Katzenmusik
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Posts posted by Katzenmusik
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Aww, reading this makes me miss studying film, creating movies, writing scripts & working at the video store. Film nerds unite!!
I managed to squeeze a ton of movie-making into my critical theory-based college film program. It was the best.
To this day I'm wondering if I should be applying to MFA programs in filmmaking instead of history programs!
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Or, I might WWOOF it - anyone else done this? World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. You get free food and a roof over your head for six hours of farm labor a day - awesome way to see an unfamiliar place.
I lived - for free - on a farm in Pudong, outside Shanghai for about two weeks in July. I'll never forget it.
YES! I worked for a few weeks in rural Portugal. It was amazing. My hosts were so incredibly kind, and it felt good to get up at the sound of a rooster's crow and help raise the food we ate each day. Plus i's a cheap way to travel and see a bit of the world from a non-touristic perspective. I highly recommend WWOOFing to anyone looking for a Plan B.
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Most of my results will come in in March. Sigh!
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It would be nice and save everyone time if faculty could include blurbs on their web site bios, like:
"I welcome emails from prospective graduate students who find that their scholarly interests align with my own. Please include a transcript and a very brief summary of what you hope to study."
OR
"Due to volume, I am unable to respond to prospective students' emails and calls."
That would give us a good indication of whether the prof is in favor of applicant contact or not.
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Okay you got my attention. If you want " the spice," then try Kenneth Grant. Really anything by him is hours of fun.
Haha, thanks. I'll look him up!!
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Plan A and B both call for me to quit my job ASAP. It pays a lot, but it consumes all my time and energy, and it is slowly killing me.
I will work some part-time position over the summer, making enough to pay the bills. I will get involved in public access TV, write a zine, and maybe hike part of the AT.
If I'm not accepted to grad school, I'll be disappointed but will continue on living life. Perhaps instead of paying tuition, I can help buy a house with my partner. We will grow plants!
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I am also 5 years out of undergrad. Fortunately I went to a small school, and two professors remembered me well. I also got LORs from a former employer AND one (as others have suggested) from taking college-level courses after work.
Ideally you would get at least one undergrad prof LOR, and many programs strongly discourage you from submitting professional LORs as opposed to academic... but in a pinch, an employer LOR and two non-degree college course profs would likely suffice.
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I'm 26. After college I just wanted to get out of the institutional setting and live life according to my own directives! Which I have done! Traveling, music, writing, working bad jobs that paid a little, working bad jobs that paid a lot... the past five years have all been a crazy & interesting experience. Not academic, but educational.
It was important to me to go out into the world and prove to myself that I could survive and sustain myself in any circumstance. Now I'm ready to go back to academia for a little while, and in fact, I'll appreciate it more and derive more value from it. I would not have been ready or willing to commit to a standard academic program in 2005. Glad I waited.
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I'm reading...
"The Great Cat Massacre" by Robert Darnton. (Strange episodes in 18th century French cultural history.)
"Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation" (Unfortunately not a great book--a little light-weight for my tastes.)
"Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley" (Yes, I'm kind of on an occult/mysticism history reading kick. Crowley's life was just bizarre!)
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I had planned to put in 3 weeks' notice immediately after getting an acceptance (I work in a mid-level managerial position). This would give me time over the summer to either do some traveling or find some sort of internship/part-time position in my new field.
However, I happened to see an ad for a really cool-seeming summer position which relates more to what I want to do in life after grad school. I already applied and interviewed. So it's possible that I'll be leaving my job even before getting accepted to a grad program.
I'm looking for a change anyway--with or without grad school, I need to transition out of my current career, which I've been successful in but do not love.
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In my nightmare I went to visit a professor whose specialty was studying the old maritime world. He kindly invited me to join him for a cup of coffee. I remembered, as I sat down, that the fish-print shirt I was wearing had been designed by the professor. I felt sooooooooo overwhelmingly embarrassed that I had chosen to wear this shirt from his fashion line, because he would think I was wearing it just to get on his good side.
I woke up in a frantic state, then realized I knew of no such fish-shirt-designing professor!
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Instead of beating a dead horse, my only other tip is use an Excel file to keep track of all your programs and application materials. I didn't have to keep all important dates, people, or material statuses in my head (though I did anyway).
