honeychurch

Thank you BowTies! Considering how long I've been out, the Waitlist really does feel like an honor:-)

I can speak as one voice of experience. I didn't apply to a PhD program after I got my M.A. in 1996 because I was horribly burned-out (I should have taken a year off between B.A. and M.A.). It took me years to get my love of literature and writing back. Life goes on, and it can be fulfilling and enriching and it can be awful and humiliating. In fact, it will probably be a combination of all those things. After my M.A., I swept shrimp legs out of a restaurant carpet and asked people if they wanted fries with their burgers, but I also have had the opportunity to travel around the country, and perform fulfilling work, both financially and intellectually--after I opened myself up to all the possibilities the world has to offer. May be a cliche, but life will go on--it's a personal choice whether to just survive and beat yourself up over a perceived failure or inadequacy or you can find a way to live and thrive. The key is to be open to the consideration of changing your personal paradigm and not getting stuck like a puppy-dog in a window pining over this one thing, no matter how important it seems to you now. Or, you can also chose to have faith in your present paradigm, re-evaluate, retrench and try again next year:-) Either way, time is going to pass. Use that time wisely--even if it means you need to grieve. ETA--just don't let youself get stuck--do what you can to keep moving forward. Momentum is important after a big loss.

BowTieAreCool--there certainly is a lot of blood on the floor and I sense that some of us may turn to soapmaking as an alternate career path/unfunded funding source.

Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and Lady Day, 'cause I got the wait list blues, y'all.

Only applied to one PhD program in Rhetoric--Virginia Tech, Waitlisted. (Also applied for Creative Writing MFAs) (Edited to Add: I have an M.A. in English)

Is anyone getting into Rhet/Comp positions anywhere this year? The grad cafe results page seems BLEAK.