jmu

I also need at least 5 hours to function. I usually have dreams related to whatever it is I'm working on, though, and often wake up to quickly jot down notes or map out my thoughts before going back to sleep. I also have one night a week where I do absolutely nothing related to school work (research or teaching) so that I can keep what little is left of my sanity.

We should talk. My work is in historical political ecology; race, gender, and sexual contact; and agricultural development using a mix of postanarchism and A-NT as theoretical frameworks.

FYI, I'm currently taking a class with the GPD here at FIU and she mentioned that they are going to try and make the first round of decisions today. These are likely the students who will be recommended for an on-campus fellowship and considered for guaranteed TA funding. Other decisions will be made later as people are still applying and there are a few of us waiting to hear about external funding that could free up additional TA lines. Message me if you have any questions about the program.

It's a bureaucracy. It could potentially be unbelievably difficult.

So, I have some information that may be useful in figuring out what exactly is going on. It applies to past years and things may have changed but it might still be relevant. It comes from a geographer who sat on a number of panels in the past. Each application is ranked against others in its same class and they are done in order. So no graduate work are compared with others with no graduate work, first year graduate students with first year graduate students, etc. Reviewers grab a stack of proposals, read through them, grade them (what you see) and apply a score ranging from 0-50 based on the grades and the others they read (you don't see this number.) Once reviewing is complete, each proposal is assigned an aggregate z-score based on the standard deviation and mean of all of the proposals it is rated against. From here they are sorted into four categories: funded, algorithm funded, honorable mention, and not funded. The two funded categories are broken up 50/50 with half going to the exceptional proposals and half going to those that are best based on their position relative to others. How many this is is based on how many applicants are in the pool. Committees and pools are made up of people from different disciplines (usually two) so in Geography, for example, you might be compared to economics (no one knows why) or anthropology applicants as well. My guess would be that what we are seeing is the result of a new part of this system. Perhaps there is some overlap between the algorithm funded and the honorable mentions or honorable mentions and not funded. They seem to be in the sections where honorable mention is arguably more important (access to XCEDE, for example). This early on, it makes sense if these are from the applicants who are able to apply for the first time so the expectations are lower. Applicants further along are expected to be able to write more succinctly. Anyway, I hope this is useful and doesn't cause anyone to panic more.

To add on, there is considerable overlap between human geography and environmental anthropology. In fact, our department offers a course called "Environmental Anthropology" (ANG prefix) that is cross-listed with "Advanced Political Ecology" (GEO prefix). The course is taught on an alternating basis by both an anthropologist and a geographer. We also have a professor who did her PhD in Environmental Anthro and later went on to do a postdoc in a geography department only to be hired as an anthropologist. You really have nothing to worry about.

brooks, if you can apply directly to the PhD I would do it. Some schools (UGA and Syracuse come to mind) require that you first apply to the MA unless you hold one but others don't. In a lot of cases if you can apply directly to the PhD it will greatly increase your chances at funding. In my program MA applicants aren't even really considered for funding (officially, they are considered if there is left over after PhDs) and I know Rutgers is/was the same. Actually, I was accepted to Rutgers PhD last year without funding and after talking to one of the professors there she told me that there were only something like 3 or 4 funded offers last year. It's crazy competitive.

Your situation and reaction does not translate to everyone. As a former college dropout, believe me.

There is more to it than "skill," though.

The university, especially at the lower division level, is not a level playing field where everyone comes in with the same knowledges. It's not fair to any of the students to assumeit is.

Walter Rodney was a historian and critical theorist. Spivak, as mentioned, critiques the idea of linear history in her Critique of Post colonial Reason. A lot of critical geographers deal in history as well. If you talk about your interests I may be able to give you more people to look into.

My suggestion of the optional paper was to make it available to everyone who wanted to improve their grade, not just these students. In any case, I don't think taking a hands off, "tough crap" approach is the best idea. It can be seriously discouraging to students. Being firm about the grade but talking to them about it and giving them another chance puts the ball in their court, doesn't undermine your authority, and allows them to learn from their mistakes and move on. I have met a number of people who have dropped out of programs because they felt as though their professors weren't supportive and just left them to fail.

I live off-campus with an undergrad. It's fine.

Peer Review is definitely service and you should be including any academic presentation regardless of the field. Again, these are things that can be dropped off later but they might be enough to set you apart from other applicants.

I would say you can include all of them. Your workshops count as "Service", your articles are "Non-Peer Reviewed Publications", awards probably won't help much if they aren't academic but you can include them. This isn't necessarily stuff I would leave on a CV forever, but it's worth doing.

The people who say that, like you, don't really know anything about World-Systems theory, which is an economic rather than political theory. Many focus on one aspect of World-Systems Analysis by Immanuel Wallerstein where he says capitalism is approaching the asymptote and a new World-System is in the works. I think this is a generally unclear statement and a bit too orthodox Marxist but in general I think the idea is right. Capitalism as we know it is going through a power shift just as it did around WWII. This doesn't change the ways in which production occurs globally, and doesn't really affect the theoretical standpoint either. Especially since these processes are fluid in W-SA. Where Wallerstein gets in to politics it is in the realm of political economy, he talks about how the State, in its various forms, supports the World-System by acting simultaneously as a protector and a scapegoat for capitalist economic interests.

