jrockford27

I celebrated my acceptance to my first program by drinking an entire bottle of cabernet. Unfortunately, that was actually how I was already passing the days anxiously waiting for acceptances.

So I'm in the home stretch of my sixth year so I'm now pretty much a greybeard by this board's standards, so take this as hoary wisdom or as the ramblings of a cranky old man.
Has your PhD so far been what you expected it to be?
Yes and no. Yes in the sense that I feel like I'm experiencing the freedom to pursue intellectual ideas and really living the sort of life I imagined it would be, with the kind of flexibility of life and freedom of mind I expected. No in the sense that I didn't expect that the stress and pressure to make something out of that life would break me multiple times. Also "no" in the sense that I didn't expect that service would take up so much of my time.

What are you impressions of your program?
My impression of my program is very positive. I think it is a program that is very supportive, with administration and faculty who are exceptionally invested in my success. My relationship with my colleagues is collegial at worst, there is little competition and little drama (at least that I'm involved in/aware of).

Has anything about your program surprised you?
This is a bit repetitive of the first answer, but what surprised me most was the expectation of service in my department (on committees, attending and planning events, etc.). In my program it is very frowned upon to retreat from department life. I think ultimately this is a good thing that has improved my life and been mostly rewarding. 

How are you feeling in general about your experience?
I would certainly do it again, but as I wind down my first year on the job market I know there are things I would do differently. Going in I had the pollyanna idea that many share: "Well, I know the job prospects are bleak but if I don't get a job the worst that's happened is that I've spent 5-7 years living the life of the mind and doing interesting intellectual work." That's a load of horse shit for so many reasons. I probably can't convince any of you prospective applicants of this so you'll just have to venture in and find out for yourself. The experience of doing a PhD is so emotionally taxing that by the end of your 5-7 years you'll have a hard time feeling like anything other than a TT job for your reward is a failure. While you probably already have heard (and will hear over and over again) that the market is bad, the experience of it is actually the one thing about grad school that is actually way worse than people say it is. Nevertheless, stories and thinkpieces abound about post PhD careers beyond the tenure track, an idea I'll certainly embrace after another failed search or two if it comes to that.

Have you found your research interests changing?
Definitely! Yet I can still trace a lineage, however distant, back to my SOP. I think my SOP is like a distant great uncle once removed of my dissertation, or something like that.

Are there any hardships you've faced that you want to share?
I came into grad school with depression and anxiety issues and grad school, beginning with the application process, amplified them by orders of magnitude. Seek therapy early. Find a therapist whose office is near campus and who treats a lot of academics. You may find that not all therapists really "get" the lifestyle. If your school has good health insurance, I'd recommend seeing a therapist even before things get bad, because they will get bad.

How about any successes you'd like to celebrate?
Thanks to being collegial and a good department citizen, I basically had a publication opportunity that is only a little bit outside my core interest area fall directly into my lap. Show good will and engagement and (most) others will show it back to you.

So I'm in the home stretch of my sixth year so I'm now pretty much a greybeard by this board's standards, so take this as hoary wisdom or as the ramblings of a cranky old man.
Has your PhD so far been what you expected it to be?
Yes and no. Yes in the sense that I feel like I'm experiencing the freedom to pursue intellectual ideas and really living the sort of life I imagined it would be, with the kind of flexibility of life and freedom of mind I expected. No in the sense that I didn't expect that the stress and pressure to make something out of that life would break me multiple times. Also "no" in the sense that I didn't expect that service would take up so much of my time.

What are you impressions of your program?
My impression of my program is very positive. I think it is a program that is very supportive, with administration and faculty who are exceptionally invested in my success. My relationship with my colleagues is collegial at worst, there is little competition and little drama (at least that I'm involved in/aware of).

Has anything about your program surprised you?
This is a bit repetitive of the first answer, but what surprised me most was the expectation of service in my department (on committees, attending and planning events, etc.). In my program it is very frowned upon to retreat from department life. I think ultimately this is a good thing that has improved my life and been mostly rewarding. 

