TonyB

The key to tipping that balance is to have plenty of mundane, slice-of-life-type stuff going on, throw in a few ethnic characters (preferably Spanish-speaking), and most importantly, don't offer any explanation or rationale for the supernatural happenings in the story whatsoever. Mythology and world-building are the stuff of sci-fi/fantasy, not magical realism.
 
By the way, anyone willing to read and critique a couple of short potential writing sample submissions would earn my undying gratitude.

Checked out some of the sample exams polis posted, and I have to say I'm feeling much more confident about this. So essentially one option for satisfying the requirement at many schools would be to simply pass two exams (for two different languages) like that? Seems doable -- and much more reasonable than having to tackle a two-year undergrad course, and/or have the fluency to read a whole novel.
 
As it happens, I unearthed some old 'Learn Spanish/German the Lazy Way' CD-ROMs while going through some stuff at my dad's house. May just have to bust them out as I'm preparing to start sending in PhD applications in a couple years. (Plan to get my MA or MFA first).

Checked out some of the sample exams polis posted, and I have to say I'm feeling much more confident about this. So essentially one option for satisfying the requirement at many schools would be to simply pass two exams (for two different languages) like that? Seems doable -- and much more reasonable than having to tackle a two-year undergrad course, and/or have the fluency to read a whole novel.
 
As it happens, I unearthed some old 'Learn Spanish/German the Lazy Way' CD-ROMs while going through some stuff at my dad's house. May just have to bust them out as I'm preparing to start sending in PhD applications in a couple years. (Plan to get my MA or MFA first).

https://english.camden.rutgers.edu/graduate/
My brother went here. They have a certification option. 

That sounds fine (the story, I mean). If it was people hunting vampires or something, you'd be dead in the water, but it sounds like you're taking a fairly literary/mainstream approach to those elements.
 
And sure, I'll be glad to read your stuff. Just stick to short fiction... I don't know if I have the time or energy to edit a novel. ;-)
 
 
You don't know how disappointed I'm going to be when I find out you're not really Christina Ricci.

Anime-inspired avatars are one of my triggers.

Anime-inspired avatars are one of my triggers.

At my home institution there's a program http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/education/cert_certification_programs.cfm, but it's definitely not funded. The NYC teaching fellows program IS however, and it's fairly fantastic if you can relocate to NYC. There's also a loan forgiveness program for teaching in needy schools in NYC which may also be worth looking into.

Even with a program like that, you likely need to complete additional undergraduate courses in order to be certified in a particular state. There's often little funding for those types of programs. If you want to do a post-bacc certification, you might be better off looking into programs offered by community colleges or other agencies. In Georgia, there's something called GaTAPP where you can actually teach on a provisional certificate while completing the work to become certified. Something like that could be an option for you.
If you do find a funded MFA program, you could see if you could take the undergrad English courses you need while enrolled using your tuition waiver. You'd still likely have to do an alternative certification program though. 

I think you would be hard pressed to find an MA (or even MFA) that prepares you for HS teaching and offers funding. What is sounds like you are looking for is an MAT (Masters of Arts in Teaching) in English Education, which is usually a 12 month program that requires classroom work (and therefor can't offer assistantships). You may get lucky and find an external assistantship for a program like that, but you won't usually have a TA/RA with tuition/healthcare. These are still usually the cheapest way to get qualified to teach HS (depending on state/county), but ymmv.

Anime-inspired avatars are one of my triggers.

Anime-inspired avatars are one of my triggers.

