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Dr. Old Bill

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Everything posted by Dr. Old Bill

  1. Holy heck...thanks again guys! I didn't expect such a warm response! It does feel like things are falling into place...very much so. My wife and I are now actively looking for apartments in the Maryland side of D.C., and will move by the end of June, which is a welcome occurrence unto itself!
  2. Thanks folks! Needless to say, I'm really happy! It means I won't be teaching in the spring (the 1/2 TAship is incompatible with the full GAship), but I've been assured that there will be lots of other opportunities to teach if all goes well...and I really do want to teach as soon and as much as possible. But yes! Funding is great, and it will be in the English department as well, so...all is good!
  3. Did I know this already? I think I should have known this already. I must have. Fellow British Columbian here, in case I haven't mentioned it before. And congrats again! At least you'll fit in by cheering against the Maple Leafs these days.
  4. Just chiming in to say...I just received a full GAship offer with full funding: total tuition remission, faculty health care plan, and a generous stipend.
  5. In my (admittedly limited) experience with graduate professors, enthusiasm tends to breed enthusiasm. I wouldn't worry too much about it!
  6. Yeah, with a 1/2 TAship at UMD, even M.A. students can get the faculty health care plan for something like $30 per month. I don't think it's that uncommon overall. ETA: Oops...didn't see that ProfLorax posted pretty much the same thing.
  7. Yup -- I agree with Ramus and Rising_star. I think you send MSU an email on Monday or Tuesday to see where they're at, then depending on how (or if) they respond, you pull the trigger on the 15th.
  8. Congrats to you both! Greenmt -- you're going to love it at UMD. I'm thrilled to be attending, and it will be great to have another GCer in the cohort! Feel free to PM me.
  9. Just chiming in to say that I have a good friend who was able to transfer from a Ph.D. program at Boston College to an equivalent Ph.D. program at Ohio University. Granted, it is more in the realm of a business Ph.D. than the humanities, but if you would like me to find out more information on how it worked, feel free to PM me. As to the rest, the spousal component does complicate things, and my wife and I were facing a similar dilemma had I gotten in to a Ph.D. program elsewhere. One X-factor is that New York and Boston are relatively close -- about a 2 - 2.5 hour drive, no? In theory, you could just rent a room near campus for three or four days per week, then return to New York on weekends. Option 3 is also quite viable, in my view, if your wife is amenable to living in Boston. Personally, my wife and I were willing to live apart for the five years if we had to. She would have looked for work in her field wherever I was located, but we were prepared for the possibility of "summers and weekends." There are some people who could never do that, and with damn good reason, I might add. Since my wife and I have had to live apart by necessity for months and years in the past (I immigrated to the U.S. to be with her), we knew we could do it...but it's certainly not the ideal, and not for everyone. In our decision-making process about Ph.D. programs, we decided that me getting a Ph.D. would be the best for both of us in the long run. "Short term pain for long term gain," as the saying goes. So I would be going for the Brandeis option, myself, with the hope that your wife can get licensed in the state in the next year or two. It's truly a balance of personal and professional in your case, and there's no great solution. But you did apply to Brandeis for a reason, and it's a great program with a very good funding package. I just think that, if your ultimate plan is to get a Ph.D. regardless, you may wind up regretting a decision to reject a guaranteed offer now when you have NO guarantee of an offer in a couple of years...especially in a shrinking discipline. Either way, you have my empathy. It's a tough one, and I wish you the best of luck in making your decision! As mentioned, feel free to PM me.
  10. That sounds very interesting! I mentioned elsewhere on GC a few months ago that I see some strong parallels between Flannery O'Connor's short stories and Stephen King's. It sounds crazy, but I see a lot of stylistic similarities, despite one being largely canonical, and the other decidedly not. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for a lot of 20th century American literature. I'll never be an Americanist, but Steinbeck, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, James, O'Connor etc. have long made inroads on my intellectual life.
  11. I agree with Fancypants09. If you're just finishing up your sophomore year, generally now is when your peers are thinking about what they want to major in, rather than where they'll be going with that major. Then again, I knew what my plans were right from the first day of my first freshman classes...though I am a non-traditional student, for what it's worth. Having said all of that, I don't think it's a bad thing to be thinking about grad school at this point -- just don't beat yourself up for not having done more thinking about it up to this point. My biggest suggestion is this: try to make a conscious effort to diversify in terms of literary time periods, if you are interested in the literary track. I made a point of trying to cover as many bases as I could, which is why I'm currently taking a couple of 20th century poetry courses...even though I generally dislike Modernist and Contemporary poetry. I also took a literary theory course, even though I don't particularly like theory...simply because I recognized its importance. It also can't hurt to take a course in the classics (Greco-Roman mythology, or even classical philosophy) given how much influence the Hellenic and HRE eras had on Renaissance literature (and trickled down through the centuries from there). As an undergraduate, however, there's just no way you'll be able to plug all of your knowledge gaps. You'll have to fulfill general requirements that will prevent you from taking courses you might otherwise take. So again, don't beat yourself up over it! If you're a sophomore, then you've got up to twenty courses (or depending on where you're at with your general reqs, possibly ten or fifteen) to diversify as much as you can. If you do find an area you become particularly smitten with, then definitely take another course or three in that area (i.e., somewhat disregard my above advice). For for the time being, I think the best objective is to get as broad a sense of your options as possible, and narrow down from there. Good luck!
  12. I say the "debt" issue is more YMMV. Certainly paying for an M.A. (or heaven forfend, a Ph.D.) outright through loans is NOT particularly wise, there are circumstances in which taking out student loans to help pay for part of a program isn't inherently evil. I also think the "don't go straight out of undergrad" advice is very subjective as well. If you're older, like me, then going straight out of undergrad makes perfect sense. If you're twenty-two, then it depends on your level of maturity and focus etc. A lot of people find going straight through from high school to B.A. to M.A. to Ph.D. works well. Had I had the encouragement and support when I was in my mid-teens, I strongly believe that I could have gone down that path.
  13. AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Congratulations, my friend! Such awesome news!!!
  14. You've got OPTIONS!!!! Congrats!!
  15. Congrats!! I've heard some things lately that have made me think that I won't apply to Harvard next time around. UCLA should be a fabulous option for you and, drought aside, L.A. itself is a pretty awesome place, in my opinion...
  16. Welcome! Others may very well disagree with me on this, but I think you should just be straight up with the DGS. If you have other offers, the DGS may be able to convince his higher-ups that you're someone in demand, and that they should make funding available so that their program will have you instead of another program. But even if you don't have other offers, letting the DGS know that fact might convince him/her to take you since you have potential as a future scholar etc. Either way, I've never been very good at politics, personally, but even if I were, in a situation like this -- in April, no less -- I suspect that honesty and openness are key. I doubt the DGS is asking for any nefarious reason -- it's probably to try to make all the pieces in front of him/her fit together. Good luck!
  17. A Nick Cave fan AND an East of Eden avatar! Yep, you're definitely welcome here.
  18. It's great to finally be happy and contented with my future grad school plans!

