angel_kaye13

All six applications are done. 
I'm not sure if this is weird or not but I don't really feel relieved. It's nice to have my evenings back, I suppose. (I'm reading a novel! For fun! Would you believe it!?) But I don't feel this profound feeling, like one of these: 

Still, it's nice to not have to work on applications any longer. Now I'm not permitting myself to worry, because there is nothing that I can do about it. Worrying about things over which you have no control only creates stress. Best of luck to everyone still working. You can do the thing!

I know I shouldn't. Everything is going fine, the writers submitted the letters yesterday, and neither the SoP nor the writing sample is terrible and the grades/GRE and such are great. I just continue to realize all the possible improvement I could have made to increase the admittance change by a few decimal points. I recently changed the SoP and writing sample for Columbia and will do the the same for Princeton and MIT on the weekend. Maybe I should rather look forward until mid-January when I really can't change anything anymore.

Just thinking that I don't know if I agree with the "they want the app fee" argument. Columbia, for example, has an endowment of 9.5 Billion, even if they get 12000 applicants at 85 per that adds about to about 1 million--just doesn't seem that significant. I wonder if more applicants = more rejections which increases their apparent selectivity.
Who knows, maybe they just don't want to deal with people begging for an extension and an automated email is simple to set up. Also, regarding the 'early consideration' idea...they want the best people they can find in their applicant pool...it would not be in their best interest to start making decisions until they had seen the whole pool, though they could probably begin to weed out the obviously poor applications.

Religious incunabula (don't get to use that word often....)

I'm trying to remain as objective as possible:


1) Do any of your writers have secretaries that work for them? If so, would it be possible to have the secretary e-mail the professor? I know that professors may be afforded a secretary if they head a different department.
2) How much of a notice did you give your professors? Did they seem thrill to write you a letter or did they hold reservations? (Last year, I had a professor refuse to write a letter because she didn't think she *knew* me well enough despite being in her class. The structure of the program was such that you'd be taking each professor once before graduation.)
3) Between the first time you asked them, have you asked them again? I got really nervous about some of my deadlines because one professor hadn't submitted. He ended up submitting hours after I resent him an e-mail. Turns out I had nothing to fret; sometimes professors are procrastinators too.

Congrats, Wyatt! Without [hopefully] sounded TOO terribly weird, I THINK you and I were in the same application cycle last time I was on here (I haven't been on since master's apps, 2 cycles ago!). I like seeing familiar faces, AND I just finished up my own apps for this cycle. So good luck, all around? I'll definitely be cheering everyone on, but wanted to congratulate for the success of the past years!

You might get a better understanding of evaluations if you posted in the Applied Sciences and Math section. We're probably not the best people to evaluate non-literature/English departments as each department have different expectations of their applicants. I know that programs usually post a miniumum for TOEFL for non-native speakers which you'll want to make sure you meet the minimum on prior to applying.

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Many departments that require the test, such as Rutgers, view it as a formality rather than a hurdle, so don't count yrself out yet. 

While I've been there when it comes to test stress and know exactly how you feel, fret not! 
(1) Yeah, the review books have not caught up to the structure of the new GRE Subject Test in Literature. The examples I had in the book I used were all shorter excerpts with one to three questions, whereas the test I took in 2014 featured longer excerpts with six to ten questions. 
(2) Leaving that many questions blank isn't an inherent issue. In fact, most people leave a block of questions blank, since it's better to leave them blank than risk the negative points derived from missing an answer. I'd say I left between 30-40 blank.
(3) A 170 on verbal is awesome; you should feel confident in that part of your application. The analytical writing, while not unimportant, is curiously not a feature I see mentioned in most grad program admission sites. I think maybe one mentioned an "ideal" minimum of 4.5, but that was an anomaly. (I applied to 13 programs.) That 4 shouldn't give you too much pause; the verbal section is almost universally what departments focus on as far as I understand. (I wonder if this is because the GRE favors a particular "form" of essay, meaning that if you write an excellent essay that isn't in their desired format, you could end up doing more poorly than you deserve.)
My subject test score was blah (55th percentile) and my verbal/writing scores were good but not top-tier (164/5.5), and I got into one of my top programs. Don't psych yourself out too much over the tests, especially given your superlative verbal score. 

Consider applying to UNC-Chapel Hill's PhD Program in English (with a focus on rhetoric, composition, and literacy studies)! We have a small but mighty group of rhetoric, composition, and literacy grad students and four tenure-line faculty who are extremely supportive. We meet regularly as a writing group and have many fun adventures traveling to conferences, applying for grants, and co-authoring publications. For more information, see our website: http://writing.unc.edu/node/16. 

