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kurayamino
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Posts posted by kurayamino
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Hello everyone,
I'm resurrecting this thread because.. well I was up until 2am worrying about moving coast to coast. There's some helpful information in here that others might find useful. Also, it would be good to start discussing strategies if we come up with alternatives to what has been suggested.
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Just some brief thoughts on the stigma of loan debt.... I've noticed that if you lease a brand new kick ass mercedes with a brutal interest rate and exorbitant monthly payment all your friends will love you. If you refinance your house to buy it all the better because that means you have equity. If you take out a twenty year mortgage on a new condo everybody congratulates you. These forms of debt are equated with a kind of status.
Many people, including many on this board, stigmatize borrowing for education. I suppose this comes from the right place: the ideological belief that education should be free. However the cost/benefit analyses here are sort of a no-brainer. The career and social outcomes resulting from a graduate degree far exceed those of a new car or a new home, require far less capital, and have far more forgiving repayment terms. I honestly believe that many of those who decry the state of the job market in academia have never had to navigate the job market outside of academia. If they had, they would probably realize that most jobs are far more competitive than 40% placement rates and will crush your spirit and exploit you with impunity.
The fact is most Americans carry some form of debt (except of course the very rich, which I am not). Even the spendiest of borrowers for education rarely top out 100k. That's a fraction of what you would take out on a mortgage. In any event, a lot of the judgment on borrowers and on programs that ask students to borrow pretty misguided to me....
I think the stigma against borrowing for education is also based on this fact: When you finance a home or a car and find yourself out of work with too much debt you can file for bankruptcy. When you finance your education and find yourself out of work there is absolutely NOTHING you can do except extend the term of your loan. You will be in debt for your education for the rest of your life and if you have kids, the rest of their lives. The loan industry for education is one of the sharkiest businesses out there and while some debt may be unavoidable or even worth the risk taking on massive loads of debt (beyond say, the price of said Mercedes) can be a huge risk.
- poliorkein, SilasWegg, jazzyd and 2 others
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Plan B information for post PhD:
a book called “So What Are You Going to Do with That?”: Finding Careers Outside Academia by Susan Basalla and Maggie Debelius.
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This is a great article about the difference community colleges make in peoples lives. It may belong elsewhere, but I'll post it here for now.
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With that in mind, I'd still be interested in hearing a discussion about people working on the "margins" of academia. My interests lie largely in the fuzzy territory that is characterized by the overlapping of medieval studies and radical critical theory, and I feel like a decent amount of people in that "scene" are adjuncts, working at the margins of academia (like Eileen Joy, a hero of mine who left her academic job to do non-university sponsered, largely open source, publishing that mixes academic and critical inquiry with DIY sensibilities, openness to various levels of education and interests, etc.: please check this out if that sounds remotely interesting: http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2015/02/let-us-now-stand-up-for-bastards.html)and people who work at the "podunk" colleges and universities that are so maligned sometimes. It made my grad school search hard when a lot of people I would love to work with were at schools that either didn't have grad programs or were unranked.
I agree with CarolineKS about the elitism and resistance to it -- what I always wonder is why we don't have a discussion on what we can do. A lot of us, even those here going to "elite" schools are very likely looking at spending some or a lot of time adjuncting and being kind of nomadic. I'd like to see discussions about taking these margins loud and active and vital. My UG advisor, an old 1960s/70s radical feminist-turned-medievalist and a dear friend of mine, tells stories of trying to put together teacher's unions at colleges and having little success -- I'd like to think that actions like that would be a lot more viable with our generation.
I dunno. I think it's encouraging that a lot of the people I've talked to on here don't come from the "traditional" backgrounds -- are older, or didn't go to ivies, or came from working class backgrounds. Honestly, I get sick of academics incorporating things like radical feminism and marxism into literary critiques but letting those ideas remain in the bubble of research. I think we can find ways to balance our "traditional" academic environments with alternatives that open up these environments in ways that go beyond simply talking about non-canonical texts in the same old canonical journals.
