jacib

How come your fable doesn't involve a tenure track brick laying career for anyone?!?

Practice reading the local newspaper of record, and failing that, a tabloid. That's a great way to start learning a lot of relevant vocabulary.

Actually one thing I like about this forum is that undergrad schools don't come up. When people start talking about undergrad schools, some people tend to brag, some people tend to be uncomfortable. I like that we're all equal in this mess, and that no one is "more equal" cause they went to "a school in Cambridge, MA". I think if someone said "I have a 3.x from this Ivy league school" some well meaning person say "Oh you'll definitely get in!" which is obviously not true. And if people say "I have a great score... but it's from a school you've never heard of" some ill meaning person might say "No one from that school has a chance at this school." Privacy is obviously also an important element, but I think it's more than that.

While IR may be more stringent, Religion programs usually ask you to accurately translate a two or so page article in a generous amount of time using a dictionary. Some schools even have old tests available for you (Chicago's for example are here). When I first saw them, I was surprised how easy they were; I'm reasonably sure I came into college able to pass my university's graduate proficiency exam in two languages, judging from the graduate students in my language classes... though sadly I'd have to study to pass either one now. When they ask you to fill in different levels on your apps, they general want something different. Proficiency and level of achievement are two distint issues. Only Princeton's app was very specific, and was totally insanely high. If I recall correctly, intermediate was able to participate in "non-technical" and "technical in your field" reading/writing/discussion while advanced was "technical in any field", or something along those lines! I guess what surprised me was just the separation of technical in- and outside of your field. Technical is technical... I mean, I tried to help one of my Turkish friends with a translation of the operating manual for a waste water treatment plant and I kept correcting the engineering jargon and saying "No, this isn't a real word" "No, this isn't a real word" "The grammar here is weird and unclear", and then she realized "Oh, no, sweetie, this is the ORIGINAL, not my translation. This is correct, I'm translating this English document INTO Turkish." And then I looked at her amazed and said, "You understand this? I don't understand all of this..."

Short version: by "Tier 1" I meant schools that had a regional rather than national draw.

Shit, my B on the nomenclature thing. I meant... not what you guys thought I did. In the US News and World report, they had the "ranked" liberal arts colleges, nationally, and then they had the regional ones, and the regional was were organized into tiers, or at least they used to be, or at least I thought they were. By "Tier 1" I did not mean Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, or other fantastic schools like Macalaster or Reed, which are some of the top schools in the country, but instead what the US News and World calls "Bacchalaureate Colleges". While there is perhaps a slight increased emphasis on teaching at the top liberal arts schools, I would expect you are supposed to continue to carry out innovative research. Getting a job at a Macalaster type school is probably just difficult as getting a job at University of Minnesota type school (to use an example of two schools in the same city, errr, Twin Cities). I meant a type of school a few steps down from that. I was talking about the schools that I knew in around Boston and Chicago (place I'd lived) like Roger Williams (RI) Cooper Union (NY), Simon's Rock (MA) Colby-Sawyer (NH) Edicott (MA), Curry College (MA), Carthage College (WI), or I guess really ANY place that I knew not from academic reputation, but because friends of mine went there, like Suffolk College (MA) Loyola (IL) Hope (MI) LaSalle (PA), Lake Forest College (IL), even up to places like Clark (MA) which have some really good programs [uSNWR puts those last six not with the Baccalaureate Colleges, but with the liberal arts colleges like Amherst... if you're from the West Coast both sets probably are equally Greek to you]; I meant decent colleges that give out good educations, but do not have a national draw. From my experience, these schools do have a lot of intelligent, well motivated students, just they aren't really well known. I was thinking that in part because they guy who wrote that article taught at Hope. How many of you not from the Great Lakes region knew where Hope was? They are all fine schools (not the schools you said in high school "I'm going to fail this class and have to end up going to _____"), and I think most of us could be happy teaching at one of those schools, but they're not where we imagine ourselves teaching. Sorry for the confusion! I was in no way trying to disparage liberal arts colleges. A "liberal arts college" like Wesleyan is really not so different a "university" like Brandeis (in that particular example, not even in ethnic make up! More people from my Boston area synagogue went to Wes than Brandeis... don't worry Mr. Flanagan, I could never diss Joss Whedon's alma mater). I hope that makes my original statement clearer!

