll get admitted at this point. @uromastyx: Wow, what did you do differently this year? I admire that you tried again; I don't think my ego could stand the pressure. Congrats on all the acceptances! What schools are you going to visit? I also got into Minnesota; will you be there for the recruitment weekend? @FreeLindsey: It seems like visiting does make a lot of sense! Would you have expected that? I'll be leaving for the US tomorrow and hope to see all the schools, but nothing is definite yet.

"So, you're leaving Germany to study German in America?!" And then they ask where I applied, and as soon as they find out it is not California (or Harvard), they look confused... then pitying... and then a little bit embarassed that they even know about my pathetic plan. Fun fun fun!

First, congratulations on the house; this sounds great! This is a wonderful way to look at things. Thank you for all your encouraging and optimistic words! It is so easy to get caught up in anxieties and uncertainties, we forget that you could look at things differently too. So thanks for the reminder! I think that this is exactly our problem - we forget about the big picture. We forget that we all had rough times in the past and somehow we got through those too. To me, February feels like it has a million days which is absolutely ridiculous. It IS the shortest month of the year, it will be over in no time. So being able to see the big picture, put things into perspective, is a great omen!

I posted last week that I had a second interview with a program about which I wasn't sure if I was a good fit. The interview last Friday went pretty well but I was still not sure if I had any chance at all. I got the acceptance e-mail tonight and I am so much more excited than I expected to be! I guess I just decided in my head that it wasn't a good fit because I prepared myself mentally to be rejected. Aaah, I am so happy! I feel like dancing and getting drunk and dancing! I wish everybody the best for this week's decisions!

Well, I appreciate the effort in assembling the links but it doesn't really answer my question. The Wikipedia acrticle just lists independent CompLit departments. Granted, it isn't many but were there ever more? Being vanished is based on the assumption that there were more at some point. Is this the case? I am not sure what you wanted to show with the second link but if you go on 'Studiengänge' you will see how many universities offer a master or PhD (20+). Those are quite a bit more than I expected. Note 45 just claims that a lot of departments are changing without giving any evidence. I am not saying that Germany is the perfect place to study Comparative Literature and you should definitely come here! I just doubt that the statment that the field has almost completely vanished is accurate. Here a quote from Hendrik Birus on that matter: "Die Komparatistik ist in Deutschland etwa gleichzeitig mit der Germanistik entstanden, doch als eigenständiges Fach hat sie sich an den deutschen Universitäten – ganz im Gegensatz zu den USA, Großbritannien oder Frankreich – bis in die jüngste Zeit kaum zu etablieren vermocht. Dass dies zunehmend als Mangel empfunden wurde, lässt die Neuausschreibung einer ganzen Anzahl von Komparatistik-Professuren in den letzten zehn Jahren erkennen." (http://www.komparatistik.uni-muenchen.de/ueber_uns/portrait/index.html)

Yes, I am studying Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft at LMU. However (and this is important), I am still a Magister candidate (I assume you know the difference as you mentioned Bologna). LMU started the transition from Magister to BA-MA pretty early so they don't still have an MA curriculum but they already have it! The Germanistik department at LMU, for example, started this transition as late as possible, therefore their MA program is still not fully implemented and available. Besides all the rather negative side effects of Bologna, the idea was to make international exchange easier. So with the old degrees it was definitely harder to just join at any point along the road coming in from somewhere else. As for PhD programs: I think you have to take into account that the German system is very different here - we don't have (or used to not have) PhD programs as such at all. When you were done with your Magister, you just went to professors with your idea and hoped that someone would supervise you. As far as I know most universities still offer this option (LMU is one of them). At the same time, there are more and more actual programs which are more interdisciplinary. As Comparative Literature is an interdisciplinary area itself I personally don't see a problem with this. Do you have an example for a department which actually ceased to exist? I am really interested! Since I started college, the department at LMU actually grew (but that could be an exception?). I feel that, with Bologna, the humanities are losing their boundaries within themselves a little, as e.g. you don't have a minor like Comparative Literature any more but instead 'Sprache, Literatur, Kultur'. It is going to be interesting what will happen to this whole crazy project. It could be a great interdisciplinary outcome or just plain chaos. Yes, I agree you have to be aware of these problems. It is also getting more and more difficult for German students. As I hear, they sometimes give them same spot to four candidated (meaning only a quarter of the funding for the individual person) so they can produce more doctoral degrees for the same money.

I just want to add some things for the German programs. First of all, an MA is the only way for you because you can't get into PhD programs without it here. Deutsch als Fremdsprache usually is a separate subject independent from education programs. For example, at the University of Munich you can get an MA in Deutsch als Fremdsprache, and they also encourage you to apply for DAAD scholarships. I would definitely advise you to get in touch with the departments; they will be able to tell you what you need to know! Vincenzo, I don't know what you have in mind when talking about 'high' tuition and fees; this is just not true. In comparison to American education, Germany is extremely cheap. Well, that's news to me. I am currently finishing my degree in Comparative Literature in Germany, and I feel I should be aware if it had 'almost completely vanished'. Where did you hear that? My impression is quite the opposite: Comparative Literature used to be a lot less popular in Germany than in other countries, but that changed in the last 20 years.

Be aware that some programs (e.g. Minnesota) require a MA for their PhD tracks. Have you considered getting one? Maybe even getting one in Germany could be worth thinking about. I also got the impression that most German departments try to offer funded spots, mostly with teaching assistantships. Do you think you could teach German?

Thank you, Eager. These are valid points to consider! If I really didn't want to go there I wouldn't have applied, and even though it is not the best fit on my list it is far from horrible. I like the over-all focus of the department, and there are some faculty members involved in research I would like to pursue too. Just with some schools, I felt more like almost every single faculty member has the same interests as I do. So although this is not the case here, I would still seriously consider attending if I got accepted. This is why I decided to do the interview (also, I am really interested in what else they are going to ask). I hope you hear back soon too!

Hello there. Two days ago I had my first (and what I thought last) interview via Skype. It went okay, I guess. It is the only school on my list that I chose more because of the location. It is a great program and I would be lucky to be accepted but I also know that I am just not a perfect fit. The interview felt exactly that way: I think the faculty members who interviewed me really liked me, but I am just not a good fit. However, today I got an email by the Director for Graduate Studies asking for another Skype interview tomorrow. What does that mean? I was so happy yesterday thinking that at least all the applications stuff is done, and now it is going on and on and on...