bakalamba

I agree, there's no reason to pursue a PhD, or even an EdD, if you're that burnt out in academics. Another benefit of waiting to do the EdD is that many CCs will reimburse part of the tuition for fulltime staff or faculty (the one I've been working at in between graduate programs pays for 1/2). I think the experience would also greatly improve your chance in being accepted to top EdD programs, and improve the quality of your studies because you would have several years of experience with CC students, administration, and the organization of CCs to enrich your learning. My ultimate interest is research, but I took breaks in between my Bachelors, Masters, and PhD, and am really happy that I did.

It's not inappropriate, if you're upfront about it. If it's an issue for any of your professors, then you can find others to alternate. I agree with the previous comments, that you should do everything to make sure the process is the easiest for them. For a few, I provided a "talking points" list that reminded them of the classes/seminars I took with them, my career interests and academic background, etc. I only applied to 7 programs, but if I could do it again, I would have done my research and figured out how many of them use submission forms (all of them did) and let at least one of my rec writers know about that before the process. He was happy to recommend me but agreed with me that the forms were a pain.

It's feasible. I'm not a rider, but I'm assuming you should be fairly experienced to be safe in LA, as its car culture doesn't always respect (or even see) motorcyclists and bicyclists. But at least you can ride in between cars and to the right of the carpool lane, which would help (and also having a more flexible academic schedule, where you don't necessarily have to subject yourself to rush hours). Besides the freeway, there are some fun routes to get through the hills. The Valley directly north of UCLA can be a little boring, and it's generally always more warm (and not a cool beach breezy warmth). Unfortunately, at my time at UCLA, I wasn't aware of many graduate students who live in the Valley (although others lived farther, like Pasadena, due to spousal/family arrangements), so I can't really share more. I think it's feasible.

Not strange at all. I went on a three day national park trip with an undergrad group. It works if grad students step down from their high horse before joining.

I guess the World Cup is a great place for us Americans to learn about geography for once. And that Ivory Coast has qualified for the last three World Cups. Where was Ireland? And why is a country lame after you just found out it existed?

Graduate student. If questioned, I'll tell them it's in Education, but I get wary of this because there's usually two responses: 1) "You're a teacher!" 2) "Let me tell you how to solve the problems of school/University/the entire U.S. education system". I agree with Geodude, I think volunteering MA or PhD is pretentious, unless it's necessary. When I visit elementary or middle schools for research, I tell them I'm in 20th grade, and watch them do the math in their heads.

I once tutored a college student, and it was a disaster. Originally I was helping her write an essay on three books she hadn't even cracked open - I guess she never heard about Cliffs Notes. Turns out she was buying all of her essays online, and *not even reading them* before turning them in - she got D's on all of them because they were complete gibberish, with no transitions in between paragraphs or even within sentences. The references were incorrectly cited and very strangely sourced. I had to draw the line about my role, than I wasn't going to participate in writing anything for her, but her expectations for other people to do her work were so overwhelming that I stopped working with her. It seems students do this when they're overwhelmed with deadlines, because they put off everything until late, or were sick or had some issue during the semester. They do it because their friends do it. Some even pay a monthly subscription to these sites to get a discount on individual papers. The non-scam sites work so well it's scary - you get a watermarked copy and can request changes, and even get an entire dissertation (of gibberish) written. To excuse it with laziness or the free market is to miss the point. If someone is lazy and doesn't want to clean their dorm, they can hire someone to do that. But when in college there is the expectation (and requirement) that your work should be original. But more importantly, if you get used to fudging the rules in college, where does it stop? When you're employed, is it acceptable to pass off someone's project or work as yours? Or write a report that's copy and pasted from somewhere else? Or, if the deadline is approaching, can't you just mix up some numbers and balance out the account? I understand there's a spectrum between getting help and lightly borrowing ideas, but I've seen some pretty blatant essay purchasing. And to not even read it before handing it off as your own...