The elitism of the Academy isn't sustainable -- it's very important that we start imagining alternatives and experimenting with them.
Hear hear! I'm out of upvotes, but you deserve them. I wish I had great ideas about how to change the system, but honestly I have no clue what the system even is. No one in my family even went to college before so I feel completely unprepared for how to change the system from within. I want to, desperately. The systematic bias I've seen even at my tiny home institution is alarming. The biases further out in programs that are even ranked must be astronomical. I think unions are a good answer to some of that, but the adjuncts at my school who have rallied to demand fair wages found themselves without work the next year. Is the way to change the system only from the margins? Or is it from the inside? Have those who have wanted change before just been outnumbered by "good ole boys"? I'd like to think so. I'd like to think there will be so many of us who desire the system to change that we can actually make that change happen.
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Okay, I found a couple 2014 success stories. And you're right, CarolineKS, no more bashing my undergraduate institution. It won't happen again.
Instead of reading about how non-Ivy graduates never get jobs, I found Dr. Leah Schwebel, an assistant professor at Texas State University.She's a Chaucer scholar, and her MA is from McGill University. Her PhD is from the University of Connecticut.
I also found Dr. Rachael Zeleny, who's the Writing Program Director and Assistant Professor of English and Communication at Alvernia University! She earned an MA from James Madison University, and her doctorate is from the University of Delaware.
And then Dr. Jordan Youngblood at Eastern Connecticut State University, who's interested digital rhetoric. Dr. Youngblood's MA is from the University of Mississippi, and the PhD is from the University of Florida.
These people's names are all public knowledge, and I found them from rapid-fire searching state university websites. Congratulations to them for coming from state schools and having TT jobs!
Thanks for the good news! I'll be keeping my eye open for other successful candidates as well and I'll be sure to try and gauge what the hiring practices are for the places I'm visiting.
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Meh, I didn't read the conversation as "this kind of thing as ridiculous" as much as "how can I get myself to a job at a non-podunk school," but I can't read intent.
Yeah I definitely didn't mean it that way at all. I'll be happy to teach at whatever school would be happy to have me as a professor, but I don't think that the satisfaction I'd find working at a CC excuses the behavior of elite universities against professors who come from non-elite schools. It may be distasteful to talk about, but these discussions are important.
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Yikes. I hate to say it, but I find this talk of "dinky" or "podunk" colleges really elitist and unproductive, even if you're trying to frame it as a rags to riches story. It's still kind of gross.
I don't think these are the kinds of conversations we need to be having if we are the generation that's going to remedy the crisis in the humanities. We need to work against the system, not let it control us.
I don't think that participating in conversations about elite institution preferences for other elite institution students is undermined by using "Podunk" or "dinky" as a description for non-elite institutions because this is the language used by those elites. I also don't think it reflects that these discussions are counterproductive or that this elitism is ingrained because the message was that this kind of thing is ridiculous. I certainly only used dinky to refer to something very very small, not as a pejorative.
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Chiming in about UChicago: Applied to non-English national lit, thought I was rejected given the number of acceptances to the program earlier in the month, but just received email stating that I was referred to MAPH. It was marked as spam (I love my inbox---if it ain't an acceptance it's spam! LOL) so check your mailbox thoroughly, folks!
I wish that was my problem, but alas.. my spam folder has been squeaky clean since Feb 1st
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Thanks for giving me a research project for tonight, though. If I succeed at finding academia success stories, does anyone else want to read them?
Yes please! I do know it happens.. a number of people I want to work with came from dinky colleges to higher tier institutions, only.. that was over a decade ago for most of them. I need recent success to feel confident in my own chances of pulling off such a maneuver.
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Well, I came from a large, not prestigious state school and I did very well. I still got my MA (at another large, not very prestigious state school). I see from the list of schools you have applied to that you were expecting to get into a top school right away. My experience has been very different. I would never apply to an Ivy. I feel I have no right to be at an Ivy. But also, I don't want to be at an Ivy for various reasons, tied to my beliefs about privilege, the beliefs I tie into my scholarship. I'm very happy with my choices for a PhD.