I prefer find-and-replace reading:
 
Before the Tenured by Franz Kafka
 
Before the tenured sits a member of a search committee. To this search committee member comes a adjunct from the country who asks to gain entry into the tenured. But the committee member says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The adjunct thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on. “It is possible,” says the committee member, “but not now.” At the moment the gate to the tenured stands open, as always, and the committee member walks to the side, so the adjunct bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the committee member notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly committee member. But from room to room stand committee members, each more powerful than the other. I can’t endure even one glimpse of the third.” The adjunct from the country has not expected such difficulties: the tenured should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the committee member in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The committee member gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes adjuncty attempts to be let in, and he wears the committee member out with his requests. The committee member often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and adjuncty other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The adjunct, who has equipped himself with adjuncty things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the committee member. The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.” During the adjuncty years the adjunct observes the committee member almost continuously. He forgets the other committee members, and this one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the tenured. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud, later, as he grows old, he still mumbles to himself. He becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the committee member he has come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the committee member. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the tenured. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the committee member. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body. The committee member has to bend way down to him, for the great difference has changed things to the disadvantage of the adjunct. “What do you still want to know, then?” asks the committee member. “You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives after the tenured,” says the adjunct, “so how is that in these adjuncty years no one except me has requested entry?” The committee member sees that the adjunct is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.”

How is it untenable? How has the liberal arts been shown to be untenable? America spent ~50 years running a pretty solid higher education system, more or less, and that hasn't begun to struggle because the amount of tenured humanities professors crashed the system. Why do you say that this was an unstable situation from the start?
 

I'm not exactly excusing my ignorance here, but I had no idea that this stuff was going on until about...hmm, a year ago. In my defense, I come from a blue collar family, and I've always been told that education is the door to opportunity, or something like that. I suppose I'm the stereotypical sheltered child. I didn't even know what adjunct faculty were until I TA'd for them in undergrad, and even then, I unknowingly bought into the myth that they were adjuncts because they weren't good enough to get a better job. That's how my advisers treated them, anyway.    While I can't excuse my ignorance or terrible-if-uninformed thoughts about others, I can understand why the veterans on the GradCafe are tired of fielding this discussion over and over. The GradCafe is often the first step prospective applicants make towards graduate school. For people like me, it's our first wakeup call. Cue shock, denial, anger, etc.    I don't think I qualify as a forum veteran yet, but in the future, I'd like to recognize conversations like this and steer them in a more productive direction. I think it would be useful to say "Here's what the rest of us are doing--come fight for a better university with us." 

So in other words it's good enough for them to read while passing some time on the john, but not good enough to talk about in their precious workshops. I'd call that looking down.
 
As others have noted, I've heard U. Kansas, Southern Illinois, possibly Brown, and North Carolina State are amenable to genre fiction. Low res programs tend to be a lot more open to it, including Stonecoast, Seton Hill, Western State Colorado, Red Earth (Oklahoma City University), and Goddard.

So in other words it's good enough for them to read while passing some time on the john, but not good enough to talk about in their precious workshops. I'd call that looking down.
 
As others have noted, I've heard U. Kansas, Southern Illinois, possibly Brown, and North Carolina State are amenable to genre fiction. Low res programs tend to be a lot more open to it, including Stonecoast, Seton Hill, Western State Colorado, Red Earth (Oklahoma City University), and Goddard.

I'm not "lecturing" anyone. You're the one who insists on adopting an overly hectoring and, frankly, insulting and dismissive tone toward anyone who more or less agrees with the OP's central thesis.
 
How does restating the argument "Yeah, yeah, academia sucks but so does the rest of the world, so let's all throw our lives away anyway" over and over again solve anything, or even contribute anything to the discussion?
 
 
Not really. Success means being able to support yourself (and your family, if need be) by the fruits of your labors. Too many people adopt an all or nothing mentality... you have the blue collar folks saying it's all about being able to get a job and put food on the table, but you also have academics who are a little too complacent about the possibility of consigning themselves to a lifetime of poorly paid, part-time academic work. It's great to be able to "do what you love," but it's also pretty important to be able to do so while not ALSO having to live in your stereotypical grandma's basement.

What exactly are you afraid A is going to say to B? Because this is getting ridiculous. I don't know what you want to hear...