With those regions and interests, you'll find good fits in a lot of programs. I'd also look into the University of Toronto, as I've heard there's a strong African focus with Dr. Karen Mundy there. My interests are in community schools and primary education in Zambia and bordering countries, where I worked and taught with the Peace Corps a few years ago. I'm going to the University of Minnesota in a few months, where there is a strong focus in that area and active research projects. I took a few years away from working internationally and studying, so I'm looking forward to getting back in the fray.

What's your regional interest? Often this will define what programs you apply to and how much you'll get out of your Masters. For example, if your background is in East Asia, and you want to continue working internationally there, I'd find a program with one or more faculty who work in that area - this fit between you and the faculty/program certainly helps during admissions as well. And do you have a preference for where the University is? From your list it looks like you'd like to stay in a city on the East or West coast. But if you'd like to cast your net wider in a geographical sense, here are some of the programs I applied to or looked into (most have a focus in Africa in addition to other regions, because that's my area of research): Pittsburgh University, Social and Comparative Analysis - historically strong program if you're interested in Comparative International work Michigan State, Ed Policy - although the program is mostly domestic, there are faculty and students doing international work. Well funded department. Minnesota - they have a Comparative/International track in their OLPD department. Faculty in Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia, and the program focuses on international education projects, so there's a strong practical component. Wisconsin Madison - Concentration in Comparative International Education; they have a strong critical Ed Policy department with top names. Loyola Chicago - They have MA degrees in International Higher Ed and Cultural/Educational Policy Studies, don't know much more. Indiana Bloomington - MSEd in International/Comparative Education UMass Amherst - MEd in International Education

You're homeschooling three kids three days a week while in a Masters program? All power to you.

I second: lots around LAX, and cheaper than around UCLA. I think you have to take the Yelp reviews critically, public storage is something one would only review if they had a bad experience. Just make sure you update your contact information and payment info, or put a friend's name there if you travel abroad, you wouldn't want to see your stuff on Storage Wars.

Peterson's might have the info. Just do a search for the school and department to avoid getting matched with one of their sponsored programs. For example, here's the UCLA Department of Education's stats. The only problem is that it isn't broken down by program (I think you'd have to contact them directly for that kind of info).

Endnote handles references and citations. Evernote, despite the similar name, is a non-academic tool where you can save notes, quotes, ideas, pictures of books, highlight articles while you read them, and have all of these notes synced across devices. I haven't used Endnote, but use Zotero and Mendeley (these two can work together, I believe). Zotero is like a bookmarking tool for references. I'm not convinced Endnote has enough features for it to cost $110 more than Mendeley and Zotero (which are free). But I haven't used it to compare the three. I'm sure there are good comparisons out there.

I second Evernote, I use it to take class notes on my laptop and quick notes on my mobile. When you save an article or website, you can clip part of it, or convert it to an easy-to-read format that you can highlight while you read (they make a separate browser app called Evernote Clearly that just makes online articles easy to read). I haven't used the mobile version of Mendeley, because it's not on Android yet, but I dig the desktop and web components. It's like iTunes for references, mostly journal articles and PDFs. Any.do is my favorite to-do list. It semi-aggressively reminds me of things I'd probably forget otherwise. Pretty good integration with other apps. I'm using Google Drive more than Office Mobile and Dropbox; the features get better and better. IFTTT can be great when you want to do something across platforms, devices, or websites that may be difficult to do otherwise. I use it to automatically set my phone to silent when I get to campus, turn it back on at home. You can have it send you notifications by SMS if you get an important email or back up photos and files across platforms. I just got an Android app called Aviate, it changes your homescreen based on where you are (so when I'm at work/campus I only see icons for work or study apps, when I'm on the move I get appropriate apps as well, etc.). So far it's pretty useful, it automatically decides what category an app belongs in and when to show it to you based on your own usage, so you don't need to spend time organizing your home screen. I use Feedly to stay updated with news in the world, and blogs/feeds related to my field (but also personal interests as well). If I see something I like on Feedly or anywhere else on the web, I save it to Pocket to read later on my phone, computer, or tablet. Too bad they don't allow highlighting. Google Goggles may be useful, but I haven't used it too much. You can take pictures of stuff, it will recognize barcodes and those QR codes that everyone is putting on everything, but also will read text. Apparently you can do the same thing with the Amazon app - take a picture of a book or its barcode and see what their price is. Google Translate's app is surprisingly useful - you can also take a picture of something in a foreign language and will translate it, or pass the phone back and forth to a friend and it will translate from one language to the other (haven't been in a situation where I could use this, but it's neat anyways). I use Memrise a lot on the desktop to quickly remember important terms and foreign language vocabulary, their mobile app is improved. There's also Duolingo if you want free language lessons in the top 5 most commonly taught languages (German, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, French, I think). And, of course, no grad life would be complete without helpful free time apps: Untappd (for finding and rating beers), Vivino (same thing for wine, you can take a picture of the label to see if it's good or rate it), and Happy Hours (find happy hours right now in your area - what better way to use a phone?).