I'll see your Excel and raise you Google Docs, which you can edit from any web browser!
Seriously, my Google Doc spreadsheet was key for keeping my applications organized through two vacations and across three separate computers. And mine is color-coded! I kind of miss updating it obsessively...
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At this point many of us have submitted our applications for admission in the 2010-11 school year, and we've had time to ruminate on what we might have done differently to improve the process.
While the memories are fresh--what advice would you offer next year's crop of applicants and future patrons of the Grad Cafe?
I'll start!
First, when I started this process, I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to focus on in grad school, which led me to apply to more programs than warranted (12 total). For some people, 12 applications might have been doable, but for me (juggling a full-time job AND several after-work courses along with applications) this was a bad idea. Each application received less attention than it needed, resulting in careless last-minute mistakes. Plus I wasted significant money on the extra application fees, transcripts and GRE score reports.
Lesson learned: Truly define your interests at the onset, then apply to a limited number of relevant programs.
Transcripts: I have three, each from a different institution. I ordered them to be sent directly to the universities I'm applying to as a way to save time and money. Instead, I should have ordered 12 of each transcript up front to be mailed to me, then FedExed them myself in bunches to the different universities. That way I would know when each transcript arrived. I would not now be following up on 30 or so separate envelopes, some of which evidently were lost in the mail or in processing and need to be re-ordered. Missing transcripts are delaying the review of my application at several universities.
Lesson learned: Send all paperwork yourself, in bulk, so you can better control and track it.
There are many ins and outs to this process: SOP-polishing, LOR-wrangling, and an infinite number of other details. But often my attention was distracted away from applications by enormous projects at work, by writing papers for the courses I was taking, by a long holiday vacation, studying for the GRE or whatever else.
Lesson learned: If you can help it, do not apply to grad school when you have other major projects competing for your time.
EDIT: It now strikes me that I received advice similar to the above when I started off... but I ignored it at my peril. Another lesson learned, I suppose!!
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If you do well in your MA and successfully complete a major project, the situation is effectively erased. I would not call attention to the capstone withdrawal, especially since (as you say), you mainly dropped out for reasons of immaturity and a personality conflict. (It would be different if you had had a serious illness or some other extenuating circumstance.)
A history minor and philosophy major, followed by an MA in history, seems like excellent preparation for someone who wants to study the history of ideas in their PhD program. So don't worry, your outlook is still very positive!!
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When I studied a combination of literature and film, basically everyone either had a passive-aggressive reaction or informed me how I was just wasting my life and would never get a job. For some reason, random people just LOVE to try and deflate you if you are pursuing these fields.
Common responses:
1. "Since you're the film expert, tell us what 'Oceans 11' REALLY MEANS."
(NOTE: THIS QUESTION IS A TRAP!! A meaningful answer--like an opinion on genre convention, why a director might have chosen certain camera angles or points-of-view, etc.--will be seen as elitist and arrogant. But not giving any real answer will lead people to respond that your education "must not be worth much.")
2. "If you know so much about film, who won the Oscar award for best supporting actress in 1953?"
3. "What's the point of going to [Alma Mater of Katzenmusik] if you're just going to read novels and watch movies all day?"
If only I could have referred to my major as "Literature Science" or "Qualitative Mediology" or something--I'm sure they would have been confused but far more impressed.
The person I feel really bad for is my relative who studies intellectual history. It just SOUNDS pretentious and people can't WAIT to let him know how useless it is. Poor guy.
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Crusades!
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I'm totally with everyone else, above.
This process has been very odd for me. I'm one of those people who friends & family consider generally "bright" and able to succeed on a moderate level without trying that hard. All other applications I have submitted (for academic programs, jobs, etc.) always resulted in success. My grades were so-so, as I always did a bare minimum amount of work to stay in the game. But I made up for it by acing the SAT (and later, the GRE) without much trouble.
This way of being really catches up with you when you apply to graduate school. First of all, everyone else applying is also fairly bright and intelligent, so you're no longer the unique snowflake. Second of all, you need to have TRULY gone the extra mile to do things like build meaningful relationships with professors, published articles, taken tons of courses in your chosen field, etc. You need evidence that you worked hard and showed dedication in one field, rather than taken a dispersed interest in a dozen different fields.
