kurayamino

This is a great topic! I just finished up my honors thesis and that was a real bear. I ended up falling back to my fiction roots and re-read Stephen King's On Writing. Which I always found helpful. Here's his top 20 hints to writing, which you'd think are only applicable to fiction, but in writing about literature I've found them really relevant. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/stephen-kings-top-20-rules-for-writers/

I have nothing useful to add to this discussion, but a professor at my school who was a radical in the 60's and 70's always asks about adjunctification: "how did this happen on our watch?" It seems to me if there was some complicity on the part of the professors he'd be asking a different question.

I think another way to get other work experience is through your program in some ways. I started working on transcription of audio interviews for a professor, but I can see that this type of skill will be useful outside of academia. Not that journalism is another field where jobs are abundant, but doing some of the background work such as transcribing interviews, might provide better opportunities than creative content. If you're not sure how to get this work, I would say you look to the history and anthropology departments. I've never had a problem finding some work doing this and have worked on a number of book length projects throughout my undergraduate career. If you get one job doing it and do it well, chances are that professor will recommend you to others.

This is a great piece about professionalization from the MLA in 2013. There's a lot of information about the "downturn" in English positions and the harsh realities we face. What I think is great is some of the stuff at the end where it talks about what grad students can do themselves, what types of things to look for in their programs, etc. https://www.mla.org/professionalization

This was a great positive essay about ending the dichotomy between "applied" degrees and liberal arts degrees. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2015/04/20/essay-calls-ending-divide-between-liberal-arts-and-practical-education

That's a great idea WT, I hadn't even thought of that. I'll be checking on it asap.

Hurrah!! I can't wait to meet you!

YAY!!!

God. Yes. Yes. Yes. Let's rail against the inequities of capitalism by becoming more educated rather than slamming our fist and saying academia is it's own unique problem. It's really not. As with any market, there are periods of boom and bust. That's the thing we should be upset about, not higher education itself.

I second what others have said... Amherst seems like the best option, despite it's lack of a Slavic focus. Even if your research interests change because of the way the program is structured at least you won't have to worry about coming up with money for tuition!

Awwww I'm sure it was the right choice, but I'm sad we won't be in the same cohort!

Yay!!!

Congrats IQ84!!

I've turned down ucla and Michigan and will officially be attending Rutgers. I hope the spots go to someone on the forums!

I know my own personal delay in deciding is that both programs are great fits and that my visit to one of them just ended on Wednesday. I'm still trying to process the huge amount of information presented from both schools so I can make a good decision. I suspect that this week and the next week are when things really start shuffling, but I do know that a friend who got into a school last year received a phone call at 5pm on April 15th to bring him/her in off the waitlist. For my own part... it's pretty agonizing to be in limbo like this. I'm looking at what a life would be like in two very different cities. I have a meeting with my advisor on Tuesday and suspect I'll make my own final decision at the end of next week.

Yes, totally. I think it's the most balanced thing I've seen and I really appreciated being able to read it. Thanks for sharing lifealive!

I understand that the focus in this forum is on academic jobs because that is the field that we all are attempting to get into, but perspective is so important. Recognizing that we are in a recession across the board, and that places like Forbes suggest that there will be another deep recession by the end of 2015 can help to put the lack of academic jobs in perspective. (http://fortune.com/2014/10/28/global-recession-us-europe-china/) I see the adjunctification of academia as a by-product of capital needs and equate it with the hiring of cheap labor in any other industry to make ends meet. Is it fair? No, of course it's not. But it also isn't just you and your peers. In addition, I found this article to be helpful. http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/why-you-should-go-to-graduate-school-in-the-humanities-59821It places realistic expectations on the job market by explaining how the market for academic jobs has always been terrible. From the article: and

My statements about how many times this stuff has been discussed really should have been more along the lines of "how many times this stuff has been talked around and around." I get frustrated when there is no actual benefit and people are just providing anecdotal evidence about how hard things are. My point really was just that I think we all know it's hard and my snide comments were just out of frustration that no one, even those with the best intentions, have no advice except to abandon ship.

Well, imagination and reality are two different things. I asked almost all of those questions because of a helpful list posted here on GC as well as suggestions by my current advisors. I also heard students talking about these things at the open houses. I just don't find my reality to match up with your imagined possibilities and, quite frankly, I find it a little patronizing to suggest that we're all just naive students being led to our doom. But, perhaps you haven't been on GC long enough to know that these are things that we've discussed in multiple forums. I'm sorry if you didn't ask these questions or that you've interacted only with graduate students who didn't think to ask them because these are some of the most important questions to ask a graduate program because they reflect directly on your well being as a student and ability to finish.

Of course, but providing information that not all schools are like what chateaulafitte suggested is just as important as saying there are schools that are like that. I think your last paragraph is really important though because I'm sure there are schools out there who are just doing it the way it has always been done because that's the way they've done it. However, I think there are a good number of schools who recognize the problem exists and provide alternative training for those who want it. Which, in my prospective institutions, has been the case across the board. I'm sure I didn't just get lucky enough to get into the only schools that have changed their curriculum and are broadening their training for other career paths.

I've never had that experience. My advisors at my current undergraduate institution and my prospective graduate institutions are forthright in their message that there is absolutely no guarantee that at the end of this there will be a job. My grad institutions put their placement figures on the website and had frank conversations about the difference between the placements and the re-placements, and what that meant as an incoming scholar. I don't feel duped or like I'm being led into some selfish money-making Ponzi scheme, but that I'm forced to have my eyes wide open with every conversation that includes both reservations about the future of the field and potential personal solutions to the crisis.

Hey silenus, I'm definitely interested in drama. My writing sample dug into Gay's The Beggar's Opera and other lit stuff. How about you?

Of course not. I'll look out for it.

I've turned down Indiana-Bloomington and will likely turn down Michigan by the end of the week. I hope this helps someone here on GC!