How are you feeling in general about your experience?
I would certainly do it again, but as I wind down my first year on the job market I know there are things I would do differently. Going in I had the pollyanna idea that many share: "Well, I know the job prospects are bleak but if I don't get a job the worst that's happened is that I've spent 5-7 years living the life of the mind and doing interesting intellectual work." That's a load of horse shit for so many reasons. I probably can't convince any of you prospective applicants of this so you'll just have to venture in and find out for yourself. The experience of doing a PhD is so emotionally taxing that by the end of your 5-7 years you'll have a hard time feeling like anything other than a TT job for your reward is a failure. While you probably already have heard (and will hear over and over again) that the market is bad, the experience of it is actually the one thing about grad school that is actually way worse than people say it is. Nevertheless, stories and thinkpieces abound about post PhD careers beyond the tenure track, an idea I'll certainly embrace after another failed search or two if it comes to that.

Have you found your research interests changing?
Definitely! Yet I can still trace a lineage, however distant, back to my SOP. I think my SOP is like a distant great uncle once removed of my dissertation, or something like that.

Are there any hardships you've faced that you want to share?
I came into grad school with depression and anxiety issues and grad school, beginning with the application process, amplified them by orders of magnitude. Seek therapy early. Find a therapist whose office is near campus and who treats a lot of academics. You may find that not all therapists really "get" the lifestyle. If your school has good health insurance, I'd recommend seeing a therapist even before things get bad, because they will get bad.

How about any successes you'd like to celebrate?
Thanks to being collegial and a good department citizen, I basically had a publication opportunity that is only a little bit outside my core interest area fall directly into my lap. Show good will and engagement and (most) others will show it back to you.

So I'm in the home stretch of my sixth year so I'm now pretty much a greybeard by this board's standards, so take this as hoary wisdom or as the ramblings of a cranky old man.
Has your PhD so far been what you expected it to be?
Yes and no. Yes in the sense that I feel like I'm experiencing the freedom to pursue intellectual ideas and really living the sort of life I imagined it would be, with the kind of flexibility of life and freedom of mind I expected. No in the sense that I didn't expect that the stress and pressure to make something out of that life would break me multiple times. Also "no" in the sense that I didn't expect that service would take up so much of my time.

What are you impressions of your program?
My impression of my program is very positive. I think it is a program that is very supportive, with administration and faculty who are exceptionally invested in my success. My relationship with my colleagues is collegial at worst, there is little competition and little drama (at least that I'm involved in/aware of).

Has anything about your program surprised you?
This is a bit repetitive of the first answer, but what surprised me most was the expectation of service in my department (on committees, attending and planning events, etc.). In my program it is very frowned upon to retreat from department life. I think ultimately this is a good thing that has improved my life and been mostly rewarding. 

How are you feeling in general about your experience?
I would certainly do it again, but as I wind down my first year on the job market I know there are things I would do differently. Going in I had the pollyanna idea that many share: "Well, I know the job prospects are bleak but if I don't get a job the worst that's happened is that I've spent 5-7 years living the life of the mind and doing interesting intellectual work." That's a load of horse shit for so many reasons. I probably can't convince any of you prospective applicants of this so you'll just have to venture in and find out for yourself. The experience of doing a PhD is so emotionally taxing that by the end of your 5-7 years you'll have a hard time feeling like anything other than a TT job for your reward is a failure. While you probably already have heard (and will hear over and over again) that the market is bad, the experience of it is actually the one thing about grad school that is actually way worse than people say it is. Nevertheless, stories and thinkpieces abound about post PhD careers beyond the tenure track, an idea I'll certainly embrace after another failed search or two if it comes to that.

Have you found your research interests changing?
Definitely! Yet I can still trace a lineage, however distant, back to my SOP. I think my SOP is like a distant great uncle once removed of my dissertation, or something like that.

Are there any hardships you've faced that you want to share?
I came into grad school with depression and anxiety issues and grad school, beginning with the application process, amplified them by orders of magnitude. Seek therapy early. Find a therapist whose office is near campus and who treats a lot of academics. You may find that not all therapists really "get" the lifestyle. If your school has good health insurance, I'd recommend seeing a therapist even before things get bad, because they will get bad.

