huayhangul

Thanks to all the advice. About language skills I have taken I do say I am native in both those languages because they are both my milk languages. Also thanks for the contacting of PIs. I decided I'm going to first apply for masters because after talking to my professors they both put me in contact with the heads of the Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton East Asian departments. I have a meeting with the Harvard one next Tuesday and I'm driving up to Cambridge on Saturday. I actually had a sit down with one of my LOR and my parents. I was really ill my sophomore year and my LOR actually visited me in the hospital and kept me company by arguing trilateral relations strategies for Korea, Japan, and USA I didn't realize he was a friend of my Dad's and I asked him why he never told me, his response was he didn't want me to think I would get special treatment so this guy is totally epic. I was really really afraid of disappointing everyone because my LOR really has become a mentor to me and without his support I don't think I would have the same opportunities I do now. We all came to a compromise, I am going to do East Asian studies masters and phd degree and instead of pure folklore I am going to research culture and history in regards to political legitimacy. I am quitting my job in a week and flying to China, Korea, and Japan in May where I plan to use my savings and hopefully apply for a grant to spend 18 months traveling around the three countries recording local folktales and myths and translate them into english and publish them into a gigantic anthology. Also this way I will collect lots and lots of books so when I die if I end up a professor after a lifetime in the foreign service I can contribute to the maintaing of academic knowledge. hooray for set futures!

And last night was one of those what am I going to do with my future nights. I had dinner with one of my LOR professors last night and he offered to set up a meeting with me and Secretary of State John Kerry!!! I was shocked and my professor was basically saying how my future should be in international politics and how I can make a big difference etc etc. After dinner I was on cloud 9 until I got home and saw all the folklore and legend books I bought when I was in Asia and got super super depressed.

Thanks for the fast response. I haven't really thought about MA programs because I'm quite sure I could afford to go if I didn't get funding. My LORs are really solid, both are top experts in their field and both have personally invited me to do work with them while I was at Georgetown. Both keep in contact with me even after I left and they both said they have an interest in my future. One even said that if I decided to join the foreign service corps he could guarantee me a position in whatever embassy I wanted to go to. So I couldn't really ask for more from them. I took some culture classes when I went abroad to Japan and China. I enrolled at Tokyo University for a semester at Zhejiang University for a semester. In Zhejiang I enrolled in the Chinese literature department. The thing is is that I do like politics and I know that if I chose that path I would have a really solid future. But at the same time I'd rather publish collections of Chinese and Japanese folktales and ghost stories

Hi everyone I'm applying to PhD programs next year but I have a few questions. Will I be more competitive for admissions if I don't need language grants? I've been studying Korean and Chinese since I was seven years old because my parents thought (correctly) that Asia is the future and have native level in both of them now . I was curious if a department would find me more competitive because they would save money on me. Also what would I be more competitive for? I originally was planning on doing a PhD in comparative east asian politics my undergraduate degree is in International Relations from Georgetown's WSFS and I have been working for a defense contractor for the past 2 years. But my heart is really set on folklore. But since I have no degree in anthropology or literature I am worried that I won't be taken seriously. My gpa from georgetown was a 3.7 and my GRE is very high. I already made a list of universities I plan to apply to next year but I'm really getting anxious about all of this.