    1. autumnreads

      autumnreads

      what an awesome feeling! congrats :)

    2. windrainfireandbooks

      windrainfireandbooks

      So happy and excited for you Wyatt! You absolutely deserve complete happiness and contentment! :) I can't wait to hear about all of your successes in grad school.

  19. Me! Yup, I'll be starting a two-year M.A. at UMD in the fall. I have partial funding guaranteed at the moment (which will have be teaching freshman comp in three consecutive semesters starting next spring), and a couple of other fully funded opportunities on the table, but I'm trying to assess how manageable the workload would be to juggle TAships / GAships / coursework / teaching etc. I really like UMD's 1/2 TAship option, thanks to its emphasis on early teaching, but if I have a fully funded GAship option, do I go with that? Hrm. The one X-factor is that the 1/2 TAship is two years of guaranteed funding, whereas the other options I have on the table are both one-year options, meaning I would have to find something else in year two. These are things I'll need to figure out on my own, of course. I recognize that it's a boon to have funding options at all at M.A. level. ToldAgain's second paragraph is one I could have written myself. I felt extremely welcome at UMD's open house last week, and Ph.D. students, M.A. students, faculty and administrators alike were all incredibly supportive. In other words, doing an M.A. at UMD has gone from being a "consolation prize" to being an "alternate plan A" to being something I really want to do. Truly, at this point if I got a call from a Ph.D. program accepting me in, there is a strong possibility that I would turn it down...and I mean that sincerely. Congrats to the three of you for getting your acceptances!
  20. Just chiming in to say that your whole post is one of the best I've read on GC in weeks. I'm out of upvotes, but seriously -- thanks for sharing.
  21. Oh, that's fantastic, Jhefflol! So happy for you!
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