fides quarens intellectum

Hi @marXian! I'm at Florida State right now (in my 3rd year). Most PhD students in the religion department will TA for a semester, maybe a year, then teach their own courses basically every semester after that. The courses you teach depend on both your research field and also the interests you express as far as teaching goes. For instance, some people really push to teach the world religions course, but not everyone Has to teach it. I'm in the religion, ethics, and philosophy track so the most common thing we do is teach a course in comparative religious ethics. However, the humanities department at FSU for some time didn't have a graduate program, and they borrowed PhD students from other departments to teach a class on multiculturalism, and many of our students will also teach that for a year. I actually taught that course for two years and skipped out on the TA experience till I was doing comps and just wanted to be able to focus more on that then on teaching. For the most part, PhD students in our department will teach at least six or seven semesters before they graduate, and it's all at the undergraduate level, mostly intro courses, but occasionally someone will get to design their own course based on their dissertation. As far as pedagogy, there are some informal groups and, occasionally, a course you can take. I took a pedagogy course on teaching Islam at the undergraduate level. I found it very helpful because it wasn't a generalized, theoretical thing about "teaching" but was specifically about teaching Islam. We spent some time listening to the professor, but also gave prepared lectures of our own and got feedback from other students on what we could do differently. We also designed two syllabi for different types of courses. One was a general intro to Islam course, the other something specialized. I think mine was something like sexual ethics in Islam. Of course preparing syllabi was helpful, but we also got to have a copy of everybody else's syllabus, and that was really cool.

@xypathos, I'm at FSU if you want to ask any questions. Sounds like a cool situation at Radboud though!

In my adrenaline rush after seeing my scores I was like "I get four for free and I'm sending this sucker to Yale!" And that was like October. But yeah it really sucked they wouldn't let me like get someone at Div. to confirm receipt of the score or anything.

Oh man I'm so sorry! If you had the rest of your application in and you can somebow document that you requested the transcripts on time you may have a slim chance. But I wouldn't expect much as it will likely depend on how human the admissions people are. I realized two days after my Yale app was due that apparently I sent the GRE score to Yale Div. instead of Yale University and when I called they were absolutely like well, hey, guess you have an incomplete application then. I was furious especially since I had submitted everything else and paid their stupid $100 fee. But I suppose I probably had no chance there anyways.

Hi @xypathos and @ShewantsthePhD101, congrats on your acceptances at FSU! I'm in REP here currently (in my third year), so feel free to contact me with any questions you might have. Again, congrats! And isn't it nice when schools send out acceptances early! Pax, Luke

Second monitor would be awesome.

I was gifted with a Surface pro and a stylus last Christmas completely out of the blue by my mother in law. I have since almost exclusively used that for reading articles or ebooks because the stylus allows me to make extensive marginalia notes and I can print them out if I need to later on.

I don't know anything personally about the PhD program, but when I looked into applying a few years ago, it seemed like it would only be worth going to Dayton if you wanted a canonical degree in Mariology but didn't want to move to Europe. I think their civil degree is probably not super valuable.

It is going to be difficult being admitted to a PhD program in religion without an MA, but not impossible. I would also ads that Florida State funds MA students.

Just wanted to chime in on FSU, since I'm in the department (though not studying American Religious History). I don't think many of us who are enrolled here believe it's better than an Ivy or that it's a top tier program. But we did know that there are truly outstanding faculty here, including Corrigan of course, but also Amanda Porterfield in ARH and Sumner Twiss, John Kelsay and Aline Kalbian who are in the ethics track (my track). Also, Adam Gaiser who teaches Islam is an absolute gem of a professor. We are funded, and there is a faculty which truly supports us in our mission to become scholars. But there is another aspect of our program that I think may not be as well known, and it's that we get a Tremendous amount of teaching experience. I'm finishing coursework this semester and will have 4 semesters of instructor of record already on my resume. Anyhow, wanted to thank Marxian for standing up for the state schools that are often sort of looked down on. I think the real bottom line is that the job market is just a nightmare, for all of us. We can only prepare so much, work so hard, and then the rest of it is up to the odds and the hiring committees.