Fail them and offer them the opportunity to make it up later with an additional, optional, paper. If they don't do it, it's on them.

There is great advice already above, but to add another voice to the mix: Folks who do critical studies of neoliberalism and World-Systems Analysis tend to work within the realm of development. Figuring out if you are interested in development as well is, I think, key to determining your fit. Not knowing your exact interests, I can only help in letting you know how I figured out my fit and why I ended up choosing the department I did. My research interests fall along similar lines but with a heavy focus on the environment. I determined that the field of political ecology (particularly feminist political ecology) was the best route for me to pursue the research I wanted to do. From this I made a list of programs with strong political ecology foci. I was looking primarily at Geography departments but to give you an idea this included UW-Madison, Clark, Berkeley, Arizona, Rutgers, UNC (anthropology), Washington, Kentucky, UIUC, Georgia, Syracuse and FIU. From here I looked for people who had allied interests based on my topical area. So I excluded programs that didn't have a strong agricultural focus or didn't have anyone working on critical issues of sea level rise. Since, aside from FIU, I was unable to narrow my list based on geographical location (no one really works in the country I do) I looked for people who were interested more broadly in the Caribbean. Similarly if I were interested in, say, Western Sahara, I might consider people who work in North or West Africa. Similarly, if I were interested in Lithuania (actually my second regional interest...) I would look for people who did work in eastern Europe and the former Russian (pre-Soviet) territories. After doing this I had narrowed my list a bit further to the schools I applied to. Once I got my acceptances sorted out, I weighted the programs based on my interests and went with the one with the strongest ties. I ended up choosing FIU, based on what I wanted to research. I name people here just so you can see my thought process: Roderick Neumann is one of the original Berkeley school political ecologists and a great theorist. His work is on national parks and thus he has good knowledge of development literature as well. Gail Hollander has done significant work on agriculture -- most especially sugar which has been and continues to be an important crop in my country -- and is currently working on an NSF project looking at sea level rise. The department has other political ecologists as well so I have other sources of information, but they were less of a factor in my deciding. Since I'm interested in gender, it was important that there be a strong area in that as well. While Neumann and Hollander are both interested in identity in general and gender in particular, Caroline Faria is a fantastic up-and-coming feminist geographer who has a lot of contacts in that field. She is also a former student of Lucy Jarosz and so knows the PE and development literature well. Being an interdisciplinary department I could also tap into the sociologists who study gender, even if I don't work directly with them. Regionally and topically Percy Hintzen is a fantastic development scholar and has written extensively on my country of interest. He is a sociologist and was formerly in an African Studies program so I got lucky that he decided to leave a cushy tenure position at Berkeley to go to FIU. You might not be that lucky but in many cases departments work together or you are allowed to have committee members from other departments. You can mention these as well. So, if you want to apply to Madison but there is an anthropologist or geographer that you really want to work with, I would not hesitate to mention them. It shows that you are serious about the university. This is considered fantastic fit. I have all of my interests covered by one or more people and these people are established in the field. Through them I can make connections and have the resources to write a strong dissertation. You might not find a place that has this to offer, but try and find places where you can make all of your connections work and outline this in your statement. If a person used to work in that area but no longer is, make sure you note that you are aware that they no longer work in _______ area but that you still feel they may be able to help and guide your research. What you don't need to do is find programs that have one person who is really great but no one else is even close. If you contact that person you might find out that they don't consider you a good fit because of that and you might not be accepted. (Though, I would still contact them.) TL;DR Fit is finding the program that will allow you to complete your research in a timely manner and make the contacts you need to get a position when you graduate.

The blending of cultural and political borders and boundaries may be another area to consider. As someone studying an under researched area I can tell you that while it may be hard to find a location match but that doesn't mean people won't be excited about your work.

This depends heavily on the program requirements. Check and make sure. Some programs want all, some want degrees, some want most recent, some want none.

I mentioned it in a couple of lines and no one mentioned it as a positive or negative. I think community colleges are becoming more normal and there is no need to defend it.

Our training was about a day of policy and two days of pedagogy. Not all trainings are bad.

The application asks about medical conditions, if you wish to disclose them. As for your eligibility, you are still eligible and will probably need to address the research and coursework areas in your statement.

At home mostly books, journals, and articles in addition to my computer. On campus nothing because we have shared cubicle spaces. Everything stays in my locker until I'm going to do work.

At some schools career services can help you. I also think it's good to have a person outside your subfield look it over to make sure it is understandable to someone only broadly knowledgeable in the area. This is particularly important in departments where the focus is mixed as the adcomm will come from a variety of fields.