knp

I assume most of that post is directed at the original question, not at me, but I do think I like Topic 2 better. I'm doing more investigating, but right now, I think I enjoy 2 in a deeper and more substantial, although less bubbly, way than my trendier option. Tingdeh, is there a way to make your two topics compatible at all? Can the exciting topic, in fact, take on some of the helpful trendy characteristics? I'm just curious.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do; I'm taking the fact that I have at least five months to sort this out to my advantage, and trying not to write any drafts or make big decisions until I've done a serious amount of further reading, say in a month or two.* I have very little coursework in my field—only two classes, as well as my thesis, due to a late-breaking and dramatic regional switch—so I'm applying to both MAs and PhDs. I do think I'll apply to some schools where Topic 1 is more strongly represented, and so pitch my SOP for those schools on Topic 1. One reason I think the trend is going to start to die by the time I finish my PhD, though—and certainly by the time I finish an MA and PhD, if I go that route—is that a good number of the faculty I want to work with at those schools wrote dissertations on Topic 1 and have all recently received tenure. That means it's been "in" for a while, and I'm not sure how current it's still going to be in another seven years. Independently of Topic 1, though, I think I would prefer to go to a school where I could work on Topic 2, even if I am 8% less bubbly about it right now. When I'm giving my 45-second pitches about the two topics I'm considering, it's true, I lead with Topic 1 and bounce a little more about it. But that's because I think the trend is cool. I don't think I actually have an interesting spin on anything related to that trend, and I deflate a bit whenever I try to actually explain what my take could even be. Nor am I that excited to find such a spin. (Although if something comes up in further reading, that changes the calculus again.) Whereas I think I could reach a lot deeper in Topic 2, and that's reflected in my observation that I get more and more animated the more I talk about it, even if my thirty-second pitch is less bubbly. Plus, it much better takes advantage of some of my skills. I am fluent in a difficult language that very few scholars in my region know, and Topic 2 would utilize that familiarity to the hilt, while Topic 1 might not use it at all. Plus it's not un-trendy. People are interested in it and talking about it. It just doesn't have the overwhelming interest of Topic 1 at this particular moment. Thanks for the advice, though! I'll continue to do a lot more reading, and if some facet of Topic 1 does grab me, you've made a case for applying to study that. My ideal is to go to one of the like two universities on my list where there's faculty representation of both topics, so that I can investigate both at greater depth before I choose. Here's hoping! *The number of articles, chapters, and books that are on academia.edu is a lifesaver, and a nice surprise. Thank you, more established scholars!

Interesting! I have two topics I've been thinking about pitching for my SOPs, and I've actually been leaning away from the one I find more exciting because it's very trendy at the moment (among other reasons). That's a hugely different calculus than making such a decision when you're coming up on your dissertation, since there's no way this topic of mine will still be trendy seven or eight years from now (whereas many trends are still going three years later) but I am also interested in this question.

Convert! I tried to find a funny picture about it, but all I got were cartoons the sort Grandpa sends me in his mass-forwarded emails. Personally, I can see ways you can talk about reaching "gifted students" that are both productive and unproductive. I see your point about its baggage, mvl, and myself try to avoid the global phrase "gifted student". At the same time, people have different gifts, and it's nice to help people discover their talents, whether they're gifted at cooking or math or dealing with animals or with any other realm of human endeavor. As a teacher, I've found that there are many different ways to enjoy reaching students. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I get to take great pleasure in watching students improve after a period of struggle. Other times, if I'm lucky, it's wonderful to watch somebody discover that they have a real flair for whatever skill we are practicing that day. (Or both!) It is awesome when people like history, or whatever other subject you're teaching; I don't think it's necessarily bad to acknowledge that there are different types of awesome at different times. One would not want to say, "ah, it's good to reach gifted students, because who cares about the rest of them," but I didn't really get the sense that that's what was happening.

