johndiligent
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Posts posted by johndiligent
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I've said this before in the chat, but I'd love for someone in my family to take an interest in my applications. Instead, if I mention it, their eyes glaze over, and they just kind of stroke off. Typical conversation about apps in the Diligent household:
JOHN: What's new, Ma?
MA DILIGENT: Guess what Rob Thomas tweeted today? ....(insert spiel about Rob Thomas' kid or something). And what's new with you?
JOHN: Well, I've been trying to get in touch with one of my recommenders for grad school but he's not answer----
MA DILIGENT: (upon hearing the words "grad school", she immediately turns back to her computer). Oh, guess what Howie Mandel just tweeted?!
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Since this is our catch-all thread, I'll post my question here. With the humanities on the decline and with Classics being in a minority position within that shrinking category ('Gone are the days when all men who had claim to education and who in their various spheres moulded the current of events had a common background and training in the classics'), would you be willing to teach somewhere other than a 4 year university? What would be your Plan B if you receive a Ph.D and cannot find a job? Considering that the days are gone when "Harvard" or "Brown" written on your degree would secure your future, what are those of us who are going to second tier programs going to do after we graduate?
My plan B would be to teach at a private high school/college prep OR adjuncting at a couple of universities until I get tired of it. My SO and I will probably get married and she's getting her Ph.D in the sciences from a prestigious program. If we're still together, I can probably manage to work out something with the university she ends up at (and I would not be ashamed of that at all). If we're not together, then I've only got myself to worry about and I am the most frugal person I know (aside from my book budget).
I'm only applying to one Classics programme, but since I'm remaining on the periphery of Classics, may subsequently pursue a Classics PhD, and Religious Studies is in similar circumstances, I'm going to reply anyway.
I've not only heard horror stories but I've seen several close-up. One of my dearest friends got an ivy league PhD and has never managed to get a permanent position. It's not for lack of brains, teaching ability, publishing, or anything that he can control. He's simply never emerged the successful candidate and the further away he's gotten from his graduation year, the harder it's been to even get work as an adjunct.
Because of that, I'm fully conscious of the fact that I might as well be embarking on a mission to become a famous actor as a tenure-track Humanities professor. It's always going to be my first goal and in lieu I'd always want to adjunct but I get that it's a long shot.
I've got a series of back-up plans, in no particular order:
B: Teaching in high-school/CC
C: Working in a museum
D: A second PhD in a more employable field
E: Working in archaeology at some level (including managing archaeological collections)
F: Tour guide for a historic site related to my field
G: Host a History Channel, Discovery Civilization, etc. show
H: Consultant for History Channel, Discovery Civilization, etc. programming or movies set in antiquity
I: Writing popular books on historical, religious and classical themes
J: Travel writing
K: Found and own an eco-tourism company or wilderness survival school
L: Move to a kibbutz in Israel. Stay there.
M: Antiquities dealer (I'd have to check some principles first).
N: Antiquities forger (OK, a LOT of principles)
O: Edit/publish popular books on historical, religious and classical themes
P: Do the game show circuit, making money with my trivia(l) skills.
Q: Open a cool coffee shop in a high-traffic graduate student area so that I can essentially be the Barman Tom who serves as their confidante, unofficial dissertation advisor, and warning. I'll frame all the acknowledgments and put them on the wall and eventually it'll be that famous place where Hip Young Scholars wrote their dissertations.
R: Stand-up comedian. It's essentially the professorate, just people pay less (or more, depending on how you look at it) to listen to you ramble.
S: Become a professional adventurer.
T: Use the winnings from P to support myself while I crack Linear A. (Unlikely, but what the hell)
U: Write a book on how to secure a tenure-track position. If it sells a single copy, feast off of the irony for a lifetime.
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Whoa whoa. People here amaze me. I want to interview y'all
I actually find it kind of heart-warming to hear some soul out there shares my supposedly unique quirk. It's a tiny (but possibly very deep) human connection! I can imagine feeling "scooped" if you've always been proud of your uniqueness, but that's not really how I feel. As a psychology dork, I like to explain that according to the Self-Determination Theory, my relatedness needs are stronger than my autonomy needs
Haha, I wasn't saying that in fear of being scooped or anything, I'm just saying that it's very hard to come up with something about yourself that absolutely no one else has experienced or could identify with! People usually have far more in common than they realise.
