ExponentialDecay

Are y'all still PIs if this is not a lab situation tho? Of course you should ask him for a LOR. Why would it be inappropriate for him to know what other programs you're applying to? He could give you advice on that, even.

Knowing that you are a troll is kind of an essential part of trolling, no? Trolling means intentionally riling people up by saying shit you know they won't like. I guess you could say we've been newbed?

Ah, you sweet summer child. The stupidity and delusion of some people truly knows no bounds. Such people also often find themselves asking individualized questions in anonymous internet forums.

A bit of practical advice. Philosophy is very prestige-driven at all levels. The Philosophy forum here does a good job explaining this, as do a few philosophy admissions blogs (which I also recommend you research), but to summate, the overwhelming majority of TT and respectable NTT jobs go to PhDs from the elite schools, and the overwhelming majority of PhD spots at elite schools go to graduates of elite undergrad and sometimes masters programs. We're talking, like, 1:20 odds here. With that in mind, an online master's program that doesn't require the GRE probably isn't going to cut it. If you're gonna make a serious attempt, you're probably going to have to sacrifice and go brick and mortar, full-time, expect to move around the country, etc. I don't know how feasible that is for you.

A full-time job in academia is by definition a dream job. This isn't the only field where that is a true statement. Like, welcome to reality? Also, come on, I was under the impression that I'm talking to an adult with a PhD, not a college freshman to whom I have to explain essential terms. I did not call you a loser by virtue of saying that you played the game and lost. I stated a fact. In other words, you took a big risk and the big risk didn't pan out. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with mathematics. People lose all the time, and it's okay. People lose jobs, loved ones, money on the stock market - and it's all a part of life. It's not a judgment of your character, intelligence, ability, or whatever is important to you. It's also a neutral statement with regards to "the system": whether or not these probabilities are just and fair, these are the probabilities, and this time they did not work out in your favor. It's as non judgmental a statement as anyone can make in this situation. That you are a mature specimen and still can't deal with failure says everything about you and nothing about me. It's really fucking rich that you try to paint me as some neoliberal shitlord, when you're the one who thinks this system will apparently be fixed by telling people not to attend grad school. That's sure as shit the definition of pinning responsibility on the individual and avoiding questioning the system. Maybe sex workers should starve instead of letting men objectify their bodies? The reality is, you don't understand how the system you're bashing works, you have no interest in understanding it, and as a result, your argument is tired and ineffective to an embarrassing degree. You don't have good intentions or any intentions at all outside of bitching about the bad hand life and society and professors and everyone else but yourself has dealt you. Guess what - you're not alone. 7.5 billion human beings feel the same way. It's interesting that you don't address your financial situation or give any specific examples of people being exploited, despite having responded to me with the same drivel 3 times already. Please, explain to me how you were or are exploited. Or do you have too much money where your mouth is?

So, uh, real talk, if you get a PhD in Magical Whatsit Studies, can't get a job, and are booted out of the country after 3 months of OPT, what will you do with the degree in your home country?

Me personally, I'm just sick of people making the same tired shitpost on these forums and then justifying their behavior with "if I help just one lost soul from jumping into the pit of eternal despair, it will all have been worth it". I prefer the notion that OP has nefarious motives, because the alternative is that they are a 30 year old Doctor of Philosophy who seriously believes that trolling the internet counts as activism, mentorship, or guidance. OP and the ass-clowns that will certainly follow: if you're so totes passionate about saving people from going to gradschool, why don't you grab one of the gradschool-bound undergraduates who respect you so much as a teacher and mentor as evidenced by the teaching rewards you brag about, and take them out to coffee, ask them about their future plans, offer them your help (which, as evidenced by anyone who participates in this forum, anyone who is applying to PhDs sorely needs), and then share your cautionary tale. You know, put your money where your mouth is, instead of wasting time on internet forums and trying to convince yourself that You Did A Thing.

@thinkingandthinking jsyk, you shouldn't make "getting a job teaching English at a prep school" into what "getting a job teaching at Wellesley" was a decade ago. Everyone and their dog thinks they're going to get a job teaching at a prep school nowadays. It's no certainty, especially if the gilt on your resume doesn't originate in high school.

Out of interest, how did your cohort do? Also, you know why physicists/mathematicians/biologists/whatever discipline you fetishize get PhDs? Because they love research and they're getting paid to do what they love. There are no academic jobs for anybody (save a few specialities in economics/business and engineering). Yes, these disciplines have exit opps that don't leave you destitute and starting over in a new career with a boss who is 10 years younger than you, but nobody serves 7 years in a basement at Harvard to work at a quant hedge fund or Pfizer either. These people could've worked up to those jobs out of UG, and would probably be further ahead in their alt-ac careers had they done so. Most if not all of them are doing it for no reason other than that they love research and want to take the one in a million chance to make it their career. The reason you and that other ass-clown aren't being taken seriously is because you've formulated some overly hysterical narrative of "oppression", the responsibility for which you then, in full contradiction to the fundamentals of your argument, try to pin on the individual. Like, I'm sorry, but not getting your dream job doesn't constitute exploitation. What, is every kid who worked really really hard in high school but didn't get into an Ivy exploited now? There are definitely programs that exploit their graduate students by not paying them a living wage or saddling them with insane teaching/service commitments, but your $25k/year fellowship summer stipend conference and archive funded gig is emphatically not that. You played the game and you lost, a game that most people will lose, a loss the financial and emotional devastation of which is impossible to imagine when you're just starting to play the game. Don't dress it up as some universal injustice.

Like, honestly, the AW is only going to matter if the person reviewing your application has some weird AW fetish, which you cannot prepare for in advance and is therefore a negligible factor. It is possibly the least important part of your application. Your Q/V are competitive for an Econ PhD and the V shows you know English. Spend your time and money working on more important aspects of your app, which is literally every other aspect.

