champagne

I think this part is VERY important. I haven't contacted a POI yet, but I think unless you show specific interest in things they have written and been involved in, then it will come off immediately as a disingenuous attempt to "get on their good side". I know that's not your intention, but I think that's how it would be perceived.

I'm not really sure where to put this, so I'll just leave it here.

As great as this is, it sucks that $55 is too far out of my price range considering whatever measly stipend I might be getting over the next few years.

So... it's nearly the end of July. Anybody got a time-turner handy?

Ha! I think I did very well in telling them how much it sucks while still letting her know the reasons for keeping the dream alive. She was bound to have that conversation with a professor eventually.

So, I had a rising high school senior ask me what I thought of her prospects concerning going into academia might be... It didn't go well.

Definitely. Makes sense. Thanks for the advice! Knock, knock. Who's there? Champagne. Champagne who? Cham-painting the future of academia with every keystroke! Something like that?

I'm almost certain I know the answer to this question already, but I wanted to check with y'all. Could I start my SOP with a joke about myself? It would lead well into my academic interests, and I'm naturally pretty self-deferential. It feels like a bad idea, but I wanted to see what GradCafe thinks.

I thought this was interesting, and I'm not sure where to put it. Nate Silver's take on "The Decline of the English Major": http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/as-more-attend-college-majors-become-more-career-focused/?_r=0

Sorry, I didn't mean to incite a disagreement, and I don't know much about Yale other than the prestige. Just trying to keep things lighthearted. I suppose my usually deadpan delivery is even more deadpan over the internet.

I'm pretty sure we're all in agreement that we would do anything short of violent crimes in order to go through Yale's program. In fact, I'm nowhere near certain a little blood on our hands would bother some of us in that case.

This thread is a pretty good list of funded MA programs: Obviously, you'll have to do your own research as a few of the programs listed might have taken away their funded MA's in recent months. Unfortunately, since state-funding is decreasing precipitously for higher education and research, the first big things to go tend to be funding packages for MA students, but the lists in that thread should be a good start for program research.

I actually was told that twelve was a good number and that I would have to have good reason for going over that. This is also probably due to the fact that I have the luxury of looking at M.A. programs as well as Ph.D. programs. If I go the terminal M.A. route for the next couple of years, I'm definitely going to cast a wide net in applying to competitive but numerous programs when applying to Ph.D.'s.

Ha! I would venture to guess that this is the scourge of every one of us. Example: I'm reading something, and I draw a really interesting connection between the critical piece, my piece, and the novel I'm using. I get into this really panty, excited, adrenaline-driven panic. I look at my S/O who gives me a look that says, "Don't even start." I look at my cat who meows dourly at me. Naturally I think, "I wonder what's going on on GradCafe."

I almost forgot: Happy Bloomsday, folks! I hope all of you properly consider yourselves stately and plump on this auspicious day.

Ha! I love the South in such a complicated way. The Southern United States: Upholding our manners through mysogyny and racism since the 17th century.

Hmm, it appears you're in a particularly peculiar pickle (terrible alliteration definitely intended). This won't be a popular opinion, and I hate to be the class curmudgeon (okay, I'll stop now); however, I think if you're concerned about about pay and benefits, then you are correct to reconsider your career in the humanities. None of us, no matter how smart or how marketable, will ever get rich at this. I think this is an important contract to sign with yourself (so to speak). Then again, this also depends on how you define currency. Obviously, computer science, if you're talented, will be more monetarily beneficial to you in the long run. I think it's important, though, that you pointed out that a degree in English Lit "would soothe your soul". That certainly sounds like a more prodigious benefit than all others. Why does one pursue financial security, anyway? Because it makes us comfortable and affords us the opportunity to do things that we truly enjoy like creating and helping others--i.e. things that soothe our souls. Many would argue, though, that the dogged pursuit of financial security eventually leads to a completely opposing result: worship of money and things rather than that which should be more important. That's an entirely separate conversation, though! Also, I wouldn't worry too much about your perceived reception of your accent. If the department is truly concerned with widening the scope of their research and students, then they would most likely see your non-traditional background as a positive. I would at least!

Masochism.

Datatape has got it right. I've got appropriate work that I have edited, but the sub-field I went into is a little out of practice. That and it stinking like a pile of horse manure every time I go back to read it motivated me to put together a new sample. To answer your original question: The more sane route is to use a sample already in existence, but you can do either one.

Ha! Good one. In all seriousness, I'm getting together research for a new writing sample mostly. I'm hoping to get that done before the fall and then use the fall to type up my SOP.

I mostly felt really down after my GRE Subject Test and then responded by reading voraciously. I've been working with some professors to try and get together a new sample. I think I have some neat opportunities, but it's going to be a lot to do over the summer. One of my professors did tell me I had as much want-to as anybody he knew. Which was nice... I think.

Living on the edge folks: I printed off a couple of articles yesterday... On my company's printers!

FWIW, it's actually pretty interesting to go back and fill in gaps in your literature knowledge that you may have missed throughout your career. If you're a nerd like me (And let's face it, we're all hopeless geeks), the hardest part won't be getting up the gumption to study but to have fortitude to stay on task and study things that actually have a chance of being on the test. I found myself digressing quite a bit looking at critical and related texts instead of just gaining the basic knowledge needed for each work. Also, if you are still planning on taking it, I definitely wouldn't go into blind. I talked to a friend who did the MA program at Georgetown (extremely talented and smart) that took the test blind in his third semester and scored 68th percentile. If you're going to do it, it's worth at least having a little bit of preparation since the test material is so impossibly gargantuan. Lastly, Vade Mecum and Hapax Legomena are GREAT synopses of the texts that will be on your test, but, ETS being as crafty as they are, the test seems as if it has adapted to circumvent the cursory knowledge that is available one these sites and guidebooks. I found my test to contain much more theory than I was prepared for. They were all big name theorists. It just kind of threw me off guard, and I think that's what caused my less-than-satisfactory score.

Yeah, unless I get really direct advice--i.e. someone with AdComm experience--to retake the exam, I'm not bothering with it. Most of the Ph.D. programs I'm looking into don't require it; I believe they have good reason. It is making me reassess how I'm applying in the fall. I know everyone doesn't have this luxury, but I think I'm going to be much more proactive about looking into terminal and funded MA programs. It just sucks to know that I couldn't score better than 25% of the people that took the exact same test as me.

Welp. I checked my subject test scores from April, and I didn't do nearly as well as I wanted to do. They aren't bad, I suppose, but more importantly, it will definitely make it harder for me to even have my writing sample read by a lot of AdComms. I know I shouldn't let this affect me, but I'm feeling pretty inadequate right now. Does anybody have liquor?