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Academicat

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Everything posted by Academicat

  1. Love seeing all the super-excited new beginnings posts in the status updates!

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  2. Threeboysmom, maybe my experience will reassure you a little. I'm a little older than the typical student, and I wasn't in a position to move out of my area for my MA. Many of my classmates in grad school were in a similar position, some with kids, some returning to school after a long career in another field (one was a lawyer turned writer). We were a pretty motley crew, but I don't think any of us felt like we were missing out on the grad school experience - we all shared a big bullpen office, worked collaboratively, and shared frustrations and successes. Do you have an assistantship so that you'll be teaching with your cohort? That really helped us cohere as a group.
  3. Ahhh, I want to come play, too, but I won't be at the TA orientation because I'm on fellowship my first year. If y'all go get a beer afterward, let me know.
  4. The rumors are partially true. Cindy Selfe is retiring in two years. She agreed to be my joint advisor (I have a second) because she won't be around for my whole PhD. I'm pleased to get to work with her in any capacity because she was a large part of the appeal of OSU.
  5. WOOT! I just accepted an invitation to join Sweetland's Digital Rhetoric Collaborative Graduate Fellow Cohort for the upcoming school year! Any other GCers doing this?

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  6. Also, Proflorax, you make me want to see San Jose. That all sounds AWESOME.
  7. Elanit, I am in a similar situation. I moved here when my contract at my old job ended, which was early in the summer. I wouldn't say that I've been bored in Columbus because there's been so much to explore (and so much to unpack), but I have felt a little lost socially - moving to a new city is always disorienting like that. What has really helped me connect with people is meetup.com. It's like a hub of searchable clubs in your area, and it's usually free (though a small handful of groups do charge dues). I've met with people who like hiking and board games (and then actually gone and hiked or gamed with them), which has satisfied my social itch. San Jose's Meetup looks like it's got some pretty cool groups, so you could check that out to pass the time before school starts. I've also stumbled upon a pretty awesome creativity co-op in my city (for anyone in Cbus, www.wildgoosecreative.com is awesome), and they hold events/classes almost nightly, and again, many of them are free. There might be something like that in your area, too. I'm interested to know what you find, so let us know!
  8. The move was a move - it was cross-country (South to North), in a uHaul with my fiance and our two cats in the cab, but we made it and we LOVE it here. The city's full of pleasant surprises. Let's definitely meet up once you're here.
  9. Hey y'all - I'm here already and exploring the city. If you're here early, too, let's hang out and find something new in Cbus.
  10. I'm going to deviate from the English teacher stereotype: At least in the US, our houses are packed to the gills with unnecessary things, and books are just a few more. We have libraries full of books, public libraries that will not get funding if they don't have our support. If I can, I avoid buying books. If I borrow a book and find it especially useful for reference or re-readable for pleasure, then I'll track down a copy - used, if possible. I do keep a shelf or so of books, but when it starts getting overfull, I purge my bookshelves and sell them or donate to charity. I have a decent little collection of comp/rhet reference books that I've gotten free from publishers over the years, but honestly, when I need those articles, I access them via databases anyhow because .pdfs are searchable, so I question keeping them. So, my take - if you really feel attached to that particular book for some reason other than, "it's a book and the number of books I own are a direct reflection on my status as an intellectual" then by all means, keep it, but ask yourself whether it's really worth more stuff in an already suffocatingly consumerist society. Of course, society could collapse any minute. All the libraries could close and some evil government organization could orchestrate a book burning a la Fahrenheit 451, and all human knowledge could be on the brink of being lost forever if not for the hoarded books of a few wise individuals, and if this is the case, my bad.
  11. Thanks for the elaboration, TakerUK. You hit the essense of what I was trying to say on the nose - someone who lives a life free from obligation to others wouldn't have to consider the financial impact of the decision to go to grad school as carefully as someone whose life is tangled up with the lives of others, so I will modify my previous comment - people with wealth can afford the liberty of going to school purely for the joy of learning, but so can people free of obligations to other people. Victory - my intention wasn't to dismiss your experience, and I apologize if it came off that way. It was just attempting to explain my own because you expressed confusion about it. In a nut shell, I just can't ignore that voice of obligation to family. I understand that not everyone has the same values as I do, as Takeruk pointed out. I'm just one voice in this conversation trying to listen and be heard.
  12. I would leave stuff like that until you can fill up the space with so much other more awesome and relevant experience that there isn't room left for the non-field related jobs.
  13. Let me be more plain. I am a first generation college student who comes from a blue collar family, and most of the people in my immediate and extended family are scraping together enough to get by. They didn't put me through college. I worked/loaned my way through college. Every illness, every car repair, and every unexpected expense is a Big Deal when you're living below the poverty line, and doubly so when most of your family is also living below the poverty line. Luckily, I planned carefully and had good mentors, so when I finished my MA, I was able to secure a full time position, pay off the loans, and help my family out. For you, that 5-7 years of earning capacity might not mean anything, but for me and my family, money matters. Money only doesn't matter when you've always had enough.
  14. I think you'll find that most of our reasons involve learning, but aren't solely about learning. Only the very privileged and wealthy can afford to go to graduate school purely for the pursuit of knowledge without considering the practical implications of the decision. We gotta eat, dude, and this far into the game, we can't afford to be naive.
  15. I'm going to grad school because I have a fundamental intellectual curiosity and desire to be part of the scholarly conversation, and I know a PhD will both help me become part of the discourse and will situate me to land a job that actually PAYS me to do so. The PhD will also give me the clout necessary to go to bat for programs that are important for students' development as writers, programs which have historically been marginalized because it's difficult (but not impossible) to assess their benefit. The PhD is necessary for gravitas. I'm going to grad school because I've been watching my field (Comp/Rhet) grow over the past ten years, and I've noticed that job postings are more and more requiring PhDs, so if I want to continue to do the work in writing centers that I've been doing without limiting my options, I need a terminal degree. In short, my reasons for going to grad school are not because I love books or writing (though I do), or because I wax poetic about wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches and discussing rhetoric all day (though tweed is cool), but because I care about people and ensuring they have the tools to be the most awesome versions of themselves as possible. I am getting a PhD because the education allows me the opportunity to stretch and grow in new and challenging ways that will let me continue doing the work I love to do with writing centers and the writers who come through their doors.
  16. If a graduate fellow application asks you to "express your reasons for wanting" the position, do they REALLY want to know why you want it, or do they actually want you to tell them why you'd be awesome at it, and if the second, then why not just ASK that?