Hello! I've lived in Cruces for 8 years, and I graduated from both high school and NMSU with a BA there. I will gladly offer some information on the lovely Las Cruces, New Mexico. First and foremost, I like to refer to Cruces weather as "extremely hot and extremely cold with sprinkles of 'wtf was that?'" The summers you can expect to reach triple digits most of June and July, although July is our rainy season so the thunderstorms are a blessing. The weather stays nice and warm until mid-late October, where it stays nice and cool for a month before the temperatures drop to ~20-30 day time and teens or below at night. January is probably the coldest month, and you can expect nighttime temperatures of below zero and also some light snowfall and hazardous ice conditions. Please do be careful when driving during snow because, as we are a dry, arid climate, nobody prepares for or knows how to drive in icy conditions. April is windy season, where you will probably experience your first sandstorm. The demographics here are pretty even -- about 50% white and 50% hispanic. As we are about 40 minutes from the Mexican border, the environment is heavily hispanic (which means the best Mexican food and green chile of your life!). Still, most people still speak English. Las Cruces is kind of "college-towny" but there are also many professionals who are employed at White Sands missile range or NASA, and there are many families. The city is fairly low-income, which makes finding affordable housing rather easy. There are a lot of apartments within walking distance to NMSU and, if you choose to live farther away like I did, the university is still easily accessible because Las Cruces is directly on I-25, meaning you can just take the interstate and hit University Ave. on exit 6 The campus itself is pretty big and I always thought it was pretty, but I can see why many people might say it's plain. You have a beautiful view of the Organ Mountains from anywhere in Cruces, so that's always a plus. Nightlife in Cruces is amateur; many people go to El Paso (I-25; merge onto I-10 into El Paso; approx. 35 minutes) for the scene on the weekends. There is a bus system on campus that is free for all students. As far as parking, you can park in the free parking lot and a bus comes to take you to central NMSU every 15 minutes. I did this all four years and never paid a dime for parking passes! There are plenty of services for students on campus. Feel free to ask about anything else. I am happy to respond! (Sorry in advance for any typos. Im on my ipad).

I agree —I decided to apply last minute after some encouragement from the professor who offered to write me a rec letter. Two of my other recommendations were written by friends who weren't even writers. I had okay GRE scores, prepped intensively the week before and scored around the 95th percentile which I understand to be decent, but certainly not impressive. I also ended up writing my SoP the night before I submitted my apps (I had applied to 15 programs and decided at the last minute to take a creative approach to my SoP rather than the boilerplate "I'm interested in your school because... I have published work in.... yada yada yada"). 

Still, I know I would have gotten into more programs if I had done things by the book. I got into the programs that have a reputation for only looking at the manuscript, and rejections from many, many more. What I'm trying to say is, take everything seriously —there are so many programs that do look at everything, and weigh in on things like rec letters and whatnot. Ask your professors early, and make sure you tighten the hell out of your manuscript. Looking back, my manuscript was riddled with extra modifiers and instances of over-writing. Finish your manuscript a couple months early so you can put it in a drawer and look at it when you're totally removed, and apply a fine-tooth comb to every sentence. Mine was raw, raw, raw. I was extremely lucky that things turned out well for me. 

I also know for a fact that several major programs discourage their faculty from accepting students who apply straight out of college, and that for many programs, coming straight out of college is seen as a big red flag, as they prefer —in their words— students who are at least two to three years removed from college. If you are applying straight out of undergrad, as many people now seem to be, emphasize your maturity and worldliness. Many program directors will appreciate it. 

 

I'm not "lecturing" anyone. You're the one who insists on adopting an overly hectoring and, frankly, insulting and dismissive tone toward anyone who more or less agrees with the OP's central thesis.
 
How does restating the argument "Yeah, yeah, academia sucks but so does the rest of the world, so let's all throw our lives away anyway" over and over again solve anything, or even contribute anything to the discussion?
 