@HBgrad2017, I haven't been to the weekend at Notre Dame, but I'd expect some sort of meet and greet dinner or something with the faculty and a chance for you to ask them any questions you may have. Also, something I absolutely wish I would have thought of or someone would have told me, be prepared to talk about your research plans with your potential advisor.

Will anyone here be at SECSOR in Atlanta this weekend?

Florida State funds MA in religious studies and humanities.

Florida State fully funds their MA students. I'm not sure how many get to be instructor of record but there's definitely opportunities for that after the first year. In any event all MA students receive full tuition waivers, a stipend around 13,000 and a health insurance stipend as well (I'm unsure of the amount, but it does at least help).

@pmajor That's awesome. Congrats!!

That was last year.

I can't tell you what that means exactly, @pmajor, but I do know this: When I applied and interviewed, a week or so after interviews, my cardinal station thing basically stopped working. It would let me log in, but nothing else would work. Unfortunately it took maybe three weeks before I found out I didn't get in, but I suspect my cardinal station malfunction may have been a hint. That's 100% speculation, but if I'm right, I'd take it as at least a not bad sign on your end. Hang in there! The waiting sucks!

Many, many people told me that writing samples need not be related to the specific research project you hope to do at the school. The advice I was given is that most committees are looking for evidence of research ability, clarity of argumentation, utilization of primary and secondary sources, languages (if appropriate), etc. Thus if you have a well-written paper that shows your strengths as a researcher and the skills you ought to possess, but it's not related to the particulars of that institution, side with the excellent writing sample rather than re-writing or writing something new, just for the application process. I applied using one writing sample at all of the schools (7), got 2 interviews, 1 admission and a fellowship, even though ostensibly there's very little connection between my current program and my writing sample. Hope that helps!

My friend who was invited was in Systematics, though I know that last year all fields interviewed at the same time, as I was invited and attended. So I'd assume it's for any program housed within the School of Theology and Religious Studies, because that's how they did it last year.

I don't know about Marquette or Fordham, but I know that CUA sent out invites for their interview weekend, which was then cancelled due to the huge storm in D.C. People invited to the weekend are being told to schedule interviews via Skype but as far as I know, many of those still haven't even been scheduled.

I can't comment on that exact question, but I have a Catholic background (2 seminary degrees, 1 in philosophy, the other an MA in Theology), and was admitted at FSU in their Religion, Ethics, and Philosophy track last year. The two others in my cohort also had seminary backgrounds. We're, of course, doing different kind of inquiry now, but they weren't scared off by our backgrounds or anything. In fact, depending on the particular institution you end up at, you might find more freedom to look at evangelical questions in an institution with no specific focus than in one which would have some sort of guiding role in what kinds of questions you can ask. At least for me, I am very happy and pretty confident that at a secular institution, I'm able to pursue Catholic questions with less interference than I might have had at some Catholic institutions. Does that make any sense?

People do get invites for interviews before application deadlines at some schools. I found that out at CUA last year. I submitted the day of the deadline, maybe one day early. Two days later got an email "By now you should have received your invitation for the interview event....blah blah." I was so confused by it that I called to talk to somebody and they said "Oh yeah, we sent those out to select applicants, but it looks like you applied so late that you missed the earlier communications." I guess some departments begin reviewing applications as they come in, rather than waiting until the deadline?

You certainly can go from M.Div to PhD work. If you're going to do work in historical theology, ancient language work would be particularly important so, if you don't have any languages yet, it might be worth working on that at this point to help your application strength when you apply.

I didn't really have a low GPA in my first undergrad experience (before I changed schools), as it was only around like a 3.3 But I failed four (or five?) classes my final semester at that institution because I really just quit going to class the last month or so and failed them all due to absences. When I applied well over a decade later, to the same institution (FSU), I did write one or two sentences in my SOP about it. They admitted me and I was awarded a fellowship in addition to department funding and at no point has anybody ever even asked me about that semester or those classes. Now, after I left FSU in 2006, I earned a total of one B in every other class I ever took and I had a pretty solid GRE (95% verbal, 98% written). So I think if you will have a solid GPA on your MA, good GRE, etc. then you ought to be fine. Pax, Luke