One point I'd like to disagree with you about: I think everyone realizes this is a possibility.... for other people. Very few (myself included) actually consider that they would work for long outside say the top 100 schools. If you asked people where they'll "probably" be five years after a PhD, I think a majority, and probably a supermajority, of the humanities and social science kids on this board would say they'll be in a tenure track job at a good university or liberal arts college (probably one near a major city at that). Ask how many people think there's any chance they'll drop out of a program, or take 10+ years to finish, and you'll get zero, maybe one or two (someone else will probably want to criticize these people saying: Hey! Then don't even apply if you're not sure). Granted, there is a self selected sample posting on these boards, but while everyone knows about these things, everyone also thinks that these are things that happen to other people. In economic terms we're entering a tournament, as with most tournaments, we tend exaggerate our odds of winning the tournament. I'm not discouraging anyone from entering the tournament, but I know I for one don't actually imagine myself doing "badly" or even "mediocrely" by my own definition. Steven Levitt wrote a really interesting paper on street level drug dealers, and look at the actual odds of reaching the top of an organization. People earn paltry pay dealing drugs (comparable to working at Micky D's) because they imagine they have a fair shot at earning the big bucks of a kingpin, or at least lieutenant. While many people entering the street level drug trade probably imagine ending up "on top, dead or in jail", I wonder how many imagine dropping out of "the game" entirely and you know working at footlocker or whatever. I could be totally wrong, but I am going to assume that a good number of people are like me, have long been praised for their brilliance, and while they recognize that OTHER people could end up in a bad situation, they don't think it is very unlikely that they will end up anywhere they don't plan on being. It's really hard to predict success even in graduate school. The best theorist in my father's PhD cohort, the golden boy of the program who everyone was all sure would end up renowned and successful, ended up having an average career compared to the others in his cohort. One of my favorite graduate student instructors who got his degree from one of the undisputed top two schools in the field (one I'm not sure I could get into) and has extensive teaching experience (though his thesis is on obscure subsubfield in relatively popular, possibly played out, subfield) is now teaching at a community college. His references I'm sure are excellent, and he studied under some of the biggest names in the subfield. Realizing this sent me for a loop, because it was hard for me to imagine someone from that prestigious a graduate program teaching at community college. What if I get into a less prestigious program? Nahh, I decided, he just had a series of bad luck... that probably won't happen to me. It could of course, but I have enough cognitive dissonance that I'm sure it won't. I mean, look at while everyone who posted there (myself included) recognizes publicly that this is the "ideal" outcome, privately at least I imagine a slightly toned down version as the "likely" outcome as well (maybe teaching at a tier 1 liberal arts college near a big city rather than a R1 university). (Wow sorry this was LONG).

I'd argue that it's more important to understand how to parse Wolkensäule into Wolken and Säule than it is to know what it means outright. Practicing reading will help you learn to parse those--knowing the set phrases is more important if you want to write... or already know what the topic that your reading exam will cover. If you want German for writing, I found Dippmann's A Practical Review of German Grammar to be the handiest reference. I've tried to learn several languages from several different books, and for my style of learning, Dippmann was my favorite. It's probably not the best for pure reading though. As a German dictionary (though obviously one you can't take to the actual exam), I'd recommend using dict.cc I used to use dict.leo.org, but I think a lot has changed on the internet in the last five years. dict.cc not only has Wolkensäule with the exact reference (13,21) but it also has other technical terms, like Entzauberung, which was originally used in fairy tales but someone (I want to say Weber) adopted it with a technical meaning to mean roughly "demystification" (though I believe it is often/usually translated as "disenchantment", which is the more literal meaning, but disenchantment usually means something different in English I feel). Most dictionaries I've encountered don't have Entzauberung and so I find it a good word to test the quality and comprehensiveness of a dictionary. (To test Turkish dictionaries, I use the word "silly", which most Turkish dictionaries just say means "aptal" which is literally "stupid", instead of trying to explain it.)

Not trying to start a fight, but honestly like what, out of curiosity? In all seriousness, the first organizations that sprung to mind was NAMBLA and insurrectionist Marxist factions, but I don't think that's what you meant.

Yeah, no, I'm just pulling your leg. I did love it, though. It's one great thing about these boards, the mix of encouragement and realism... sometimes there's no telling from which someone is speaking. At least there is no backbiting or jealousy, that would add a strange flavor to the mix.