 
Not really. Success means being able to support yourself (and your family, if need be) by the fruits of your labors. Too many people adopt an all or nothing mentality... you have the blue collar folks saying it's all about being able to get a job and put food on the table, but you also have academics who are a little too complacent about the possibility of consigning themselves to a lifetime of poorly paid, part-time academic work. It's great to be able to "do what you love," but it's also pretty important to be able to do so while not ALSO having to live in your stereotypical grandma's basement.

WT: you had me until the end, when you seem to make a distinction between academics and HVAC: academics experience some happiness in their work, as opposed to those who are "tethered to a trade."

My dad is also an HVAC guy. He never finished tenth grade, but there's a lot of intellectualism that goes into his work. He enjoys analyzing problems and figuring out solutions. He was just visiting me last week, and it really struck me on how we are similar: we are obsessed with our line of work, completely immersed in these unfamiliar languages, and ecstatic at the opportunity to unpack whatever challenge is starring at us.

I took your post to mean that there's more esteem to our work because we find value in it; whereas, there's less to blue collar work because how could someone find value in that? Please let me know if I misinterpreted your post!

Also, ComeBackZinc, I don't know if I have officially said this yet, but congrats on your job!

The zombie gif is an apt one... we all think, on some level, that WE are the ones who will be able to get one of those "good jobs" in academia that are supposedly so (increasingly) few and far between, just as we all think we'd be one of the survivors adventuring our way through the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse. Every overweight person thinks they're going to be the one to lose all the weight one day. Every poor capitalism-loving Republican thinks they're the one who's going to one day strike it rich.
 
The bottom line is that there are more people in grad school than there are substantive jobs in academia. Academics don't retire, and new hires are overwhelmingly being brought on part-time. This is not a system that can sustain itself. To my mind, any institution that avoids hiring tenure-track faculty, while admitting grad students on anything other than a fully (and generously) funded basis, is ethically suspect. In fact I'd go so far as to say that they shouldn't admit any more non-funded grad students than they'd be willing to hire on a full-time basis themselves.
 
Now, of course, there will always be those who will STILL go to grad school, just as there will always be folks who pursue useless liberal arts degrees when they'd be better off getting an HVAC certification (or something), from an employability perspective. But that doesn't mean "the system" is thereby obligated to give these people enough rope to hang themselves. It also does no good to put the problem down to nebulous concerns of economic and political philosophy -- capitalism vs. socialism, etc. -- or to excuse the policies of school administrators based on the flimsy notion that "all organizations in a capitalist economy inevitably exploit their workers," however true that might be.

The zombie gif is an apt one... we all think, on some level, that WE are the ones who will be able to get one of those "good jobs" in academia that are supposedly so (increasingly) few and far between, just as we all think we'd be one of the survivors adventuring our way through the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse. Every overweight person thinks they're going to be the one to lose all the weight one day. Every poor capitalism-loving Republican thinks they're the one who's going to one day strike it rich.
 
The bottom line is that there are more people in grad school than there are substantive jobs in academia. Academics don't retire, and new hires are overwhelmingly being brought on part-time. This is not a system that can sustain itself. To my mind, any institution that avoids hiring tenure-track faculty, while admitting grad students on anything other than a fully (and generously) funded basis, is ethically suspect. In fact I'd go so far as to say that they shouldn't admit any more non-funded grad students than they'd be willing to hire on a full-time basis themselves.
 
Now, of course, there will always be those who will STILL go to grad school, just as there will always be folks who pursue useless liberal arts degrees when they'd be better off getting an HVAC certification (or something), from an employability perspective. But that doesn't mean "the system" is thereby obligated to give these people enough rope to hang themselves. It also does no good to put the problem down to nebulous concerns of economic and political philosophy -- capitalism vs. socialism, etc. -- or to excuse the policies of school administrators based on the flimsy notion that "all organizations in a capitalist economy inevitably exploit their workers," however true that might be.