kurayamino

I've been gone for a bit, but wanted to chime in and say I entered my PhD when I was married, and we had our first kid last year. There are quite a few people in my program who have kids, too, so we aren't unicorns. I suspect that most people who use gradcafe are younger or just entering their programs though. It's nice to meet those of you who do have kids/spouses!

To provide closure for those waiting on Rutgers, I learned today that all admissions and waitlists have been sent out. Sorry to those of you who didn't get in :(:(

Just to give you a little hope, Rutgers has POIs call over the whole weekend so don't die too much! *fingers crossed for you!*

Well, we "planned" (as much as one can plan these things) to have the kid during a summer when I don't have to work, and when I return I'll be in the midst of orals. This means, at my institution, I'll be teaching one course and taking an "independent study" to get my reading done. Essentially this means I'm only out of the house for 2 days a week. I actually think with the right supportive environment being in a PhD program means that raising a child is way easier to manage than two full time working out of the house parents. Childcare costs are significantly less, etc. If this is something you're considering, remember that a PhD is a job and that FMLA laws apply equally to you as anyone else who works. This obviously varies state by state, but if a family is something you're considering and you have multiple offers, I suggest looking that up! If needed I could take a full year off and not lose my place, for example, and some of that would even be paid. Maybe some questions to ask on your campus visits.

I just want to add that it isn't as though life stops when you're in the PhD. I was married before I started, but we're about to have our first kid. With the right department your "outside" life can continue and even flourish. It was important to me as a pretty non-traditional student (I started the PhD at 29) to find a department that supported grad students and their lives outside of academia. Also, there have been about 3 weddings since I've been here with people who met in grad school. It happens more than you think!

I heard through the grapevine that the Rutgers adcom will be meeting tomorrow to finalize and decisions will go out by Monday! Keeping my fingers crossed for those that applied and hope to see you at the open house!

When I applied I received quite a few acceptance phone calls and I was exactly the same way. So I let them all go to voicemail. They all left messages and I was able to call them back when I was more composed... lol. It also let me think about what questions I might have for a particular program rather than being "on the spot" which I'm definitely not any good at.

Congrats @Wyatt's Terps!! I echo what everyone else has said--you are such a supportive voice in this forum and you totally deserve it!

All I'll say is... Ben Carson is being considered as Secretary of Education, which may not at first affect the humanities as much as it does the sciences, but I think we could potentially see less funding at public and state universities. Private universities will likely be able to withstand the political fallout better with their higher percentage of private donors... but I do think it may begin to become a little harder to find research funding or postdocs in the next four years. Additionally, as educators-in-training, it will affect our ability to teach and where we are able to do so because Trump openly supports for-profit education. This is all not to mention the way it affects my students at a large public university with a high minority population--all of whom were devastated and, understandably, found it hard to focus.

Oh yeah, definitely! I came straight out of a BA though and it was thought that since I only had about 1 page and 1/4 of material to use that it would look better if it were 1 page.

Hey WT, So, I can't speak to the non-academic publications, but I did have some poetry prizes from undergrad that I included in my "Awards/Honors/Grants" section. My advisors suggested I leave them in because it indicated that I was committed to different areas of the humanities, was able to have academic and other achievements simultaneously, and only took up two lines of space. As for the serving on the advisory board, etc.. I ended up leaving stuff like that off my CV because it didn't add much to my CV and I needed to keep it to one page. In the end I treated my CV as a bullet list of things I didn't want to cover in my SOP, but felt like would round out my abilities as a potential PhD candidate. Since you're getting your MA now and stuff like organizing and advising are service oriented, I think your teaching skills would be more useful in that space. Hope that helps a little! I'm sure there are people on here who will have more to add about non-academic publishing.

Literally every conference I have ever been to, regional and national, have all been people reading from the page. There is a way to do it that makes it fun and enjoyable though, which some people have not yet gotten the hang of, but I personally enjoy these conferences which is why I have attended so many even though I was not presenting myself.

I bombed the test as well and did not retake it. I successfully applied to many schools who required the test. It's more just checking off a box than anything else. Don't retake it and, I second what poliscar has said. Exams and the GRE subject are nothing alike.

Lol @ anyone with "truther" in their name.

I really found that the GRE verbal flashcards were very useful, especially if you know some others who are going to be studying. There were a good number of words from the flashcards that came up on my exam that I wouldn't have learned otherwise.