I am truly, truly worried that I will not get in to any grad programs. And when I inform my friends and family of this rejection, their image of me as "the smart one" will be obliterated. They all encouraged me to apply to the most selective universities (the name-brand ones) and refuse to believe that someone of my capabilities (ha!) would look at second and third-tier schools they've never heard of before. They don't understand the competition I'm up against or the ways I've gradually shot myself in the foot over the years. (Or, for that matter, that the unknown universities might actually be BETTER for what I want to do than the Harvards and Stanfords of the world. Essentially they think grad school is just like undergrad.)
I dread informing them of my rejections. In fact, I did my best to keep this entire application process a secret, but it took over my life to such an extent that I had to explain.
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Man, I love this forum! It's great for when you need to vent about the horrors of Embark vs. ApplyYourself and other obscure application angst that no one else in the world understands!
The application systems are so clunky and time-wasting, it is hilariously ridiculous (I can laugh now that my 12 applications are all submitted--now in various stages of incompletion, but still). I love how if you forget to log out of one system, you have to restart your browser to enter another one. And then there are the application systems that assign you a completely random string of numbers and letters as your password and/or log-in name, but don't bother to email any of this info to you for your own reference. And I've probably wasted days of my life trying to relocate applications that are only accessible by wading through page after page of the university's web site, including their alumni donor page.
There are infinitely more examples of how user-UNfriendly some of these apps can be--and while the details can seem small, the stress tends to build until you are gradually driven insane. As I was completing my applications, I actually started to compile a top-ten list of the ways these systems could be improved for all of our sakes, which I would post as an open letter to the academy at large. Of course, I lost interest in this project once my applications were in and I could sit back and start stressing over my online status updates instead. But the concept holds merit!
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Hmm...
Not getting in will be a great excuse to go backpacking around the world for several months, then put a down payment on a house with my partner, and adopt a dog, and grow crops in our lawn!
It's starting to sound better & better all the time!
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Don't take it negatively, I was trying to make sure you weren't making a typo you'd later regret. Only here to help.
Ah, okay. It's sometimes hard to interpret text comments on the internet--this form of communication being absent of tone, facial expression, body language, etc.
No hard feelings!
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* My GRE's are solid (99th percentile in verbal, a reasonable showing for quant).
* I went to a highly respected, rigorous small liberal arts college. Hopefully this will reflect positively on me!
* I have had a successful career in nonprofits since graduating from college, working my way up from entry-level to management over a few years. Not that most programs seem to care about non-academic job experience, but as SOME of the programs I'm applying to ARE more non-academic/nonprofit-oriented, I feel this may be a plus.
Since everything else my app is a bit questionable, I'll leave it at that and try to avoid reading about everyone else's amazing accomplishments! :-)
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Exactly, cpaige; thank you! I have to admit I felt a pang over the comment you quoted, even though that particular mistake was NOT one I made.
This is essentially the "Most Embarrassing Application Moments" thread, intended for catharsis and amusement during a stressful process. Let's keep it supportive!
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As I have likely just spent $1,000+ dollars to get my dream smashed, I am loving this thread!
* I am applying for MA and PHD programs in a field I did not study at all as an undergraduate.
* Most programs require writing samples that demonstrate the ability to carry out original historical research, which of course I have never done. I realized this belatedly & considered trying to write my own research paper over the summer/fall. However I got so busy with the applications themselves that I ended up sending a writing sample from my undergrad field instead.
* My GPA is mediocre.
* Most of the grad school offices are not even passing my application along to the department yet. I took two undergrad courses in the field this fall, the transcript came out around the end of December, and now it is literally taking forever for it to be processed by National Student Clearinghouse and then the grad school offices themselves (yes, I should have rush-ordered ALL of them instead of just a few--but I didn't expect the transcripts to literally take the maximum number of business days to be mailed). I feel really frustrated as I took these courses to strengthen my application--wouldn't it be ironic if these transcripts are what hold me back??
* I misspelled the word "pursue" as "peruse" in one of my SOPs. As in, "I would be thrilled to peruse graduate study at Ivy League University." Noticed that RIGHT after I clicked the submit button. Sigh!!
FemaleScienceProfessor (and others) on Grad Interviews
in Waiting it Out
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But presumably even that was a helpful result? He welcomed emails and took the time to write back, so you knew you shouldn't bother applying to work with him in that particular year.