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Matthew3957

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Everything posted by Matthew3957

  1. Congrats to the UCSC acceptance!! Guess those will be out this week... Here's hoping still.
  2. I agree with @rxing963 I woke up to this thread being very down on itself and it's the not the time for that yet imo. For starters, we've had like 5 schools give our acceptances/interviews. More importantly though you have to remember that getting shut out is not the worst thing that will happen to you and if you're coming right out of your BA it might be good. When you've been in an institution your whole life it's sometimes hard to see/live/think outside of it, a couple years can be good for you. As someone who took 6 years in between BA and MA, and applied to History PhDs in year 2 of that break and got shut out, my suggestion is stay positive because your apps are what you had in you this go around and now they're out of your hands. We will find out in the next month probably. If it's good news then all the worrying energy was pointless and coulda been used elsewhere, if it's bad that's not the worst thing either. Also side note on the whole UCSC lit vs HisCon talk: I second that. I applied to lit for this reason and did my undergrad in the department. It's a good place. Berkeley's rhetoric is usually thrown into the same category of programs as MTL and HisCon so that might be worth looking at too. Sorry for typos morning eyes.
  3. Congrats on the Yale comp lit interview and Princeton Slavic Language and Lit interview.
  4. I have heard this repeated by people in academia on 3-4 different occasions in different contexts - graduate apps, assistant professor apps, writing letters. The first time was as an undergrad professor telling our class that filling the assistant professorship had been difficult because they had about 3-4 applicants all from the same top school, all with great research, grades, experience, so they came down to analyzing whether a professor said they were "the best" or "an amazing" student until they realized this was a pointlessly close reading and they needed to rely on the other material more.
  5. As an American currently in a German MA program I can say with certainty it is NOWHERE near as big a deal as it would be here for instance. If the program is in California for instance I highly doubt it would matter unless the person is being uppity. I would not worry. Fuck hierarchies anyway, they have to understand it was a mistake, and if their ego can't deal then they probably would be irritating to work with anyway.
  6. Same same! So nerve-wracking.. @Englishtea1 Congrats!
  7. So hard to keep up with all this amazing goodness. I am also very happy I have not had stress dreams yet, but I will say every time an email I do wonder... despite being WAY too early to get decisions. And I did spend an hour or so two days ago trying to figure out when people start getting acceptances. Apparently early February for some! This thread also managed to rekindle my love of reading literature outside of HAVING to read it again. I feel like I have to remind myself to read novels/stories for fun every few weeks.
  8. @Bopie5 I am working on a paper about human-controlled climates/ climate disasters in early film (Deluge, maybe Metropolis, I am trying to find other films). Jennifer Fay has a good book which covers a lot of this. I am also trying to read a lot about how early films were made as the mechanics of this is mostly what I want to discuss. How does this control of weather mirror the Anthropocene control of climates. This is the last paper I have before I write my thesis sooooooo I wanna get it done...
  9. Check out the programs in my footer. UBC in particular might be a great fit! UCSB, UCSC, and Alberta as well. Also UCR, its ranking is lower, but they are great too. Good luck!
  10. I am a ecocrit/posthumanist mostly interested in gender and 20th/21st century North American fiction.
  11. For what it's worth I did not do one because I did not like the look. I have seen SoPs that had one, in particular @punctilious's husband who got into Harvard had one. So a top school seemed to like it! However, my guess is it doesn't matter too much because it's really just the content they care about. If having citations helps to highlight content or prove academic rigor of your as an applicant then it is a boon.
  12. Anyone else find waiting way harder than they expected it to be? I have checked my applications 3 times each. I need to just let it go, but its so hard.
  13. Congrats! Welcome to the waiting game...
  14. I have this feeling every day! So hard letting go...and just too overwhelmed by the whole process.
  15. @alexisnj there's a section of the forum on that (https://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/84-interviews-and-visits/). I haven't really looked at it so not sure how much info is there, but might be a solid place to begin. Good luck! I decided not to apply to Duke myself. @jadeisokay good luck on Jeopardy! I always wanted to be on. @natalielouise Went through the same thing. I had to take like 4 days and reset. Keep at it! Officially finished with my 10 apps. Now the waiting starts. Excited and terrified for end of February.
  16. This! Good luck. I am excited for February/March now to see where everyone ends up.
  17. @alexisnj There's no point in second guessing really, and I know that probably doesn't help. It's like whenever you write any paper, send off anything for external review, etc. once its done you've done the best you can and its not worth worrying over anymore. I have spent the entire app period doing the same thing as you, but if you searched well for schools you searched well. For what it's worth I just realized my SoP for the 5 schools I submitted applications to so far uses "macrobactieria" instead of "microbacteria" in my opening sentence. To be fair its English departments and the sentence still makes grammatical sense so it probably will be fine, but I had an existential crisis as one does, but from the other side of that I can say just stick with it. No reason to count yourself out until that email comes. Besides, far worse things happen everyday than having to apply in another year for graduate school. Honestly, you are a good candidate. You have a good range of schools. Just trust yourself and do what you can. 5 more to go for me.