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I'll miss it but at this juncture I'm not sure I won't be around again next year, applying again.
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I'd sit on that knowledge and use it in the event that you're waitlisted somewhere. If you find out you're waitlisted, you can send them a letter detailing the things you've been doing since you've submitted your application, and put that front and centre.
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I have 16 W's! Beat that, kids! I hate it when people post here asking if 1 W is going to hurt their application. Not that they don't, just I get to multiply that by 16.
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Yeah, I imagine profs take it on with good intentions, then get slammed with work and then the LOR gets pushed further and further down the To Do list. But, seriously, I asked him ten months ago and gave him the materials in August. There had to be a minute or two sometime in the last five months. And if he was honestly too busy to do them, he should have told me that a long time ago. I'm not that scary, honestly. And that would have given me time to ask someone else.
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There's a similar post down in the Officially Grads section with tons of responses in case you don't get many here.
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The problem with this post is we're all going to say something that we *think* is unique about us, only to have other people comment and say, "Me too!"
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I've had two deadlines so far (December 1 and January 5) and I have two very conscientious LOR writers who, while sending them just in time for the deadline, have still sent them.
I have another LOR writer who hasn't sent either of them yet. I thought he had sent the Dec 1 because I'd called him around Dec 15 and he very earnestly swore that he had sent it. I made the mistake of believing him. I contacted the secretary for the Dec 1 deadline today: it's never been received. It's 38 days late now.
I e-mailed him this afternoon, told him it hasn't been received and asked him to "resend" the letter. He hasn't replied. Now I'm definitely starting to think he has no intention of even sending any of my letters.
So here's my question: why do professors agree to write letters when they have no intention of ever doing them? Is it so hard to say no to student requests?
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potential advisors
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My application regrets:
1. I wish I'd gotten everything underway a little sooner. I wasn't bad in terms of timeline but I wish I'd done more in depth research like contacting faculty sooner so that I wasn't still striking schools off the list in late October.
2. I wish I would have applied to more schools.
3. I wish I'd seriously investigated application fee waivers.
4. I wish I had asked more senior scholars in the discipline for advice on where to go.
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Does anyone know the dates of the interview weekend for Emory? Or any of the other schools you are applying to?
Don't know. I'm not expecting interviews in my subject area. Overall, I think interviews are fairly rare in the humanities, relative to social science or the hard sciences.
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Plus I think EVERYONE should be in therapy.
Exactly. Especially graduate students.
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Absolutely. You won't get in anywhere now.
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Of course, I'm kidding! A small indentation error? You have nothing to worry about! In fact, it's so clear you have nothing to worry about because you've obviously been looking hard and a slight over-indentation was all you came up with. I strongly doubt any grad school would even notice or care.
I think Douglas Adams said it best: DON'T PANIC.
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Sure, he's right in one sense. The humanities are dying - especially at places like Hope College. But they're dying because they've lost the vision informed by Christian theological tradition that grounded liberal humanistic inquiry in the first place. Check out Quality With Soul. And don't study "religion." Read theology and go to church. You'll have a much better shot at finding work in a confessionally moored institution. Though that will require you to commit yourself to having convictions. . . .and, well,nihilists do struggle with that!. . . . Even Jeff Stout, a card-carrying atheist, would agree with the approach that you have to give up being a relativist to get a job.
Small price to pay if you ask me. Or no price at all.
Oh dear. I suspect I'm swallowing bait by responding to this, but there's certainly a difference between studying Religion and studying Theology for one, let alone a difference between studying religion and attending church. You're right, I might have a great deal of success finding work in a confessional institution (though I actually wouldn't for one teensy detail mentioned below), but you might as well say that I'd have a great deal of success finding work as a marine biologist for all it has to do with what I want to do for a living.