I'm sure you have MORE than enough feedback from people already, I didn't read through them all. But my initial instinct? if this is what you want??? You don't need anyone to tell you different. They wouldn't offer an unfunded MA, if it wasn't possible for SOME students. You must be one of the lucky ones. I also know a lot of people that are comfortable accruing a little more debt, knowing their payments can be deferred until after their studies are done and a good job gotten. Don't worry about how others will perceive your decision: this is YOUR dream, and you're thrilled! Congrats to you on getting your dream school!!

Thing Two

red fish

I'm toting an old-school Targus!! (7-ish years old, but still modernish, I think! It has room for my laptop and books and pens, anyway!!!*^^* Woohoo, solidarity!!!*^^* ;-)
 
I've been very happy thus far, it seems to handle the weight evenly, which back-support is becoming more important for me, as I consider more of wholistic health. But I'll have to let you know, as the year progresses. So far, so good, though!

I have something like this and it has lasted me many years now: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/targus-tanc-laptop-backpack-black/8848527.p?id=1219371611317&skuId=8848527
 
The exact model I have is no longer available though. 
 
The factors that I care about for these bags are:
1. Padded laptop compartment
2. Padded shoulder straps
3. Extra clasp that goes around your waist (like a hiking backpack) that you can use when it's really heavy
4. Side pockets for water bottles that are zippered (ideally, like my current bag, you can use them both as a zippered pocket or not
 
Extra bonus for my current bag is that there is one pocket for your lunch--it's lined with the lunchbag material to help maintain temperature. But also nice that it's waterproof so I don't have to worry about my lunch spilling into my books or laptop!
 
Ultimately though, I rarely use my backpack since I don't take my computer to work and all of my books are stored in my office. I mostly use it to carry lunch, a few papers, etc.

In a previous life, I was working full time, and taking 3 graduate classes per quarter (although the average full-time student there took 4). I was single at the time, and had no pets, and no friends outside of work (which was OK for me then).
At it's hardest, I would get to work around 7 or 8, go to class on any given day for three hours at some point (which my bosses OK'd), and stay at work until about 6 or 7pm. I ate breakfast and lunch at work, usually while working, and occasionally dinner, too. Then I'd go home and read and write for anywhere between 1 and 4 hours. Sometimes I'd pull overnights, but only because of procrastination. 
On top of it, I somehow managed to fit in 2-3 evenings of a martial arts class every week, and attended an every-other-weekend club.
That said, I was NOT healthy. I started getting ill more and more frequently, and more and more seriously. I was very stressed out, and it manifested as resentment towards some of my bosses and coworkers at the time (I was in my early 20's, and unaware of all this then). 
I was (am?) also an incredibly ridiculously ambitious person, to the point that other things are significantly sacrificed. At that time in my life, it was my health. 
Now that I am entering a new graduate program (MA/PhD), I not only have my own health to be vigilant over, but also the health of my family, each of my kids, and my two pets. While having no teaching requirements, I plan to take odd side jobs only within my freelance profession. I wouldn't work more than 20 hours per week now, and that would be really taxing for me.
A lot of it depends on your age and situation; how much you enjoy pushing yourself; what other things you'd like to do outside of work and school, if anything; and whether you can "afford" pushing yourself that hard for an extended period of time. 

My experience in graduate seminars has really been as wide ranging as Wonton Soup describes. I've had a feminist theory class where nothing the professor could do managed to keep the atmosphere from becoming progressively hostile through the semester. I've had classes where the professor is so dynamic that everyone's performance is made better. I've had classes with a professor who is amazing and helpful one-on-one, but will bore you to tears in a group discussion. If I had advice, I'd say expect the same variety of human error as anywhere else. 
I'd say the biggest difference from undergrad is that, as ProfLorax said, the learning process becomes much more egalitarian. Most of my profs talk to us as though we are all professionals exchanging ideas, and I think that spills over to paper writing, where you are again encouraged to think like an academic rather than a student. But also, it's not really as scary as you think it is (I half expected my advisors to have knowledge flowing in their veins, but they're normal people. Some of them wear dad jeans).

It depends a lot on the students, the size of the course, and the professor teaching the course. Sometimes students will be asked ahead of time to lead a week's discussion; sometimes the prof will do a little kickoff; sometimes it will be all about small group activities; sometimes the prof will guide discussion using questions/comments from a message board everyone writes to before the class; and sometimes it's just open, blank discussion. The number of students in a class will influence what a day looks like, as open, unstructured discussions are generally bad for larger classes (where the loudest students can dominate and others can get lost) and small group activities can't be done in a 3 person class. Also, the personality of the students matters more than in undergrad and can influence a course. 
My favorite grad classes in the past are my favorites because of the other students in them. On the other hand, my least favorite grad class was my least favorite because of the professor, for various reasons. 