A late note, perhaps, but you have a flair for imagery and write with style. If you are able to follow rising_star's advice about further coursework at a different university, I think you could really tell a strong story about why you should be admitted to a graduate program. SOPs are what make successful applications, and I'm confident that you'll be able to create a compelling one.

Don't be scared of applying to reach schools! If Stanford really is a good fit for you, send in an application; unlike in undergrad, fit is the key factor here. I think the publications adage that "if you aren't rejected anywhere, you aren't aiming high enough" probably applies to graduate school admissions, too. (On the other hand, I am certainly going to rue saying that when my rejections start rolling in next year.)

I mean, I didn't find it that weird; "science fiction" and "western" have historically been quite permeable genres. As per Gene Roddenberry's original pitch to the network, Star Trek was "Wagon Train, to the stars." Firefly just made that connection explicit in the set design, props, and costumes...if you subbed out the "old timey western themed [train, brothel, heist, whatever]" in any given plot for "intergalactic themed [train, brothel, heist, whatever]", it would have been a 100% science fiction show. You're probably still right, but I'm indignant about the whole situation in part because I think Firefly would have made it if it had aired just six or so years later. TV has splintered and become a lot more niche in the past ten years, allowing lots of cool genre material that never would have made it on the big networks to flourish and find a home: you know this, you watch Orphan Black. (I love that show, but it would never have made it back in 2002). If Firefly had happened in the age of Kickstarter, I would have thrown money at it to make more seasons; even better, if it had existed even now, in the age of Netflix exclusives, I totally think Netflix or Hulu would've picked it up. But now, alas, Joss Whedon is on to bigger projects, making billions of dollars, and Firefly is dead forever. So sad. I've moved back home between jobs, and I've been watching the Flash with my mother. It's cute! I always hate the "cub reporter" schtick in superhero media, so Iris annoys me, but everything else is great. Plus, I was a Marvel nerd growing up, not a DC one, so I don't actually know who the Yellow Flash is. It's a mystery! What fun.

PS @yeshua and banstaraí, your topics are both very cool.

I noticed yesterday that the short list of professors I'd be interested in working with has five women on it out of seven, and my long list has about eight out of twelve. I was quite surprised that such a dramatic ratio snuck up on me! My research interests have little or nothing to do with gender (to the degree that a topic in history can have nothing to do with gender), but I wonder if there is something about the topics I'm interested in that attracts a higher proportion of women. Or perhaps it was an unconscious sign that I am just tired to death of all male faculty, all the time, after an undergraduate degree in which I had seven female professors over thirty professor-led courses—and exactly three of whom I encountered in a distribution requirement course that they all co-taught.

Thesis statement means the sentence where you state your position. So you could say: "This is a negative trend because then students don't fully actualize their passions." or "But the people who make this critique are taking a narrow view of a life's worth--for some people, the best life comes outside work, so choosing a secure, decently remunerative career might in fact be the best way for them to follow their dreams." or "This is bad for the economy because the economy does best when people choose careers they care about because that makes them more likely to innovate, while secure careers lead to stagnancy." Topic sentences and thesis statements are a hard skill, but they are the sine qua non of essays like these, and of most academic writing. I had a lot of trouble with them back in the day, but it's been long enough that I don't have any good links for you. There's a lot of material on the internet, though, if you want to look up "gre" + "thesis statement"! I just can't recommend which results are best.

Ah, I see we've cross-posted. I don't think you have to disclose. I probably wouldn't, because I'm pretty a private person. Scarves has a good point about why you might want to, and I think that the way they've presented it makes sense, if you feel like it's an important part of your story. But I still think that if you include it, do so in the middle; don't end on that note.

1) Do any of your professors know about it/might mention it? If we're talking Fs with the occasional D, you might want them to get it in their letters. If we're talking Cs—well, who doesn't have a few rough grades at the start of college? 2) What's your major GPA? If it's good, that is an extra reason not to apologize for your grades outside your major, in a field you realized was not right for you. 3) It doesn't sound like you want to disclose the continuing side effects—is that right? In that case, I don't think I would mention the concussion in particular. It doesn't sound like something admissions people needs to know. Regardless, I might still have a half a sentence somewhere in the middle like, "After a rough start to my undergraduate career...". I definitely wouldn't have an "addendum" at the end, leaving that as the final "note" the admissions people are thinking about you with. Finish strong!