I'm studying religion as a social force in antiquity. My job isn't to make value judgments about early Christian theology, or to figure out how early Christian theology informs today's theology, or to look into early Christian records for evidence of Jesus's divinity or lack thereof. It's to study how early Christians behaved in the context of Greco-Roman society. What they believed is only important insofar as it motivates said behaviour. I definitely don't care whether early Christian beliefs have any ground in theological truth. That's absolutely irrelevant to me, and - I think - would hinder my ability to carry out historical research in an objective way.
For what it's worth, I'm Jewish not a nihilist. And atheists get cards now?
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I think you should call your school's counselling office and set up an appointment ASAP. You need to talk to a professional to work out your anxiety and suicidal ideation. If you don't talk to someone who can help soon, it's only going to get worse. I'm sorry to paint it that bleak, but I'm very serious that you need to get some counselling. Call tomorrow morning.
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I'd add that the difference between the scenarios listed in the NY Times article and grad school applications is that with undergrad acceptances, chances are very, very high that you have peers who also applied to the same school and will get rejected. With grad school applications, it's much easier to keep track of who on your friends list is in the same field (if anyone), applied to the same programme (if anyone), in the same year (if anyone) and avoid hurting their feelings (if any).
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I'm wondering about social network postings, actually - how many of you will post acceptances publicly on Facebook?
I knew a girl who thought it very uncouth to post results on F-book. She was modest and preferred to tell people only if they asked directly, plus she said she felt some animosity from people who didn't get into their schools. But then again, isn't this what social networks are for? Sharing news? There was an article in the NY Times about it, the writer thought it base to post college acceptances:
"Accepted, Rejected or Deferred? Keep the Answer Off Facebook."
I think it's totally okay to post at least where you decide to go, just maybe not a list like, "Look at all my acceptances!"
I don't think it's necessarily uncouth since you'll likely update your Facebook details in September to say where you're going to school/working/living anyway so it's not going to remain a secret for very long. Of course, there are other reasons you might not want to share it, like if you have fellow applicants on your Facebook who have just received a rejection or may well soon or you're cautious about sharing personal information on Facebook anyway.
If accepted, I'll probably post it on Facebook but I'm not even going to pretend to care about the etiquette of so doing. I just want people who have wished me ill academic will over the years to read it and weep. Or at least I'd like them to stew on it for fifteen minutes or so.
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I thought about writing, but what do I say? I submitted my application?
I did write to say that I had submitted my application, and when I did I attached my updated CV and SOP to the e-mail... that way it was right there, they didn't have to hunt for it, and it was easier to associate me with those documents. In every case, the advisor read the documents right away, then responded with reactions to it (like, that they were intrigued by paper X that I presented at some conference or other) or they sent me articles that they had written related to the sort of work they'd seen on the CV or asked follow-up questions about language preparation, that sort of thing. I highly recommend doing so.
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This reminds me..
Last year, a friend of mine, while checking his email during a stats class (one he was desperately trying not to fail, and where everyone thought he was complete idiot), saw that he had gotten into a PHD in physics at his dream school.
In the middle of the class, he stood up, gave his astonished peers a beaming smile while crumpling up the graph he'd been working on, then stuck his tongue out to the teacher and walked out.
now that's what i call a victory dance.
Haha, wow, I love it.
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*lol* If they've ever been a grad student, they'll probably buy you a latte to celebrate!
I figure it'll be someone who speaks little to no English, won't understand why I'm jumping around excitedly and shouting at them, and they'll either run away or punch me. It'll be awesome.
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Too adult, literally. I work in an adult boutique.
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Yup, rereading the letter again and again to make sure it's real will be the first,second third, and eighth thing I do.
The positives thread
in Waiting it Out
Posted
I won the major undergraduate award in my field despite the fact that it was only my minor.
I've done several independent studies.
I've well-versed in my subject area and I think that comes across in the SOP.
I have field experience and lots of research experience.
I did a teaching internship in my prospective discipline.
All of my applications are well-targeted with strong fits.
I have a high GPA in my prospective discipline (3.93)
I have more language training than most RS applicants.
Thanks for doing this. I'd forgotten that there were positives in my apps.