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kurayamino
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Posts posted by kurayamino
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I can totally understand the panic caused by this, but I don't think it's a big deal. It's a little more work for the grad admins, but that's what they're there for. I suspect that as long as you're before the deadline it'll all be fine.
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3 hours ago, Wyatt's Terps said:
But! I bought a PS4 and Fallout 4 as a treat to myself for when the semester is done. I haven't taken it out of the box yet, lest temptation get the best of me, but I figure it will add a bit of extra incentive to get through a tough eleven days.
Ohhh Yes! I've been living vicariously through my husband, watching him explore the wasteland. I can't wait to finish these papers and play.
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3 minutes ago, ProfLorax said:
But seriously, who else has something to celebrate?! I know you are a brilliant, ambitious bunch!
I'll get back to you in January after I successfully submit three seminar papers! ;)
- unræd, silenus_thescribe, echo449 and 2 others
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I'm firmly in the camp that suggests including personal information in the SOP, but only if you can make a connection to your research interests. Since you mentioned your interest in class disadvantage and your personal experiences with such I think it should definitely go in the SOP. I had professors at each of the schools where I was accepted make a connection with me over the personal information I put in the SOP and I think it helps them understand not just what you do, but who you are and where you come from.
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I went to a number of schools before I ended up in my last school and major. I think I had a 1.7 GPA from my first community college where I was majoring in photography. The next school I had a 2.7 in psychology and then finally in English a 3.9.
All of this is to say, it probably depends. I did not get into an "ivy" but I was accepted into 5 top 20 schools for PhD and 2 top 10 MA programs. If there's been enough time and your other materials are strong, particularly your writing sample, I say you have as good of a shot as anyone else.
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Hey brontesaurus,
I'm sorry to hear about your depression and PTSD. I think maybe the way you word this subject in your SOP will make a lot of difference on how it is received. For instance, you might not address your GPA numerically in your SOP, but explicitly state how your depression and PTSD has directly informed your interest in disability studies. As a way to explain my interest in masculinity and my background of poverty I used this sentence: ". Had my father—who became physically disabled before my birth—had access to scholarship in the field of disability studies, or had he been able to understand social constructions of masculinity as invented, not natural, perhaps he would have found comfort and even a degree of empowerment." You may be able to address your GPA by saying that your experience with depression and PTSD while in college informed your research interests.
As to your second question, that's a little trickier. What I did was talk about my current interest (the thing I submitted for the writing sample) and where I wanted to take that in the future. If your current project is on disability studies then find a way to broaden that topic and make your personal story have that much more of an impact. The future research is specifically in the SOP so that faculty members can get a feel for the type of work you want to continue doing at their institution and whether they would be of any benefit to your research interests I hope this is helpful! and take heart:the SOP editing process is a real bear. I came out with quite a few scrapes and bruises during the process, but ultimately it was all stuff I needed to hear. Best of luck to you!
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I think that a little bit of personal information to explain a circumstance or define who you are as a scholar is important. You are more than just the sum result of your academic achievements after all. The key is to keep it concise and to make sure it's doing the job you need it to do. I think piglet's advice is sound in making sure that you have learned from the experience or are looking forward, rather than just apologizing for something that was beyond your control. I'm sorry to hear about your loss Waco. I hope that this advice is useful.
- Dr. Old Bill and ProfLorax
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I'd also have someone outside your field look at your writing sample. I honestly believe that I wouldn't have done well my application season if I hadn't had my writing sample looked at by someone out of field. My advisor was so familiar with my work (and with the area of criticism that I was writing in) that he didn't catch a lot of things that stood out as significant problems once I had someone out of field (a 19th century Americanist - so quite far out of field) look at it. Remember: the admissions committee isn't going to consist of specialists in your field. Your admission definitely depends on someone in your general field signing off on you. But often, the person you want to work with - someone closely aligned with your interests - won't be on the admissions committee. That's what happened in my year. Neither of my two main advisors were on the committee that year. In addition, no-one makes admissions decisions in a vacuum; they have to get the DGS to sign off on admissions and defer to other members of the committee. For these reasons, I think having someone out of field look at your Writing Sample and SOP is necessary to maximize your chances of success in what is becoming an increasingly opaque and arbitrary admissions process.
I second this very very strongly. My writing sample would have bombed miserably if I hadn't received feedback from two people outside of my field. Not that their feedback made my writing sample more general, but it forced me to explicate some of the things which were particular to my century/field/focus.
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Yeah, I had a mini-breakdown last week, as balancing work and school has been getting tougher and tougher. I've been in this building for eighteen days straight now (mainly because I find it easier to get reading done on the weekend in a quiet, academic setting), and I haven't even hit any of my big assignments yet (though a 30-item annotated bibliography is on tap for next Thursday).