I like the conclusion, although it has some punctuation issues. The body paragraphs are fine—I'd say they're probably at about a 4/4.5 level already? So that's good. The introduction is not great, though. In the service of big words and fancy sentence structure, I find it difficult to understand what you're saying. You also don't provide a thesis statement. It's a decent summary of the view held by the prompt, but you don't say what your position about it is. If you do provide a thesis statement, that will be a big help right away. I always write too much like I talk, so this might be a bit of "blind leading the blind toward's one's own problem," but I'd also recommend making your writing more conversational, especially in the first paragraph. Right now it's too wordy and the verbs are too weak (too much "is/was" and passive voice: "is being...inclined" is much weaker than "prefer"). So: could be written as: Many people agree that the current generation of students is more likely to prefer areas of study that lead to profitable careers than previous generations were. This issue can be found throughout many parts of the world, because a college education is often considered an investment that will lead to a career that will provide a secure, established, and comfortable lifestyle. [And so MY POSITION on this issue is XYZ.]

Don't use fancy words excessively! No! This is a fast way to lose .5 or 1 from your score. Personally, I had to quit Magoosh two days before the test so that all of the Dumb Big Words that were seeping into my head for verbal reasoning did not display themselves in the AW portion—"objurgate" is a useless word for which English has at least fifteen better synonyms, and you'll never convince me otherwise. Good to know for V just in case, but absolutely not to be used on AW. I mean, you should have at least one three-syllable word per paragraph, but considering that English has lots and lots of fairly "regular" three-syllable words, that shouldn't be much of a requirement. For instance, that preceding sentence has about four unique ones. My essay topic ended up being something about "how should a town dispose of its plastics to save the environment?", so being a history type didn't help me much. This could all be irrelevant! But even if you do get a question that could use more historical examples, I don't think you need to worry about it too much. I think if you have a few easily deployable ideas about a few key topics on hand, which I'd recommend compiling before you take it, you'll be fine. Look at the GRE pool of potential essays for key topics: if I recall correctly, most of them are about "leadership," "education," or "technology." So because the essays are so short, if you have a couple leadership examples and their main characteristics on hand, e.g. "Steve Jobs: successful! design! jerk!" "Bill Gates: successful! not necessarily a genius, just right place right time! philanthropy!", you can work with that. I don't think you can make up examples, like you can in some other standardized tests; but because it is a standardized test, your use of the examples really doesn't require knowing much, nor do they require history rather than technology. If it matters, I got a 5.5 AW. If I had to hypothesize about the breakdown, I'd guess that I got a 6 on the "analyze an argument" because "poking holes in arguments" comes naturally to me, but a 5 on the "analyze an issue" because it was well written, but my thesis ended up being something along the lines of "this whole question's stupid, and so's your mother."

"Oh, you're going to be a history major? I hear that's great preparation for law school!"

I sympathize! I have been there often, but have managed to remediate it through judicious use of breaks. Because your anxiety level is already so high, I would schedule a guilt-free day or day and a half to just chill. At least for me, when I'm in the throes of it, taking time off -- and real time off, not "dark forest," guilty/preoccupied time off -- helps me push the "reset button" on my mental state. Sometimes it takes as little as 3-4 hours, and usually just 6-8, but scheduling a full day ensures that the reset "takes". I know it feels hard not to be studying, but studying 2 hours a day and feeling like you'll have a breakdown after each hours produces less study time over the next week than taking tomorrow off and studying 6 hours a day after that. So take a little time and read a familiar book, eat something nice and comforting (but not too heavy - and no drinking), get outside and/or get moving, maybe watch some soothing TV, talk to a friend about non-work stuff, meditate, whatever works for you. If I have done this, I can then get back to it without such an imminent risk of a meltdown. (When I have a lot of studying to do, I will say that breaking it down can help. Unless I get in the zone, which I can't count on, it's very hard to study for more than two hours at a time. So if I wanted to study for 8 hours a day, I would study for four two-hour chunks with at least 45 minutes in between each of them.) You can do this, good luck!