How about any successes you'd like to celebrate?
Thanks to being collegial and a good department citizen, I basically had a publication opportunity that is only a little bit outside my core interest area fall directly into my lap. Show good will and engagement and (most) others will show it back to you.

I was shutout my first time. That seems a million years ago now, but I'm in a program that is pretty open about its processes and here are my best thoughts:
1. Really think carefully about the list of schools you applied to. I know for a fact that I was blinded by wanting to go to a place that was a household name, and that I was convinced that the only way to land a TT job was to go to a "Top 10" school. The school I'm at now was not even on my radar the first time I applied. My experience actually being in grad school now for six years is that both of these ideas are odious and wrong. I'm in a program well out of the top 10 but we are well regarded in my subfield and two people from my subfield just landed TT jobs. I truly think who your adviser is matters much more than the school you go to.
2. I really don't think that what you do in the meantime matters in the sense that there's no way you're going to get anything worthwhile into publication before the next cycle starts (unless you've got something going already). I continued working my job. I don't think having publications going in really matters that much for a grad school applicant. The only things that really matter are whether your SOP and writing sample get in front of an adcom who are interested in the kind of work you're doing. I think the best thing you can do is try to become more conversant in your field/subfield by reading important (especially recent) articles/books by scholars whose work interests you, which should result in a stronger SOP.
3. Get members of your committee to look at your SOP and--if they really like you--your writing sample.  [Edit: Sorry, not your committees, your recommenders. I'm too deep in 'job market mode' I guess].
4. Your SOP doesn't need to articulate a dissertation (literally zero people write their diss on what they put in their SOP), it needs to align you with a specific set of scholarly concerns that identify you as a serious scholar who is engaged with the field. What scholars influence your work? What are the specific theoretical questions and concerns that drive you?  Even if you don't "do theory" you should still be able to articulate that sort of intellectual scaffolding that holds up your critical lens. If you can't, then devote the next few months to building it.
5. Understand that the most important aspect of the admissions process is the one over which you have the least control: the composition of the adcom and of a program's current crop of graduate students. You can have a dynamite application with a publication, a 4.0 GPA cum laude, and a degree from Harvard, but if the adcoms at the schools you applied to aren't feeling your SOP, or they already have several students in your subfield, you're getting shutout.  You may have done everything right this year, and being shutout is not necessarily a reflection of the quality of your application. As Captain Picard once said, "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life." 

I was shutout my first time. That seems a million years ago now, but I'm in a program that is pretty open about its processes and here are my best thoughts:
1. Really think carefully about the list of schools you applied to. I know for a fact that I was blinded by wanting to go to a place that was a household name, and that I was convinced that the only way to land a TT job was to go to a "Top 10" school. The school I'm at now was not even on my radar the first time I applied. My experience actually being in grad school now for six years is that both of these ideas are odious and wrong. I'm in a program well out of the top 10 but we are well regarded in my subfield and two people from my subfield just landed TT jobs. I truly think who your adviser is matters much more than the school you go to.
2. I really don't think that what you do in the meantime matters in the sense that there's no way you're going to get anything worthwhile into publication before the next cycle starts (unless you've got something going already). I continued working my job. I don't think having publications going in really matters that much for a grad school applicant. The only things that really matter are whether your SOP and writing sample get in front of an adcom who are interested in the kind of work you're doing. I think the best thing you can do is try to become more conversant in your field/subfield by reading important (especially recent) articles/books by scholars whose work interests you, which should result in a stronger SOP.
3. Get members of your committee to look at your SOP and--if they really like you--your writing sample.  [Edit: Sorry, not your committees, your recommenders. I'm too deep in 'job market mode' I guess].
4. Your SOP doesn't need to articulate a dissertation (literally zero people write their diss on what they put in their SOP), it needs to align you with a specific set of scholarly concerns that identify you as a serious scholar who is engaged with the field. What scholars influence your work? What are the specific theoretical questions and concerns that drive you?  Even if you don't "do theory" you should still be able to articulate that sort of intellectual scaffolding that holds up your critical lens. If you can't, then devote the next few months to building it.
5. Understand that the most important aspect of the admissions process is the one over which you have the least control: the composition of the adcom and of a program's current crop of graduate students. You can have a dynamite application with a publication, a 4.0 GPA cum laude, and a degree from Harvard, but if the adcoms at the schools you applied to aren't feeling your SOP, or they already have several students in your subfield, you're getting shutout.  You may have done everything right this year, and being shutout is not necessarily a reflection of the quality of your application. As Captain Picard once said, "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life." 

