ZacharyBinks

Yeah OSU actually doesn't have a standalone MA program anymore--they only accept PhD or MA/PhD.

Hey, GradCafe-ers! I'm currently in my second year at Ohio State in the MA/PhD program (I study queer theory, LGBT lit/pop culture, and the Gothic). I haven't been on here since my app season in 2013, but I know that our DGS (Aman, who is awesome) started contacting those accepted recently and I figured I would stop by to offer myself as a resource if you have any questions! Feel free to PM with specific questions or just respond here with more general queries. Best of luck to everyone!

Last semester I took a course called "Fiction and Film of Sherlock Holmes" and we talked a ton about masculinities. But I chose to write my term paper on something else, unfortunately. But that's definitely a really rich group of texts when it comes to masculinities.

OP, Also, since we have such similar interests feel free to PM me if you have any questions or if I can give you any advice now that I've been through the app process

I'm actually interested in the exact same things you are--Victorian lit and gender studies, with a focus on queer theory and the construction of masculinities. Yes these fields aren't exactly new, but it's all about what fresh insights you can bring to the trodden ground. For example, my writing sample was about the linguistic construction of masculinities in Victorian adventure fiction (particularly the serialized stories like Treasure Island). I looked at the scholarship surrounding this issue and found a way to attack it that was fresh and novel. It worked pretty well for me; I got a great offer from Ohio State for their PhD and also several offers from great MA programs.

I was admitted a few days ago, but I just got an email telling me to check my status on their website. Although I didn't apply directly to the MA; I was referred after being rejected from the PhD, so I don't know if that affects anything.

Accepted to Columbia's standalone MA program today, but I've already committed to OSU so I declined. Hopefully it helps someone out.

It's either that or lose our funding...

Congratulations!!! There are so many OSUers on here, and all of them I met on visit day were awesome! See you in the fall!!

Yayayayayayayay!! Congratulations! I'll see you in August

Yeah I had some trouble finding places there as well. I compromised and found a pretty good place farther south, a little closer to downtown. The distance to campus is kind of crappy but it seems like a nice place.

At the visit day, many graduate students recommended finding apartments either north or south of campus, far enough away so as to avoid the rowdy undergrads. Clintonville to the north and Victorian Village/The Short North to the south seemed to be popular places for grad students. Also, congratulations!!

I'm an incoming PhD student at Ohio State this Fall so I don't have personal experience yet with their teaching requirements, but from what I gather from POIs I've talked to and info from their department, the landscape for TAs looks like this: The load never exceeds (from my impressions) 1/1. TAs start out teaching the introductory comp class and after a year of successful teaching, are able to move on to the advanced comp class. Then, I believe, after shadowing a professor for a semester, they can teach basic lit courses in their fields of study like Intro to Shakespeare, or Intro to 19th Century Brit Lit or something like that. I've also heard that there is a contest every year wherein grad students can design their own unique lit course and the undergrad committee chooses one or two which is then offered to undergrads (from what I've gathered, these courses seem to be typically on "trendy" or hot-button topics that are relevant to today's climate). I think they said that this year there's a class on Arabic poetry. All in all, I was pretty impressed with OSU's teaching requirements. I thought that, for a huge school, they would require a 2/2 teaching load and that I would be stuck doing basic comp courses the entire time, but that's not the case at all.

Yeah, I thought I knew who you were too, but I wasn't sure how to ask it in a way that wasn't creepy/awkward (especially if I asked the wrong person). It was great to meet you!!

Just officially accepted OSU's offer!

As long as the visit day goes well tomorrow and the department isn't a bag of dicks, I'll be officially accepting my offer from Ohio State!

Who did you email? I think I sent an email a week or two ago but never received any response.

I'm going to be flying in on Thursday afternoon. If anyone wants to get dinner that night or meet up for coffee or something, PM me!

I have been told to publish no more than one chapter of your diss and that to be competitive you really should have at least one additional publication.

I'm in a similar-ish situation and I've received conflicting input from my professors. One of them is advising me to go to the unfunded, better-ranked program while the other insists that I should take my funded offer. The latter explained explained her reasoning: In the end, prestige is a factor, but at the end of the day I think you should go to a department that is excited to have you (because they're funding you) and at which you will receive good professionalization and have an enjoyable (as enjoyable as dissertating is) experience. Plus, a lot of top ten schools are having trouble placing their grads because smaller schools aren't willing to hire someone who is probably just applying temporarily until a better spot opens up somewhere else. The tier-two schools, on the other hand (and especially some state schools) are placing students at a higher rate and are working harder to professionalize their students because they don't have the name of their institution on which to fall back; the school's reputation rests on the performance of its students more so than an Ivy or a top ten school, whose name is always going to carry weight. I don't know necessarily how true any of her advice was, but it made a lot of sense to me. Hope any of this helps!

I haven't heard anything yet. I was hoping that a lot of people would start officially accepting/declining after the open house, creating some movement.

I'm sorry I'm still waiting to hear back from them, too. Did you get an email?

Exactly. It feels good to know that they're going through all this trouble just to make sure we can visit--they like us! They really like us!

Same here! I was so relieved! It also alleviates some of the anxiety about differential treatment we talked about earlier.

Yeah, basically. Unless I'm on some wait list, but I doubt it at this point--I'm just assuming rejection.