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becoming-yolo

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Everything posted by becoming-yolo

  1. More like half a point for my overall GPA. I mean, mostly I just want them to see another semester of all A's and I didn't know if it was normal or not for applicants who haven't yet graduated to send them updated transcripts. But I get your point.
  2. Sorry if this question has been asked before, but I don't see it. My grades from last semester were just published online yesterday and I did well, my GPA rose a little, etc. I'd like for this to be reflected in my applications—would it be appropriate to email the departments I've applied to and ask if they want an updated transcript with this last semester's grades? Or do you think that would be something of a faux pas or something they're not interested in? Thanks for your help!
  3. Thanks Lon, I hadn't checked out either of those and they both look appealing! And re: BunnyWantsaPhD that is a relief — I just get nervous reading some of the accomplishments of other people who are applying (like years of prior teaching experience), or the bios of current students at some of the programs I'm interested in, and I get this rush of holy-crap-I-am-not-qualified-for-this, even though rationally I know that I have some pretty good accomplishments myself. But it's good to have someone else say I shouldn't worry about it. And I will start looking more at Rhet/Comp departments: to be honest, I've been on-and-off looking at grad programs for the past couple years and it's only in the past month that I've even started considering Rhet/Comp; but the more I look into it, I agree, it does seem like it fits what I want to do. I think when I get back to school in a couple weeks I'm going to talk with my adviser and see what her thoughts on that direction are. Thanks for your help folks! Any more program suggestions are appreciated!
  4. Hello comrades — I've been lurking here a while but this is my first post. I'm a senior undergrad, graduating in May with a bachelor's in English literature and minor in philosophy (maybe French too if I can squeeze the credits in in the spring semester). I am planning on applying to literature graduate programs this fall/winter with the ultimate goal of teaching at the college level (I am aware of the state of the job market). I have a writing sample that I've been tweaking for a while and am pretty happy with, I have a fairly substantial outline for a SOP, I have three recommendation writers lined up — the main problem I'm running into is finding the right programs for me. If we are going by time period and geography, I am mostly interested in 18th and 19th century British literature and, particularly (at this point at least) in the rise of the novel, but from a critical perspective. I am also very interested in "theory" — particularly of Nietzsche-Heidegger-Derrida (Deleuze w/o Guattari?) lineage but also psychoanalysis/Lacan. I am also very much interested in rhetoric — I think I would like a program that allows some sort of rhetoric...minor? — I don't think I want a Rhet & Comp PhD, I am too invested in literary study to give that up, but I would like it to be a large part of what I study as I want rhetoric to be a large component of what I end up *teaching*. Which brings me to the last thing I want — last but not least, maybe even the most significant — which is a program with a really strong pedagological emphasis, particularly, again, a critical pedagogy. I want a program that isn't going to just help me become a scholar, but to become a great teacher too. And this is important to me because the one thing that I feel I've missed out on in my undergrad is any kind of teaching experience. So far I've been searching in a random, completely unmethodical way: basically just reading posts on this board, other message boards, ranking lists, etc., and whenever I see a program mentioned that I haven't looked at yet... look it up and read the website. (Maybe there is a methodology to this but it's not very efficient...) I've spoken with my professors, of course, but they can only really speak of their own programs. So, from this sloppy methodology I've come up with a few programs that look interesting: Illinois Urbana-Champaign, SUNY Buffalo, CUNY Graduate Center, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, Duke, and University of Chicago. I guess my question for you people in the know is, then, do those programs look like they line up with my interests? And especially, what other programs would you suggest? I'm also worried about my chances of getting into a "big" school (like Duke maybe? Tbh I'm not even entirely sure what constitutes a 'big' school)... I have a 4.0 major GPA, 3.8 overall, I've presented at a few undergraduate conferences (and won a significant award at one); but I come from a pretty small, 'unknown' state school, have no teaching experience, no 'work experience' (I've worked the same minimum wage cashier job since high school), and no publications except in my school's own small literary journal (we don't accept submissions from other schools). Gonna wrap this up because it feels wayyyy too long for a simple little message board post. Thanks for reading and your help. TL;DR see the post title
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