Hi folks! I am currently sitting on the Grad Studies Committee with profs who are reading applications and making decisions. This is what I have learned:
1. This is the worst truth and you're not going to want to hear it, but GRE scores matter a lot. Not to the department, necessarily (most profs are very frustrated that it's a factor they need to consider), but to the university, who wants to look good in terms of numbers. It fucking sucks. It's the truth. This means quant scores, too. ?
2. The committee wants to see that you have a well-articulated set of interests and that your work will find a home in the department. This means outlining research questions that are interesting and viable. What this means differs depending on field. If you're working in post-45 American, for example, do not propose a project on Pynchon, DeLillo, David Foster Wallace, and irony. That project belongs in 1986. It's not viable. Race and embodiment in Octavia Butler? Now we're going somewhere. Make sure the department has at least 2 tenured faculty members whose interests--in terms of theory/method and literary archive--overlap with yours. Check out their CVs and skim the last 3 things they wrote. Note the last grad courses they taught, if possible--these often indicate where their research is going, much better than already-published things. Profs often use grad classes to test out their developing interests.
3. The committee also wants to see that you are flexible and open to developing new research questions. Your SoP should trace a trajectory of thought and project to your future research interests, and your writing sample should reflect that trajectory. If possible, work with a professor to revise your writing sample and tell them you'd like to work it up to publication level. But do not resubmit the same sample and materials the following year. There are a number of these re-submits that have come to the table, and they get tossed out right quick.
4. Visit, if you can. Meet with one or two people in the department. Get a sense of what the campus is like. If you can visit during a regular semester, attend an event that you can mention in your SoP. If at all possible, meet a professor you'd be interested in working with. These things are difficult and may not be possible, but they can make a huge difference in shaping your SoP and how it gets noticed. They stand out.
5. The committee really seems to appreciate when life experiences shape someone's research and work. What can you do, or what have you done, that might ground your work in actual life praxis?
Hope these are helpful. I'm a mere grad student sitting on the committee and not allowed to actually read the applications, but I've been taking note of what the faculty members like and comment on. 

So I'm in the home stretch of my sixth year so I'm now pretty much a greybeard by this board's standards, so take this as hoary wisdom or as the ramblings of a cranky old man.
Has your PhD so far been what you expected it to be?
Yes and no. Yes in the sense that I feel like I'm experiencing the freedom to pursue intellectual ideas and really living the sort of life I imagined it would be, with the kind of flexibility of life and freedom of mind I expected. No in the sense that I didn't expect that the stress and pressure to make something out of that life would break me multiple times. Also "no" in the sense that I didn't expect that service would take up so much of my time.

What are you impressions of your program?
My impression of my program is very positive. I think it is a program that is very supportive, with administration and faculty who are exceptionally invested in my success. My relationship with my colleagues is collegial at worst, there is little competition and little drama (at least that I'm involved in/aware of).

Has anything about your program surprised you?
This is a bit repetitive of the first answer, but what surprised me most was the expectation of service in my department (on committees, attending and planning events, etc.). In my program it is very frowned upon to retreat from department life. I think ultimately this is a good thing that has improved my life and been mostly rewarding. 

How are you feeling in general about your experience?
I would certainly do it again, but as I wind down my first year on the job market I know there are things I would do differently. Going in I had the pollyanna idea that many share: "Well, I know the job prospects are bleak but if I don't get a job the worst that's happened is that I've spent 5-7 years living the life of the mind and doing interesting intellectual work." That's a load of horse shit for so many reasons. I probably can't convince any of you prospective applicants of this so you'll just have to venture in and find out for yourself. The experience of doing a PhD is so emotionally taxing that by the end of your 5-7 years you'll have a hard time feeling like anything other than a TT job for your reward is a failure. While you probably already have heard (and will hear over and over again) that the market is bad, the experience of it is actually the one thing about grad school that is actually way worse than people say it is. Nevertheless, stories and thinkpieces abound about post PhD careers beyond the tenure track, an idea I'll certainly embrace after another failed search or two if it comes to that.