That's not true, I was surprised actually at the variations of schools people are applying to. I am not sure anyone is applying to even three of the five schools I'm applying to. I think a lot of people are applying for the most elite programs... but people are also applying to a lot of other programs too. Three of my schools are USNWR top ten... and the other two schools are ivy league (ranked 11th and 20th), so I feel like I'm a pretentious prick only applying to only elite schools. Someone was just applying to Northeastern, I've seen CUNY and Brandeis up here a few times, I think Notre Dame, people are applying to a huge range of schools! I think people are being pretty good about applying to the right programs here, and not just to name schools. I've noticed very few people applying to Yale and Brown, for example. I'm surprised and impressed at how much homework people have done and stuff.

Done with all my Soc. applications; I have one more application (Religion Masters at Toronto) yet to do. It's due in two days. I still need to check on the status of all my apps, and such, but basically done.

Sorry Ticklemepink but I love your post. 1) "Everyone freaks out, there's nothing you can do now, don't worry." 2) "Here's another thing to freak out about in case you haven't realized."

Secularism.

Since I'm looking at a pretty specific topic, I had to email a lot of people to see if it "fit" with their department. It often didn't, but even then most professors tried to be helpful and suggest other programs (often in vain... but they tried!). I had a lot more emails with professors who didn't want me than did, but even in those cases, they often were still very encouraging ("you have an important, interesting topic but unfortunately it falls outside of my area of expertise"). My top shout outs have to go to the professors who I emailed when I knew I WASN'T going to apply there. One of my dad's colleagues gave me the skinny on all the sociology of religion departments, and offered to put me in touch with tons of people (which she did) and told me to freely drop her name even though we've never met in person. I also emailed another random professor or two out of the blue who teach at liberal arts colleges when I was completely desperate for information ("I like the work you do and actually find it interesting... tell me how you got there. Are you happy with the path you took? How do people react to your degree? If you could do it all over again would you choose the same schools?") just because I had no one else to give me advice. Finally, I emailed one of three or four biggest names in my subfield (he teaches at Georgetown which doesn't have a program for me) and was like "I'd really like to study with you.... but Georrgetown's Religion program is so Christian and there's no sociology or anthropology graduate program. If I can't work with you, where should I apply?" He wrote me back a few weeks later "Sorry I was out of the country. It's easier for me to talk than email, call me at one of these times." And I did and then he just talked to me for more than 30 minutes telling me literally everyone in the subfield who was training people.... and when I say everyone in my subfield, I mean everyone who studies this subject in religion, sociology, anthropology, and political science departments... I think he might have even mentioned one historian. He's told me this is a rising program, this program is looking for people, people are leaving this program, this program tried to recruit me. It also just made me think about how this topic can and should be studied within the departmental structure. This conversation was also one of my big turning points away from Religion programs and towards Sociology programs. Anyway, he spent a long time explaining a lot to a student whom he had no obligation to.

One sociology professor told me that at his rather small department, about half the applications come from (and half the acceptances go to) students who the faculty has had no contact with prior to getting the actual application.

Interestingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, in Sociology Berkeley, a "teaching, teaching, teaching" program, has one of the longer years to degrees AND the best placement rates at top institutions... probably in part at least because the students are expected to be much more experienced teachers than a student from a research, occasionally TA but rarely teach your own class program. Just one more thing to consider thinking about. I would argue teaching your first year (that is, leading at least a discussion section) would be EXCELLENT because it starts you down a good, experienced road. In your first job, you'll probably be expected to start at the bottom and teach a range of classes that no one else wants... especially intro classes. Dealing with a range of classes during your graduate work will be good preparation for that. Second it's really hard to teach teaching. I am teaching now, and I did a 120 hour, one month TEFL course which was really useful in terms of basic things like lesson planning and classroom management... but not nearly as good as actually teaching for a month. Knowing how to explain things precisely, how to answer questions quickly, how to anticipate questions, how to emphasize the important distinctions, how to keep a class at least vaguely entertained through a detailed explanation (hell, which details to use), how to improve core skills in others (in the humanities, things like writing, critical thinking, understanding complex arguments), none of these things are things that can be really taught, I don't think. They're all things that people have to figure out on their own. But all of them are absolutely critical to being a good teacher, which is what most people here are aiming for. And I think teaching is why most schools--especially most first jobs out of grad school--will hire you. Obviously these skills not so important if your future plans don't involve teaching... but it seems at least 95% of the people on this board in the social sciences and humanities plan on teaching. Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing in favor of Berkeley's ten year average time til degree, but I mean, there are reasons why teaching early on will help you later on. That said, neither one way or the other really affected my choices... my top two schools are on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of teaching and time til degree.