Fortunately, after exasperatedly going out for coffee last week at the end of my work shift, I bumped into a Ph.D. candidate here who I'm friends with, and he gave me the skinny on the reading...something I had already kind of cottoned on to, but needed to hear it anyhow: you just can't do all of the assigned reading, and work, and have any kind of social life. He said that you have to made an educated guess about what readings are going to be most important to the class, and then learn to "skim" the others -- read the introduction and conclusion, and speed through the body to find any points or concepts that seem key. Sure enough, I just didn't have time to read an essay for Monday, and no harm befell me... It was only discussed in class for about five minutes, and those five minutes probably told me all I needed to know, whereas actually reading it would have taken at least an hour and a half (since I'm painfully slow at close-reading).
My mentor says she considers three courses to be a full-time job unto itself. Add on the 20 hours per week I put in for my GAship (which is really more like 25, though that's on me), and it starts getting pretty hairy. And of course, I haven't found much time for my own research, or had as much of an opportunity to attend meetings and professionalize as I would like.
Having said all of that, I'm in two classes with a woman who arrives after having taught high school English all day. She doesn't seem very approachable, but I really want to ask her what her secret is to balancing it all...
I'm sorry about your mini-breakdown WT. Finding the right balance between all of these new responsibilities is super difficult. This week I was sort of forced to adopt the skimming strategy as there just weren't enough hours in the day. And, to my great surprise, I was still able to talk about the texts. It seems as being able to do this will become more and more critical during orals prep as well.
I lead my first discussion next week for one class, and I'm only slightly anxious about it. I wouldn't say I have full blown impostor syndrome, but it definitely feels like there's something on my face, or maybe my shirt isn't tucked in, or I' m wearing white after Labor Day, etc.
I can't imagine coming to coursework after teaching high school English all day. That's 6 periods of lecturing and papers to grade... and then to be functional and prepared for course? Jeez. Maybe she's secretly a super hero
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I can call out some important 18th century conferences:
Neasecs (Northeastern American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies) is in Hartford, CT Oct. 8-10.
Aphra Behn Biannual Conference is in Seton Hall, NJ Nov. 5-6th
Asecs (American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies) is in Pittsburgh, PA Mar 29 - Apr 3rd.
NASSR (North American Society for the Study of Romanticism) is in Berkeley, CA Aug. 11-14th.
And the Northeast MLA is in Hartford, CT Mar 17-20
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Your home institution may have some as well, but may call them exit scholarships or something for graduating seniors.
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Two weeks in and I'm also happy! There's some insecurity and anxiety, but it's not nearly as high as I thought it would be. The amount of reading is also very high, but not insurmountable. I am a little nervous about the seminar papers, but I'm trying to ignore that part for now.
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At my home institution there's a program http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/education/cert_certification_programs.cfm, but it's definitely not funded. The NYC teaching fellows program IS however, and it's fairly fantastic if you can relocate to NYC. There's also a loan forgiveness program for teaching in needy schools in NYC which may also be worth looking into.
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How many classes are you taking, if you don't mind me asking? I haven't taken three reading-heavy courses in a long time (the last time I did, the third class was a "flash fiction/prose poems" course, so needless to say it was manageable) and I'm feeling uneasy about how I'll handle it.
I don't mind at all! I'm taking three courses-- one is a theory and criticism course in 18th century. I've never taken anything quite like it, but it's in my century of interest so I'm pretty stoked. The other two classes are just lit classes, one in Victorian and one in Romanticism. Do your classes meet once a week?
I've heard that the workload is one of the hardest adjustments so I'm trying think of how I can structure my days if things start to feel slippery. I'm commuting from NYC for this semester, but I think if it gets too time consuming that I'll relocate to New Jersey in the Spring. Did everyone else find their moves to be trouble free?
I found a pretty great coffee place two blocks from my apartment, so I'm pretty much set for the next 6 years. (Classes also start for me on the 1st, and so my life is Ikea manuals and train rides to see people at the moment.)
One of the things that is killing me is the lack of a good coffee shop around campus. At least--I didn't see one during open house. I'm going to have to ask around because this girl cannot live on Au Bon Pain coffee.
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I am both excited and nervous, but excited is winning the fight! I've finalized my book purchases and I'm also peeing my pants a little bit. I don't have a syllabus so I'm not sure what the reading load will be, but the quantity of books is more than I had while taking 5 undergraduate classes where some of those were honors. I did have some reading homework for one class and the professor said this was lighter than a normal week. I don't start classes until the 1st, but orientation is next week and I'm really looking forward to talking with the people I know from the open house and meeting the rest of the cohort. My cohort and some other students are getting together for a happy hour next week and I'm really looking forward to interacting with the older students as well.
WT, I've heard such great things about Hamilton! You're the fourth person this week to talk about the show and now I have to go see it!
It's nice to hear about what people are doing! I hope everyone's first semester is excellent!
- echo449 and Dr. Old Bill
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First, you will need to specify a time period. Because of the way the discipline and market is set up, you will not be accepted to a program with that range. It's fine to be interested in other time periods--that will undoubtably make you a more well-rounded scholar. But the reality is that you'll need to choose a delimited time period and stick with it.