Have you found your research interests changing?
Definitely! Yet I can still trace a lineage, however distant, back to my SOP. I think my SOP is like a distant great uncle once removed of my dissertation, or something like that.

Are there any hardships you've faced that you want to share?
I came into grad school with depression and anxiety issues and grad school, beginning with the application process, amplified them by orders of magnitude. Seek therapy early. Find a therapist whose office is near campus and who treats a lot of academics. You may find that not all therapists really "get" the lifestyle. If your school has good health insurance, I'd recommend seeing a therapist even before things get bad, because they will get bad.

How about any successes you'd like to celebrate?
Thanks to being collegial and a good department citizen, I basically had a publication opportunity that is only a little bit outside my core interest area fall directly into my lap. Show good will and engagement and (most) others will show it back to you.

I was shutout my first time. That seems a million years ago now, but I'm in a program that is pretty open about its processes and here are my best thoughts:
1. Really think carefully about the list of schools you applied to. I know for a fact that I was blinded by wanting to go to a place that was a household name, and that I was convinced that the only way to land a TT job was to go to a "Top 10" school. The school I'm at now was not even on my radar the first time I applied. My experience actually being in grad school now for six years is that both of these ideas are odious and wrong. I'm in a program well out of the top 10 but we are well regarded in my subfield and two people from my subfield just landed TT jobs. I truly think who your adviser is matters much more than the school you go to.
2. I really don't think that what you do in the meantime matters in the sense that there's no way you're going to get anything worthwhile into publication before the next cycle starts (unless you've got something going already). I continued working my job. I don't think having publications going in really matters that much for a grad school applicant. The only things that really matter are whether your SOP and writing sample get in front of an adcom who are interested in the kind of work you're doing. I think the best thing you can do is try to become more conversant in your field/subfield by reading important (especially recent) articles/books by scholars whose work interests you, which should result in a stronger SOP.
3. Get members of your committee to look at your SOP and--if they really like you--your writing sample.  [Edit: Sorry, not your committees, your recommenders. I'm too deep in 'job market mode' I guess].
4. Your SOP doesn't need to articulate a dissertation (literally zero people write their diss on what they put in their SOP), it needs to align you with a specific set of scholarly concerns that identify you as a serious scholar who is engaged with the field. What scholars influence your work? What are the specific theoretical questions and concerns that drive you?  Even if you don't "do theory" you should still be able to articulate that sort of intellectual scaffolding that holds up your critical lens. If you can't, then devote the next few months to building it.
5. Understand that the most important aspect of the admissions process is the one over which you have the least control: the composition of the adcom and of a program's current crop of graduate students. You can have a dynamite application with a publication, a 4.0 GPA cum laude, and a degree from Harvard, but if the adcoms at the schools you applied to aren't feeling your SOP, or they already have several students in your subfield, you're getting shutout.  You may have done everything right this year, and being shutout is not necessarily a reflection of the quality of your application. As Captain Picard once said, "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life." 

Memes are my only solace from this nightmare

I will verify as a person who was accepted to Buffalo many years ago and attended their recruiting event that they have a very juicy "Presidential Fellowship" that they award a couple of weeks in advance of all of the regular admittees. Indeed, during my visit I roomed with that lucky recipient. If I recall correctly, it's on the order of $30k/yr in a city with a relatively low cost of living, so bully for whoever got it!

Definitely the latter, except to the extent that you'll be asked to speak in a bit more detail about things you mentioned in your personal statement. Even in academic job interviews committees do not ambush candidates. Remember, they're now recruiting you as much as you're applying to them. 

I found it sad but paradoxically liberating. The sensation of having no obligations to be anywhere or to do anything the first few weeks was sublimely wonderful and terrifying. I'm not likely to ever experience anything like it again. You wont be by yourself for long, as you'll soon be absorbed into your cohort/department.