Are there any fellow TAs whom you could approach about a swap? It might be easier if - instead of going to the admin and asking them to shift everybody's TA schedules around - you find 1 TA who will agree to swap their assignment with you and then go to admin with that request. This depends on the nature of your TA assignment of course (in the sciences we have big lab courses with all the TAs teaching the same thing, just on different days and at different times).
 
As long as you phrase your request politely (and acknowledge that it isn't the end of the world if they can't grant you the request) it wouldn't hurt to ask the admin about the possibility of swapping. For all you know, another TA has a serious problem with their assignment and admin are already planning to move the TAs about, at which point they may even welcome a volunteer. 

All invaluable information from ProfLorax as per usual but this one really stuck out to me. 
To get my armchair psychologizing on, I've noticed that being "Mr. or Mrs. Smart Jerk" in class can often be a reactionary move to counter any feelings of imposter syndrome. Understandable but also quite annoying.
In my MA program, I often found the person who was humble about what they knew and didn't know in class tended to be a) liked the most by colleagues and the professor and b.) did best overall in the class because they were open to new ideas and weren't so busy trying to prove their extravagant intelligence. Obviously this humbleness was backed up by hard work and competence. (When it wasn't, those folks tended to drift into the "I'm so dumb so I'm not going to try" self-flagellating route...) 
Anyway, drownsoda (sorry, were you the one before with the Courtney Love avatar? I totally feel like I recognize your username but not sure. If so, you probably know well what I'm going to say next since you were a regular contributor around here during discussions about this topic, I believe.) I think you may soon find out that academia can sometimes be a battle to the death of egos. The sooner you recognize and neutralize in yourself any instinct to join the fray, the better.

Good question! I'd say most of my grad seminars were structured similarly to my undergrad seminars: discussion based sessions on that week's readings and course concepts. Here are some subtle but important differences:
Both in my MA and PhD programs, classes met once a week for three hours. This means we had more substantial discussions, diving pretty deeply into each reading. Some professors also assigned small group work to fill out the time as well. The sections are smaller, which means there is more pressure to talk in class. Many, if not most, students have a laptop ready to go. Many seminars require a presentation component. This can range from students presenting mini-conference papers or even leading the class for an hour or two.  Students are often treated as experts in their subfields. For example, I am often asked, "what does a disability studies reading of this text look like?" by my professors or classmates. Some people will try to be the smartest person in the room. Don't be that person. (Sorry I'm slipping into advice here.) Be the hardest worker or the most engaged or some other superlative if you must. But the folks trying to be the smartest person in the room (name dropping theorists irrelevant to the conversation as if everyone knows their entire bibliographies, speaking thesaurus-ese, interrupting others), are often the worst. 

I'm starting my first courses as an MA student this fall, and am just curious what seminars are typically like. 
From what I've read, they are mostly discussion based, and hinge on questions/musings/ideas/theories that are posed by the students, which are then talked about as a group on the topic at hand. If this is correct, and is what graduate seminars are essentially like, I'm kind of surprised because that was basically the format of ALL of my upper-level undergraduate English courses. When I was reading about the standard differences between lectures and seminars online, I found myself thinking back to when I was studying to earn my BA, and couldn't think of a single class I took that WASN'T like a seminar. Maybe this is just standard for humanities courses, perhaps?
Full-on lecture was rare in my undergrad classes, and the bulk of our class time was devoted to discussion— it was really common for each student to be required to submit a thought/make a post on the week's reading online, which the professor(s) would review and then select salient points of discussion for when class time came. Since many of these classes had around 20-30 students, we were often divided into groups, but discussion was essentially par for the course, and about 75% of our class time was devoted to it. Occasionally we would have to do presentations at the end of the semester, and obviously papers were frequent as well.
Anyway, if the standard graduate seminar is actually like what I've read it is like, it really doesn't sound all that different from what I experienced in undergraduate classes (aside from having higher demand from the professors and being a more intimate group). For anyone who has more experience and has taken seminars, does this ring true, or were your seminars wildly different from your undergraduate "lecture" courses?

As in you don't have an area of interest, or anything particular you're passionate about? I've found most people will have developed an area they're interested in by the time they gradauate. For some, this happens much later. You can start by asking yourself which kind of courses in your undergrad you found more interesting than others.
But more importantly, how is a master's degree going to help you? Do you want to go into research and/or academic fields, making the MS a stepping stone to a PhD? If so, you'd need to be passionate enough in an area of research. Or is it needed for a job? Then, you'd need the master's in the field related to the job.
 
Hope that helps.

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