I agree. And you can ask about less common fee waivers. The fee for one of my applications was waived because I was a Peace Corps volunteer.

I applied to 7 programs as well (you should have seen the list before I narrowed it down). It was expensive, but totally worth it - in the end, my options were narrowed down by the schools and visits to those that accepted me. And I wasn't left with the feeling that I could have gotten into programs that I ruled out earlier on. And most of these are public Universities, so the fees shouldn't be so bad (I'm still regretting having paid Harvard's $100 fee more than once, but then again, you never really know your chances of winning unless you play the game).

It's totally appropriate. In the past I've emailed the graduate coordinators so I can contact other students: there's certainly things they can tell you that faculty may not disclose or even consider important. And presumably they'll only give you contact info for students who want to be contacted, although there is certainly more reason for them to talk with you, since you're already in the program (I did the bulk of contacting students in the application/acceptance phase).

I'd go where the funding is - particularly if you need the time to shoot and edit films, it's probably not doable if you're working part-time as well. It's true, LA is a series of interconnected cities and villages, and not having a car will limit your ability to move from one to another easily. On the other hand, traffic sucks, and there are certain disadvantages to owning a car and having a daily commute. I'd offer different advice if you were going to UCLA, but USC is closer to downtown, has a rail line connected it to downtown and, so far, one part of West LA. I know a lot of international students who survive in LA, and even flourish, without owning a car: there's buses everywhere that make the sprawl somewhat manageable, there's zipcars and cheap car rentals for weekends or important trips, and there's lyft and uber as well. People who don't drive make the effort to find apartments in more walkable areas like Silverlake, Midcity, Hollywood, even Chinatown. I admit that biking isn't what it should be, compared to other cities, but it's getting better, there are more lanes and bike routes than before. I can't speak too much about the film scene, but LA has a great art scene, so it's not completely commercialized by Hollywood. And undoubtedly there will be more connections to independent film and documentaries through USC. Good luck with whichever program you choose. I just wanted to provide a counterpoint for LA, it's a great city once you get a feel for it.

Their online system for tests is different than the one used for online classes. It works well most of the time.

I found out my school (a UC) offers this kind of service through their career center. However, I found nearly all of my applications require online recommendation forms, and only take physical letters in rare occasions. I feel bad for making my LOR writers slog through seven "rate the applicant along a scale of 5" forms.

This is kind of a broad focus and unique program. I'm not sure if there's anything like this, since it covers a lot of different fields. But if you're interested more in business, broadcasting, or museum studies, you can look at programs that focus on one of these, look for faculty with interest in children's media or literature, and bring your interest there. I know there are children's literature programs, but it's possible they are more for teachers or writers. Or why not look into child development programs? You also might want to investigate how intense the concentration of Arts & Media is: having attended a Masters program with a specific concentration in Cultural Studies in Education, I found that this focus was clear on the website but more blurred in the program. If you're in a MA program with a cohort of 10-12 people, at most, and there's 4, 5, or 6 concentrations, you might be one of two, or the only one, with that particular focus. There's Schools of Ed like Columbia that have dozens of specific Masters programs, and I wonder how useful these degrees are, if students find internships, and whether there's adequate faculty to represent these interests. I'm not saying Universities do this, but it sometimes seems like they subdivide their degrees into every possible interest to attract paying MA students. A question to ask while you look into programs is: does this track or concentration exist as neatly in reality as it does on the website? I'd also look into Vanderbilt's program more, specifically the curriculum. While it has all those careers on its website, the classes in that track look like ones you'd take with Child Development or Teaching program elsewhere: Children's Literature, Drama, Teaching Early Childhood Reading. If you haven't already, I'd ask people in the field you'd like to get into what their background is and how they got there. Good luck!