If you want to go to a school that discriminates against people with MAs (whether they came from "shitty" schools or not), well, maybe you should hold off, work hard, and apply again next year. But my suspicion is that you'll have your pick with an MA from NYU, that is if everything goes as it should. My advice is to soak up everything you can and make yourself a badass PhD applicant in a couple years.
Yeah, I came from a CUNY school and am going right into a PhD. I think this just proves how utterly ridiculous and crazy the process is though. I think a funded MA is nothing to sneeze at and that if you feel it's right for you bgt28, you should do it.
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Yeah.. my adviser just emailed me this as well. We had a long discussion about how prestige is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's more problematic for the humanities though as there have been tons of discussions about "diversifying academia" and what that means and how to do it, but it seems if most humanities majors become professors from a small set of institutions it doesn't matter how diverse the rest of the PhD student body is. *sigh*
It's great to talk about these problems and it's not as if I wasn't aware of them, but now that I've been admitted I want to try and change the system. Not just for me, but for everyone. And that makes me feel so very very tired.
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Congrats WilsonWilson! I was wondering what was going on since it's just your admittance on the board. Were you nominated for a special fellowship perhaps?
Not that UPenn was very well represented for acceptances on GC last year, so maybe you're the unicorn in our midst! In any event, I hope you're celebrating!
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This has likely been posted before, but it's still amusing:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/what-grad-school-is-really-like#.dlyOZrj6X
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I'm there too, even though I don't know what offer to turn down yet.
One school I'm admitted to has none of that warm and welcoming approach. At first I thought I would eventually accept this offer, but this absence of any personalized contact from anyone is worrying me a little, like it could be symptomatic of the culture of the department. I guess I wouldn't have cared about it if the other departments didn't send me so many friendly emails. Anyone else experienced a difference in attitude at different schools?
Oh yes definitely. I would say that Bloomington has been the most welcoming and generous with their time. The larger state schools have been cordial, but definitely less personal.It felt like a difference between courting someone and being courted.
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Argh, not English or Comp lit but I don't know where else to say it...
accepted to Cornell's Medieval Studies Ph.D. program and Fordham's medieval studies M.A.... both with full funding...
Ack! I missed this one, my apologies. Congratulations mollifiedmolloy! You rock
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Has anyone else turned down any programs yet?
I'm very conscious of the fact that other people are still waiting on good news, and so I know that in the grand scheme of things, it's a good problem to have, it'll open up a spot/money for others, they don't take it personally, etc etc etc, but that doesn't change the fact that it feels like it sucks, and that you're tuning someone down. Especially when it's a program you really like, and that has been so incredibly warm and welcoming. Ugh. Unpleasant.
I know. I've been drafting my "turn down" email to Bloomington for the past two days, and it's just so hard. They're so nice and welcoming and bah. It's super difficult, but I know it will open up a spot for someone else so I'm powering through it. Very unpleasant though.
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I think, as most others have said, being upfront about your visiting other schools can only be a benefit. In my case a little more money was tacked on for visiting at one school (to cover the difference since I'm so very far away) and a week after that another little scholarship magically made it's way into my package. My adviser said that just mentioning another school is interested in you is a "magic little phrase". So take that for what it's worth
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Finally got a response to my email from UGA. All it said was, "Yes, decisions have been sent out. If you were accepted, you would've gotten a letter in the mail."
The last time I was applying, the season where I ended up taking a funded MA, UGA pulled this same thing. They would not tell me when letters when out and they refused to check my actual status. I just got this same line, over and over. They never sent a rejection. I called them in April, the person on the phone just repeated the same darn thing. This time around, if I hadn't emailed, I doubt would have ever received any notification of any kind. This method of rejection is so insulting and rude. Maybe I'm coming across as bitter, but I can't fathom why they would refuse to actually tell someone they're rejected, opting instead for this wishy-washy crap.