  18. @jadeisokay I am not an expert, so maybe one of the more experienced people can weigh in. However, from emailing with departments about length of writing samples (I have asked if I can send my 25 for programs that ask for ~20) my guess would be your paper is fine as is. They mostly just want a strong sample and if its a few pages shorter no one will think thats a negative as long as the paper is strong. I think adding 5 pages might just weaken the sample. I have 11 page sample I am sending to the schools that ask for 10-15 page paper and I am not adding.
  19. @lyonel_ Yea that is a good point and more or less what I plan to do as well. I noted those when I put my information into the application, but had not thought about it after seeing the different requirements between the schools. I am just taking it one application at a time.
  20. [Start] Rant: Gah! Just realized that like half my schools have different requirements for the SOP. With Rice it seems to be just 2 pages. While mine is solidly 1k words atm. Where as with UCSC, UCSB, UC Davis, and UMich I need a personal history and diversity statement. Luckily my WS are all set because I wrote them both for classes not two months back On top of that the Uni that I am getting my master's at needs me to translate my transcript to English and then they will print it and make it official..... Also wondering if I need to bother with my transcripts for the year I spent at a different university as an undergrad or if just my final undergrad transcript and my master transcript are enough. I figure they are because they honestly give no fucks about the year I spent right out of high school taking GE requirements. This process is irritating. I am solidly at 9 schools now with like 3 I am still considering, but probably won't apply to. [/ End] Rant
  21. I have somewhat had the opposite experience. However, it is coming from an MA into a Ph.D. When a place says 10 pages, I just don't have anything from my master's that is that short. My shortest is about 12 so I instead have to work to cut it down. This is only 2 schools, but still a hassle. I feel much the same, I doubt they read it closely unless they are trying to decide between a few.
  22. I am starting this thread so any of us who have random SoP questions can ask them here. Mine at the moment is what are everyone's thoughts on footnotes in the SoP? I've seen it. I have quotes. I guess I should use them. However, it feels odd. Is this one of those "of course if you have quotes use footnotes" situations. I just reference what a few of my theoretical influences say at certain points so I don't even know if it is necessary to have a full citation for that.
  23. My experience finding resources like this is as follows: When I was studying German I found this: http://coerll.utexas.edu/dib/index.php; DW also offered a free online program; Goethe offered free A1 exam material and they had lists of the words you were expected to know for each level. When I was brushing up on my Italian I found some courses on Edx and Coursera. As well as used online grammar exercises. I'd imagine you can find something similar for French. I would start with the vocabulary lists for whichever level you're at in the EU framework and go from there. I also think MOOCs are the best bet. Depending on your level (https://www.coursera.org/learn/etudier-en-france) starts in 4 days. There also tend to be lots of lectures on YouTube to supplement your own work if you can find an online textbook and be an autodidact. One key thing I would absolutely recommend if you are taking this seriously is have a tutor like once a week for 30 minutes you can pay on like iTalki or some other similar site to get practice speaking and ask any questions to. I think Duolingo is pretty unhelpful as well mostly because I do not get a lot out of it. However, I would not give up on finding good free resources. At this point any major language is easy enough to learn for free online.
  24. @CatBowl Interesting not familiar with their work. I will check it out! @EspritHabile Your advice on schools is helpful and has helped me narrow down first choices a bit. Alaimo's work sounds like something worth checking out. I need to broaden my readings for my thesis. I have been reading a lot of Timothy Morton's work. Your interests intersect with mine in some ways. I love speculative fiction, and have been reading a lot of climate fiction in particular! I would love to write more on it sometime soon.
  25. @EspritHabile I'll check out Idaho, thanks for the suggestion. Like CatBowl mine have changed too. I have kinda a final 13 but in reality 11 plus 2. University of Alberta was one I just added. Im thinking about York too but the funding is low for Toronto My signature is not quite up to date. I'm mostly interested in indigenous lit and ecocrit for my SOP/dissertation. I tlam pretty sure my thesis will be on Leslie Marmon Silko and the changing environmentalism in her three major novels. I'm also really taken with the philosophical ways we conceptualize nature in ancient, romantic, and contemporary moments. I think I'd love to do some like broad comparison of volcanic eruptions and their literary reactions. I am into trying out OOO and ANT methods of analysis at the moment I also love environmental apocalyptic or utopian film and and literature. What are you into? @CatBowl what ecofeminist texts really resonated wth you ?
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