On the Firefly subject, this is my favorite video of the past week. Poor Nathan Fillion...none of us will ever be over it, either! http://www.whosay.com/c/1032030

It was great! I thought a few bits were too rushed, but hopefully that settles down now that they've established who the main players are. (I would have let them wander about the cathedral for at least fifteen more seconds before the magic started, e.g., and then made the build from the first voice to the second take another fifteen seconds at least.) Norrell doesn't look quite how I imagined, but his acting is perfect. Childermass is entirely perfect also, and I'm glad to see that they seem to have bumped up his screentime by 5% or so, as seems only just. Some goofy eyebrows on that one guy, though.

The Starbucks frappuccino particularly baffles me as an object of devotion. Like, they're fine? Now that they've introduced the 'mini' size, I even get them sometimes. But like, that's not coffee, that's a medium-quality milkshake.

I can't believe Castle just got renewed for another season. I stuck with it for four/five seasons, and man, it had started to get pretty iffy, even if the first couple seasons were quite satisfying. I guess I'll just always be grumpy when one of Nathan Fillion's projects that is less good than Firefly gets renewed, though, when Firefly went off to TV Heaven so abruptly. But! One of my favorite books has been adapted into a TV show, and its first episode aired two days ago! Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: it's hard to describe, although I've been settling for "Jane Austen meets Tolkien." The first episode was pretty good/solid, but the book is so so so good, so I can't wait for the next one!

What class was the B in? If it was in your main class on a subject to which you're applying to grad school (Don Quixote and you want to get a Spanish lit PhD studying Cervantes), that's not nothing. I'd talk to your supervisor, since grad school is a learning curve, and that means some things will be challenging. The B isn't great, but can be ameliorated if you show it's a hiccup, not a pattern. So as long as you have a plan to do better in the next class on Cervantes and address that somehow, either in further coursework next year or in your SOP, I think you come out looking good. If it's in one of your other classes, though? I don't think you need to worry. It's a good GPA overall - and hey, you tried a class that would broaden your scope*, and it turned out not to be your core strength. No big deal. At least in my experience, admissions types appreciate the experimental spirit. *Even if it really is quite close to your Main Topic, everything that isn't your main topic is broadening your area or skillset in some way.

Have you visited either, or both? Are you writing a thesis, or doing only coursework? If they're pretty evenly matched, I might suggesting going with the one with the professor/professors you would rather work with or, if there's a significant different in 'vibe' between the two schools, the one you like better on that front. I know about 0 about either of these programs, I'm just hoping I can ask some helpful questions.

"Don't split infinitives," while it doesn't come up that much, particularly bugs me because of the reasoning behind it. "Well, you can't split infinitives in Latin!" Yes, and in Latin, infinitives are just one word (mostly). Have you realized that English is a different language?

Oh, I know! That's why it's on my calendar as a big honking task I must do, but to which I am not looking forward. It was meant to illustrate how we're all at different stages on different components on the application: this is one on which I am not yet well prepared.

I think we're all at different points on different things. For example, let's not talk about the paper I'm going to use as my writing sample. I've been intending to use my best thing from undergrad, but I don't know how I feel about that. There are some primary source issues I can fix, although it might require a lot of work. But it also, like, doesn't incorporate any secondary scholarship? So while I've been pretty thorough in my institutional research (it's great procrastination between tasks at my job), I'm already dreading having to fix my writing sample situation. My nightmare is that I decide to last-minute scrap the thing and write something new, so let's all knock on wood that I don't do that to myself.