Really it ain't so bad... but find out about different companies before you go, because they're not all equally good (though in some places they're almost all equally bad). For the most part, I found my students have really appreciated me. Some creepsters.

I sent in half of my BA thesis as my writing sample.... and lately I've been wondering if I sent in the wrong half, or if religion programs should have gotten this half, and the sociology programs the other half.

You should check out this article, it's all about how more people should consider not being professors.

Yes, for both social science/humanities and the hard sciences as well as other, generally more professional programs. As for can you teach at X with a degree from Y... look at the websites! I did this when I was trying to find out good religion programs. You start noticing really weird patterns that you convince yourself are meaningful. But top programs often just aren't hired at other top schools for unknown reasons. I think almost everyone at the UChicago divinity school who studied non-Christian things was from Chicago, Harvard, Columbia, Toronto or Oxford, but no one from Duke or Emory or Santa Barbara or UVa, all of which have excellent programs. Something like either Emory or Vanderbilt got half their degrees from the other place. It's just weird. Of course, these sample sizes are tiny, but there are only like 15 top schools giving out PhD's in religion, it's amazing how their grads are distributed in such a non-random fashion. When you study something like the New Testament, where there is more training than any of the non-Christian fields I was looking at, there's more variation in where the grads end up, but it struck me how clustered the degrees often were.

I might repost this is in the Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition subforum.

I think for the ones that had no requirement, I tried to keep it close to 1000 words, even though one of my statements had a 2,500 word length limit. Some of them gave page limit instructions (2 to 3 pages). Mainly I did it by page length, and I tried to keep it from going on to the next page. I'm sure it wouldn't have been a problem if it had gone on to the next page. I wanted to be sure I didn't start rambling... the first draft of my SoP was 3,000 words, then I had both my girlfriend and father read it and mark all the boring sections, because I knew not everything I wrote would be as interesting to any one other than me (they basically cut out most of the times when I went into too much detail). Most of your schools were 500 words? Only one of mine was! That was the shortest and the hardest, because it meant cutting down a 1,000 word statement. Which size are you finding hardest?

I had a really weird dream where I was applying to Columbia med school, actually I'd already applied but forgotten to fill out some supplementary forms. And my friend who is in Med School was trying to stay positive about my chances, but also realistic. And I was like "No, Catie, I feel really good about this, you just have to help write this summary of all the science course I've taken. I just need to have some social science courses look like hard science courses, that's all." They also had this special "Islam and Medicine" program and that's why I thought I had a chance. I wrote a pretty good essay for that. It wasn't a nightmare at all actually. I thought I had a chance (I was still applying to a bunch of sociology programs), even though the deadline had passed and I was trying to add some supplementary forms I'd forgotten.

Many of my letters are handed in after the deadlines... one set by almost three weeks from the Dec 15 deadline, significantly more for the one school that had a Dec 1 deadline. Also, it often takes a few days f9r scy99os to update their systems sometimes, especially (I'd guess) schools that don't use an outside system, like Embark or Apply Yourself. At least one of my school (Berkeley) definitely didn't say LOR were complete until it reopened after vacation. It uploaded two of my LoRs on the same day, even though I know they were sent in two weeks apart. So it might not be that professors can't upload them on the weekends so much as schools don't update your application over the weekend. Did any of your apps use "Apply Yourself" (the one with the silly pin code)? I found those seemed to update pretty immediately, though I don't know if they do it with the same speed over the weekend. Professors definitely can add things any time, day or night. With Embark at least, the professor signs in using her email and it lists all the students with unfulfilled requests for that email address. I would also email her again (what else can you do?), and see what's up. If you can get a phone number, use it? Maybe send her a thank you note on Monday evening... where you point out that many none of the schools show that they've received her letter and you worry there might be a problem you can help with. If your programs can accept more than 3 letters, see if you can get both professors to write your recs. At least one will, right? This is what I did because I was really worried about two of my recommenders, but they all ended up submitting. Eventually. Secondly, kullanıcı adınız bir tesadüf olabilir, ama türk müsünüz acaba?