I can't really speak to how your GRE or GPA will affect your admission, but I'd suggest worrying more about fit with the program, whether it's in the top 10, 11-25, etc., and crafting your application around a specific focus that matches the department you're applying to. I think your work experience and research background will help make up for a low undergrad GPA and GRE, to a point. I think fit is a big deal, particularly with PhD. I'm also interested in international education policy, but in a different continent, so the programs I applied to last year tended to have a focus on that area. Apparently there's a historical divide within education schools, which at some point decided to focus on various regions, so you might find this reflected in the schools that you're interested in. I didn't pay too much attention to ranking, but rather used my connections to see which faculty was working in my area, and also asked these faculty if they recommended other programs (surprisingly, most responded well to this and dropped names of other faculty members and programs). I also looked for a strong area studies program at the University. I'd be happy to share what I know about international ed policy programs - which ones are you looking into? Some of the schools I looked into and applied to included Michigan State (strong ed policy with some international work, great funding), Minnesota (bias: I'm going here, however it has a strong African focus), Wisconsin Madison (strong critical focus, cultural studies, poor funding), Stanford (strong, competitive), Pittsburgh (rebuilding their international program and restructuring funding, may change for next year), University of Washington, Penn State, Indiana Bloomington, UCSB (don't know much about these last four but they all have programs in international education, comparative education, or cultural foundations).

Have you tried contacting them? I would call them to check on the status of your application.

My excitement and ennui come in waves. There was the initial excitement of getting into programs - Oh my god! I actually got into one! two! three! this year - coupled with actually visiting the programs after being accepted - Wow! They don't just exist on paper and websites, there's people here in actual buildings, imagine that - to having months to procrastinate moving, cleaning my house, making arrangements. Luckily I had a job that's a sinecure, but it gives me too much time to speculate and research little things - how close would the nearest coffee shop or Trader Joes be? What's the bike route vs bus route vs walking vs driving? I agree heartily with parsimmony, but I'm looking forward to exchanging my free afternoons for not having to wake up at 6 AM every morning, and replacing a pretty fixed schedule with something more flexible. Being able to take a long walk in the morning, exchanging a cubicle for a library, coffee shop, living room. I think as things start becoming more real to me - and this may not happen until my stuff is in boxes and I'm driving across the country - the excitement and nervousness will become more palatable. After speculating about going back to school for three years, it hasn't dawned on me yet that I'm actually moving and attending.

It seems like you interests fit well. I think you'd do well with either SSCE or HEOC, there's significant overlap between these two programs, and students take classes in the other program pretty frequently. The faculty of the two even publish together (specifically Robert Rhoads and Carlos Torres). When I was there, there's many students interested in Higher Ed in SSCE; because of the Comparative Education focus, many have interest in studying colleges and universities internationally. I think the K-12 / Higher Ed split is kind of an artificial separation that was made somewhere in the formation of education graduate schools, but I think SSCE bridges it pretty well. If you're applying for the MA, I think either would be great. For the PhD, you'd be better if you figured out which faculty member you want to advise you, and choose their program. I don't want to drop names, but the SSCE Graduate Advisor is very helpful - if she can't help you with sitting in a class, I'm sure she could refer you to the right person. And if faculty meets you, I think they're more likely to respond to emails in the future (or you could just ask your questions after class). Ask them about other faculty members who might share your interests: then you can email them with a "Prof. So-and-so referred me to you" comment. Good luck