Nah, I inserted from a url. Don't want to clutter my computer As an economist, I am skeptical that the level of education and exposure to the subject of most students in the humanities is sufficient to ensure a researched and sophisticated opinion on the matter of anything economics related. I also hope that you will not try to paint me as some neoliberal shill who is using her qualifications to cast doubt on your argument, seeing as you just did that to me. I also think that WSJ is clickbait bullshit that has long gone the way of Thought Catalog, but I don't need a degree in Journalism to be able to figure that out.

For crissake dude it's one random elective. Just fucking drop it already. That said, your attitude towards failure has got to go. You're obviously not doing well in this class, yet you can't even admit that to yourself. You know 70% isn't a good grade. You know that you failed a 25% assignment, and you know that getting the precise percentage on your paper isn't going to make a difference to your outcome because that F is already pulling you down significantly. Instead of doing something proactive to fix your situation, such as dropping the class or asking for extra credit or meeting with the professor and having a frank discussion without hints and insinuations and fortune-telling on tarot cards, you're focusing all your energies on denying that this is happening to you. It's okay to fail. It's okay to feel challenged. It's good that both of these things are happening to you because it means you're working to your potential. One of the big goals of graduate school is getting you to stop needing validation, whether for practical or emotional reasons, from grades and professors, and instead teaching you to make decisions based on your own thoughts and evaluation of the situation.

That feeling when a future graduate student unironically quotes a resource with a headline that reads "Inside every liberal is a totalitarian screaming to get out".

Dude, what?

If you want to pay a shit ton of money to get your ass banned from ETS for life, sure.

The obvious answer is to call or email the person who wrote the first letter and ask what's up.

In re program quality, I would post on the relevant sub, because that's where the people who go/have gone to MFAs hang out. In re Wilmington, there's a thread in the City Guide forum already. You might want to ask there. That said, dude, no. Never ever take out loans for an MFA. You will never pay them back. Aren't most of the reputable programs fully funded? If you're dead-set on Ivy, I think Cornell is.

The obvious answer is to get a master's degree in economics or a related field. A second BA will not make you more competitive. It's true that the math GRE is much too low. However, most US undergraduates have to take extra math classes to be competitive for PhD programs, regardless of whether they're at CUNY or UChicago. Many double major in math, actually. One thing you're glaringly missing is research experience (which can be your work experience, provided you work with something that has to do with economics), without which it will definitely be difficult to get into any kind of social science PhD program. If you go on urch.com, there's a bunch of iterations of your situation discussed in great detail.

Most students will not have more than 2 years' worth of coursework in the major, which seems like the amount you're going to have at the end of this, so I don't fully understand why your Chair thinks you won't be able to get good LORs. The quality of your LORs, anyhow, is determined by the quality of your work and your relationship with the relevant professors rather than by how many classes you took with them. It's pretty clear that he thinks your work is too weak for a high-ranked PhD - which is not surprising given you're a Junior. The suggestion to stay on for the MA is not a bad suggestion (especially since you believe you have prospects here), and it is not surprising that he and other professors are for it. I don't have firsthand knowledge of your conversation so I can't have an opinion on whether he's trying to coerce you or otherwise has ulterior motives (but for you this isn't a productive opinion to hold anyway). Really, they're telling you that they would like to continue working with you at the graduate level. Take it as a compliment. But you know you can apply to however many schools you want to, right? So do that. See what acceptances you get and what funding packages they come with, and make an informed decision. Right now you're counting your chickens before they've hatched. Also, stop going to your department chair if you don't trust him. You need a mentor, that is a faculty member who is in your speciality, whom you've worked with extensively, and whom you trust to give you advice, not least because theirs will be the LOR that can speak with fanfare and influence to your work. As far as LORs go, that's the gamechanger. The one thing I'd ask you to consider is why you're so eager to go to grad school at all. Even if you've secretly wanted to be a professor of literature since you were a wee sprite, you've just switched into this major from something completely unrelated. It's pretty clear from your professor's words that you've done no significant research and are pretty new to this world in other ways. Why the rush to get a PhD? It's not an enjoyable path, and there's plenty you can do with the degree that doesn't involve you living on ramen for the entirety of your best working years. An MA in English won't affect your employability vs the BA (except technically making you qualified to teach community college, but try to find one that isn't inundated by applications from PhDs right now). At worst, it'll burden you with unnecessary debt. It's good that you're asking these questions now, but as far as decisions go, I'd honestly give it way more time.

I am very confused by the idea of getting a PhD in political science to go into banking, since that wouldn't be relevant at all, but I am not familiar with the Singaporean system, so maybe there it's acceptable (doubtful, but possible). I also don't know whether your lousy bachelors will impact your academic job prospects in Singapore. It wouldn't in North America, but Singapore is not in North America. You need to ask someone who has the job you want to have. I would be very surprised if anyone here is able to help you.

The only thing keeping me going is the knowledge that OP is gonna get a job one day and start dishing this shit to his employer, who will fire him, and then OP will bitch about workplace discrimination until the cows come home.

This makes me about 99% convinced that you're a troll.

A classicist that is complaining about having to learn Latin is not a troll? What now, we're supposed to take the cranks who claim to have solved quantum physics without knowing basic trigonometry seriously?

There are definitely people who get their MA in English with an eye to going into publishing, but somehow I doubt that any of those people go to Colorado to do it. It's not a publishing hub, you know? I would ask the program for their placements and see if any of their graduates work in the companies you want to work for. My hunch is, even if you do do a master's, you're better off staying in New York.

Why would anyone in their right mind want to troll a classics forum?