To just complicate this point a little bit-- I would say that your statement of purpose and writing sample need to focus on one period. However, it seems to me that your larger dissertation project doesn't necessarily have to follow those guidelines. Almost all of the presentations by graduate students I saw during campus visits were trans-historical. They tracked large ideas across a large period of time. And while I agree that I don't think a dissertation project should focus solely on one author I suspect that you could track Schopenhauer across multiple authors (following one theme). However, these are just my impressions as an incoming graduate student with experience at the handful of schools I visited.
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I can't speak to rhet/comp as a field, and for all I know there may be very different disciplinary hiring practices at work. But I know that at least for lit people, some programs will try to give their students lectureships while they're (still) on the market but out of funding, which has become more and more common both as the job market has tanked and as time-to-degree reqs have meant people are going on that market earlier and earlier. The expectation is still that they will find a job someplace else; the positions aren't intended to be permanent ones, and a large number of them can, at some schools, be a sign that they're having trouble placing their grads. (The flip side to that of course is that everyone isn't placing people, and it's better they support you while you're looking rather than throw you to the wolves.)
I'm not saying that's what those hires are that you're seeing--again, there are disciplinary differences, I'm sure--but I think it'd be useful to separate out those stopgap, "feed you while you're still on the market" posts given to recently graduated PhDs versus permanent positions. (And the latter is what I assume things like WC directing would fall under?)
Yeah, I second what unraed has said. I know UCLA does this as well as a way to offer a 7th and 8th year of support for those who need it.
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Hey BJC! I actually applied last year, but I applied for 18th C Brit with a focus on gender as well. I'm not sure what your regional demands are, but I'd also really strongly suggest Rutgers (where I chose to attend) because of their strength in 18th C and their certificate program in women and gender. I'd also suggest two other schools that I was accepted at for their 18th C. strengths as well: UCLA and Indiana-Bloomington. The staff there were all fantastic. Best of luck! Feel free to message me if you have any questions.
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This. As far as I know (from talking to administrative staff around that time) the deadline extension was due to fact that a lot of people were having trouble with the two step process, and not because of a shrinking applicant pool.
Yeah, I found it confusing and strange myself. Once I got past it though I didn't give any thought to how it might be slowing other people up... I attributed it to my own nerves about the whole process.
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Hey WT, I've had a bit of the same problem. I did stumble across Dominick La Capra's History in Transit, which I haven't read all the way through yet. I also picked up his History, Literature, Critical Theory, which may also be helpful.
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On 6/28/2015 at 7:40 PM, BooksCoffeeBeards said:
This is really my biggest concern - I only took the Lit GRE once, and that was back in 2010 (I ended up in the 55th percentile). I'm concerned about my score for this test since WashU is one of my top schools.
Bleh. Either way, it IS good to know what they care about!
Just to add my two cents.. I ended up being accepted to four top 20 schools this last season and I was in the 32nd percentile for the literature GRE. I think it's important, but I think other things can make up for a very low score. Bear in mind though, I came straight from a BA. I suspect someone holding an MA would need a higher score, and likewise if you came from a school that was recognized as more rigorous.
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Hey amiinside! I have a couple of people in my list of schools from my application season last fall who focus on the literature of war. I personally am also a non-traditional student and successfully applied with an application that used a writing sample focusing on drama/autobiography/history about war in the 18th C. So it can be done! As for whether or not it's worth it, as Wyatt said, that's completely up to you. That being said though, here is a list of people and where they work that I found in my research for programs that may help you. You should double check to make sure they're still at the schools I indicate or that they even still work in this area as it has been over a year since I put this list together.
Elaine Hadley - U Chicago
Rachael Adams - Columbia (she focuses in 20th C)
Sara Cole - Columbia
John Whittier-Ferguson - U Michigan
Roy Scranton - Princeton
Matthew Wilkens - Notre Dame
Rebecca Walkowitz - Rutgers (20th C)
Douglas Jones - Rutgers
Allison Carruth - UCLA
James Goodwin - UCLA
Alli Johnson - UCLA
I hope this is of some use to you!
What's the dream?
in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition
Posted
I was a florist for a couple of years! I've always thought I'd like to return to it if the whole academic thing doesn't turn out. This time of year was always crazy, but it was a good crazy.
As for my dream, well.. I'm kind of living it. I've wanted a PhD since I was a little kid and realized you could get a higher education and not be in medicine. For me, the journey is the reward and all that.
If I telescope out from that, honestly, I just want a job where I make more than $20k a year, which is what I made for the last 8 years as a working stiff. I would love to teach and become a professor and (to respond to the troll---teaching is service which is paying back to the community and paying it forward) get my ideas out into the world. But I'd probably be just as happy if I could one day own a home, even if I had to work a corporate job to do so.