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    1. Imaginary

      Imaginary

      Why not just answer both questions? I.e. the position in ... is particularly interesting to me because ... and I am also well suited to the job because a,b, and c.

    2. Academicat

      Academicat

      Done and done. The phrasing of the question just made me chuckle. I put that question on an application for tutors at a community college once and learned my lesson when I got very literal responses about how the applicant was a working mother/tired of living off of his parents/really wanted a job where he could study at work.

    3. Imaginary

      Imaginary

      Haha. Yeah.

  17. Hm. Good question. I think, for myself, I tend to undersell and underestimate the importance of my accomplishments. It helps me to talk to colleagues about how they'd describe my work and use their responses to gauge how to weigh it in the CV/cover letter. Nobody writes well in a vacuum - there's no shame in seeking advice. In fact, it's silly not to, especially with such a high stakes document.
  18. I would factor in how likely you are to find a job immediately upon graduation and how much that job is likely to pay. How's the placement rate in your program? The faster you pay off the loans, the less you pay on interest.
  19. Hey VincentO - I don't think I have an issue with creating one. Can you clarify what you're asking? Are you taking about technical issues with the challenge of crafting a written document? Are you talking about some sort of reservations based on privacy concerns? What do you mean?
  20. If you go the editable .pdf route, Mendeley is a great tool for keeping your research organized.
  21. Above poster is right. You'll want your writing sample to reflect your research interests, so write about a poet and use an approach that closely aligns with whatever you talk about in your SOP. Good luck. You'll be awesome!
  22. I thought I needed some sort of catchy hook as well, based on the books and articles I'd read about personal statements. I changed my mind when I talked to colleagues who had gotten into good programs and read their personal statements. I realized that the kind of hook I was trying to write would sound cheesy compared to what they were writing and that, for my field, a more direct opening was the norm. You might want to take a look at the personal statements of some friends who are a few years ahead of you before banging your head against a wall trying to come up with a non-hokey sounding hook. If nothing else, start with a strong statement that showcases your awesomeness as an applicant rather than a quote that is only tangentially related to your suitability for the program. Here's what I ended up coming up with for an introduction after many, many revisions. It's a strong, direct statement that showcases my strengths as an applicant. Keep in mind, this is what personal statements in my field look like, but psychology may be different: I’ve been immersed in writing centers for over a decade – for most of my academic and professional careers – as a writer, a director, and most recently, as the coordinator of several writing centers across three campuses. This body of experience reinforces my belief in the mission of writing centers – that learning takes place collaboratively and that all writers need readers. As a natural extension of my work, my research interests include the intersection of writing centers and multiliteracies – specifically, how writing centers are evolving both in structure and in practice to support multimodal composers, in many cases, organically shifting from a space of revision to a space of production, and to a studio model that encourages increased group collaboration alongside the traditional one-on-one approach. In light of an increasingingly multiliterate culture, my goal is to investigate, and potentially answer the question of what the “new normal” of writing center studies is going to look like in face of the technology revolution – we are already seeing whispers of the changes that are yet to come. Hope this helps!
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