You don't sound bitter at all! It's so unprofessional for schools to not indicate what your status is. I can understand some wishy-washiness when acceptances haven't been sent out yet, but it's unacceptable after they have. Just think of it this way though hannalore, and anyone else who is experiencing this, a bad system for handling application materials and questions from students is most likely an institution that will have even larger problems further down the line and further up the chain.
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I know quite a few people who took an inexpensive MA at my home institution (a CUNY) and worked full time while doing so. The cost wasn't super expensive and working gave them the additional money they needed to live and pay rent. They did various jobs from adjuncting at other CUNY schools (always an option with Fordham), editing work at one of the many book publishers around NYC, to private school teaching. I would say that this is possible in a place like NYC where there are so many opportunities to work. However, I would stipulate that they were pretty much exhausted all the time. Commuting in NYC is easy, but it is time consuming and stressful. Getting from the Bronx down to wherever your job might be on whatever campus (or campuses) eats up a LOT of time. In other words, it's a sacrifice not everyone would want to make, but if you do just go into with your eyes wide open.
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A few things:
1) I find myself wondering if B.A. to PhD is becoming less common as it becomes harder for students working their way through college to have the time to study since working your way through college requires more hours of work every year (and by working your way, I actually just mean having money to live off of if mommy and daddy aren't footing the bill--keeping up with tuition while enrolled at a university without loans is nearly out of the question for most students).
2) I also think the field is being made more competitive by students taking gap years, which is potentially in turn making gap years more popular and almost necessary as candidates keep doing things to beef up their numbers and CVs. I took my sweet time applying to both M.A. and PhD programs, and I think it helped me.
Basically I think we're seeing a process unfold, not uniformly and with definitely exceptions, but I do think I see the age of the average PhD candidate potentially ticking up for economic and competitive reasons.
Also, to make you perhaps feel better: there were many extremely happy 40+ PhD candidates where I did my M.A. One of them was getting her PhD in creative writing, and from what I could tell, it felt like she basically had a career (she started publishing like crazy during the program) and it seemed like taking classes was just something she did for fun and writing her dissertation was just another project among many she was doing. Perhaps you will be able to streamline your professional self with your student self as a PhD candidate so that it doesn't feel too bad to be a student. Also: I don't know how you feel about doing your PhD at UMD, but I bet if you stuck around there for it, they might pop you out in four years since you'd have taken many of the classes.
That's part of the problem indeed. There's hardly any wealth diversity in academia and it takes either fantastic resources from grade school -> right high school -> great BA -> fantastic Phd or an enormous amount of effort to overcome the socioeconomic gap. That's why the GRE is such a useless tool because the only thing I think it accurately tells you is how well you can take the GRE and how much you could afford to pay to prep for it. It tells you absolutely nothing else.
I can only hope that the next wave of professors/academics/advisers are in better positions to change they systematic wealth bias. But hey, if you look around this forum alone, it seems like there quite a few of us who are interested and passionate about doing just that.
- zanmato4794 and InHacSpeVivo
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Congrats Hypervodka on your very impressive clean sweep! I suspect you have not one, not two, but several very difficult decisions to make. That's a great place to be in though!
I'm normally a big fan of assuming that an "implied" rejection is just a regular old rejection--I've scoffed at those who say "wait until the paper's in your hand," etc etc etc. I squash my own hopes. Crush my own dreams. But I just got an email from a professor at a school I'd applied to, casually letting me know about this opportunity for extra study/funding I could take advantage of, were I to attend. It surprised me, since I'd assumed the school was an implied rejection when the acceptances went out a while ago and I didn't receive one. But nope--I write back to clarify, and turns out my notification emails must just never have been sent!
Congratulations!! I'm a fan of the implied rejection too, but Rutgers certainly taught me my own lesson.
Moving Across the Country
in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition
Posted
I love Wall-Drug. There's nothing better than sitting on a giant jackalope for a great photo opportunity!
I'm planning on moving with some cats and figuring out those logistics is very interesting.. haha. Between first month deposit/security deposit/ and moving expenses... I can't imagine how I'm going to afford this business. Thank goodness for a tax refund