Definitely the latter, except to the extent that you'll be asked to speak in a bit more detail about things you mentioned in your personal statement. Even in academic job interviews committees do not ambush candidates. Remember, they're now recruiting you as much as you're applying to them. 

Definitely the latter, except to the extent that you'll be asked to speak in a bit more detail about things you mentioned in your personal statement. Even in academic job interviews committees do not ambush candidates. Remember, they're now recruiting you as much as you're applying to them. 

Somebody beat me to Hidden Brain!  But also 99% Invisible (about design), The Side Door (the Smithsonian's podcast) and Radio Lab (which is on NPR in most markets, but is so good.

I think bumping a five year old thread to encourage new grad students to consider skipping class, with a seasoning of "my professors are terrible" and "my colleagues aren't independent thinkers," may be one of the all time great first posts.

I mentioned two faculty in each SoP. In fact, part of my criteria for whether I would apply to a school was whether I could find two faculty that I could write one honest and coherent sentence about wanting to work with. I think that is a pretty good "fit" litmus test. The connections don't have to be direct, after all, if you were working on the same things they were your work would be redundant. But do they work around a similar set of concerns but at different loci, the same time period but different objects, or do their methods share something in common with your own?  
Far from diluting your SoP, these things show that you've actually bothered to look at the program and gotten to know it a little bit, rather than simply making decisions based on factors like perceived prestige, or geography. That means something to programs.
The grand irony is of course that I don't work with either of the people I listed in the SoP for my current program. Not because they aren't delightful people, of course, but because you never know where life's contingencies will take you.

I think bumping a five year old thread to encourage new grad students to consider skipping class, with a seasoning of "my professors are terrible" and "my colleagues aren't independent thinkers," may be one of the all time great first posts.

I think bumping a five year old thread to encourage new grad students to consider skipping class, with a seasoning of "my professors are terrible" and "my colleagues aren't independent thinkers," may be one of the all time great first posts.

I think bumping a five year old thread to encourage new grad students to consider skipping class, with a seasoning of "my professors are terrible" and "my colleagues aren't independent thinkers," may be one of the all time great first posts.

The MAPSS is very different from the MAPH both in terms of environment and student outcomes. There's usually at least half tuition covered, and they have a solid placement rate both within Chicago and elsewhere. I've known many very nice MAPSS alums, including at least two in my current program. Of course, Chicago in general tends to breed a certain type of... how to put this nicely?... aggressive student, but those who did their undergraduates there are usually the worst offenders.

To be fair, you're also not responsible for paying that debt yet...

I think the best way to figure out if you need a PhD to do the kind of work you want to do is to look at people who have the job you want and see what their educational background is. There are MFA holders who have tenure/tenure track positions in English programs at major universities. If your goal is to teach creative writing then maybe your best bet is to continue adjuncting while you work on building your profile? If your goal is to teach rhetoric/composition at the university level, then you'd certainly want to get a PhD if you want to be able to do that and have any security or a decent salary. 
If your approach, however, is that you aren't especially interested in research (the phrase, "I do honestly have some research interests" raised my eyebrow to this) you might want to really REALLY think about whether a PhD program is for you. Research is essentially the only thing you will be doing. While I have no doubt that some PhD students find time for creative pursuits, none of the MFAs I know who pursued a PhD (I know several) were able to continue their creative writing as anything more than a hobby during their program. That's not to say you shouldn't have hobbies, you absolutely should.  But if your goal is to continue your path as a non-scholarly author while pursuing your PhD, you will find yourself threading a needle with a very small head.
I've never wanted to be one of those grad students who tries to scare people away from doing a PhD, because they can be very rewarding, and I'm not trying to do that here.  But a PhD program is essentially five-to-eight years of research, and then writing in genres that are oriented toward disseminating that research more than anything else.

There are a few programs that come to mind that might be a good starting point for you to look into:

1. University of Pittsburgh's Film and Media Studies PhD with English as the associated department. Alternatively, you might consider their PhD in Critical and Cultural Studies.

2. Brown University's Modern Culture and Media PhD

3. WUSTL's English PhD with a certificate in American Studies

4. Michigan's Film, Television and Media PhD