Ivy

I'm glad to see this thread! One of the pros if I get accepted for a Ph.D. will be the ability to finally co-habitate with my sweetie! He's currently in Denver and I'm in Los Angeles. In the past we've both applied for jobs in each others' cities and gotten fairly far but never offered positions. So when I decided last year to apply to do a Ph.D., it was pretty obvious I'd need to move (Denver doesn't offer a Ph.D. in my subject and the only program local to me is at a school I prefer to not attend). I was only going to apply to Seattle, which was a place my sweetie was okay relocating to--there are lots of jobs offered in his field, and in the meantime he's also started a distance master's program out of UW (as a side note, he's the one who convinced me to do the MLIS a few years ago, and after I finished, I convinced him; that's the program he's in now), so he could either continue online or try to transfer into the in-person program. When speaking with the professor I knew at UW, she suggested two other programs to me that were closely in line with my specific research interests: Milwaukee and Urbana-Champaign. My sweetie made it clear that he would not go to Urbana-Champaign, but when I asked him how he felt about Milwaukee (I thought he'd be dead-set against it), he replied: "Well, there's a lot of Frank Lloyd Wright houses in Wisconsin I'd like to see." So that was that, and I applied to the two schools. We've talked a bit about what we might do and where we might go after the Ph.D., and how to figure that out. And while we're keeping our options open, we both have places where we know we *don't* want to live, so that determines a lot of where we plan on looking for positions and jobs. Also, if I want to teach info science, there are a limited number of universities that are not in our 'no fly zones', so that helps us focus our searches.

Ooh, I like this idea! The secretary was very nice and helpful when she first called to let me know about the interview, I'm sure she would know and help. I did try looking at the faculty directory, but while I found what I think might be one of the people (only about 65% sure it's her, though), I never found the second one. The interview was via Skype and some of their connections were muddy and hard to hear, and the introductions were very rushed. I think if I can get their names, I'll send short cards, and if I can't, I'll send a nice email to the chair and ask her to forward it to the other panelists. Thanks everyone for your input!

I searched the forums but I didn't find much on this topic... I just had my first Ph.D. interview yesterday and was wondering if it's traditional to send a thank you note to your interviwers? I know that it would be proper after a job interview, but I haven't seen too many people mention it in the context of graduate school. My interview was only about 20 minutes and conducted by a panel of at least 4 people, only two of which I even got their full names, which complicates the situation: if I were to send a note, would I send one to all the panelists, or just to the chair, or to the chair and ask her to forward it on? Email? Card via USPS? Or am I overthinking this and a thank you note is really over the top an inappropriate in this situation? Has anyone here sent thank-yous after interviews? (Side note: I did send thank you cards to all the faculty I spoke with who helped me out when I was first considering applying at their respective schools and wanted to hear more about their programs.) Thanks!

I found this interesting...I was just called for an interview on Wednesday and they emailed me a document outlining what sorts of questions would be asked and what kinds of information they were looking for in the interview--and it specifically mentioned that they wanted specific examples and that they *didn't* want people who were just there to "do anything" or be research lapdogs. They don't care if you love the grad school life or not--they care what you're going to achieve and accomplish while you're in it, not whether or not you enjoy it. Sure, they want people who are interested in research and solving problems, but *what* problems do you want to solve? Aren't there one or two key issues above the rest that tug at your heartstrings that you want to spend those long hours working on? That's what I would talk about in a SOP; that's the specifics they're looking for, not names of professors but actual, concrete areas of research that you're passionate about. Just my $0.02.

I'm an alumna of the SJSU program and I can't say enough good things about it. I enjoyed the education and the experience. That said--it's almost entirely online and you really need to be a self-motivated, disciplined student to get through. I would recommend the MLIS over the MARA not just because of the accredidation factor but also becuase it'll be more versatile in the profession. I took plenty of archives classes and felt well-prepared for a career in archives with my MLIS. Just a heads up, Berkeley is no longer accredited by the ALA, either. They changed their program focus some years ago to a more management-based program rather than info science. It's still a great program from what i hear, just for a different area/focus.

I've applied to the University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to study cataloging and classification for arts-related libraries and collections.