Wonton Soup

It depends a lot on the students, the size of the course, and the professor teaching the course. Sometimes students will be asked ahead of time to lead a week's discussion; sometimes the prof will do a little kickoff; sometimes it will be all about small group activities; sometimes the prof will guide discussion using questions/comments from a message board everyone writes to before the class; and sometimes it's just open, blank discussion. The number of students in a class will influence what a day looks like, as open, unstructured discussions are generally bad for larger classes (where the loudest students can dominate and others can get lost) and small group activities can't be done in a 3 person class. Also, the personality of the students matters more than in undergrad and can influence a course. My favorite grad classes in the past are my favorites because of the other students in them. On the other hand, my least favorite grad class was my least favorite because of the professor, for various reasons.

To go back to the OP's question, I think many departments are trying to find a balance between supporting their students post-graduation and encouraging them, as a matter of professionalism, to leave the nest. Some students graduate but have partners who are in another program at the same uni for X years. I've seen MA students who are younger and who need a lil help and time figuring out how to do what's next, and doctoral students who graduate who just need a space to plant themselves while they prepare for the next job market. In these cases I think it's a sign of a good and caring program that they extend a year or two of NTT work to their graduates. All that said, you mentioned that you are researching rhet/comp programs but that the PhD at this particular school is interdisciplinary. I would be a little more worried about an interdisciplinary degree because I know that they have a tough time legitimizing their credentials in the silo-department university.

I feel like I saw a lot of technical/professional writing jobs this last year.

As someone who definitely does NOT vote Democrat, I can assure you that your interpretation of our conversation is incorrect. You are, however, quite correct that many legislators want to slash humanities funding because it is one of the few places where the left still has a home, if even a tenuous one.

grubyczarnykot, as someone who is also wrestling with finding a post-structuralist, semi-Foucouldian semi-Marxian identity, I have sympathy for your predicament. If your description is accurate, I think your profs are doing themselves and others a disservice by being too dismissive. Too much old school Master Critique. My advice is to be honest by articulating with them a similar message that you have here. If they are worth their salt, they will recognize nuance. Just be sure you also know your stuff

In my masters I found myself disappointed with the Hilary-style-liberalism of some of my fellow grad students. That said, I admit that my political education is ongoing and I try to see my colleagues that way too. Still, my general opinion is that the theory of the field is or should be far to the left of liberalism. Politics in scholarship is not a matter of preference that can be hidden while one talks neutrally about the object of literary studies or the object of rhet/comp. It's embedded in the knowledge-making procedures of the field itself. And it should be! So my guess is that, if they're doing it right, sooner or later your politics will be engaged with as part of the knowledge of the PhD.

After an undergraduate degree of secondary texts and introductory courses, and then a Masters degree of depth, but scattered depth, I embarked on a similar journey. I drafted up a list of big names and their primary texts and went to work on them in a roughly chronological order. It has been very rewarding. A few things: 1) Primary texts are the most important. Secondary academic texts are fine and can help you get a bearing when you feel lost, but ultimately your goal should be to be able to read primary texts and discern the crucial ideas yourself. So read Capital, not an academic article talking about Capital. 2) Like ProfLorax said, quick, broad summaries from random places like wikipedia and the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy can help you get your initial bearings. I also found blogs really helpful at times. Ultimately, you'll get to a point where you see the severe limitations of these kinds of websites, but they are useful. 3) Be super self-reflective of your learning process. Ask yourself at the end of each chapter what you "got" from it. If the answer is nothing, maybe you weren't paying attention, or the point escaped you, or (frankly) there was nothing of worth in that particular chapter, which does sometimes happen. 3a) I find drawing "schemas" or maps of a particular author and all the terms and strands of his/her thinking useful. 3b) As a teacher, I find that when I'm forced to teach a concept, I learn it in a deeper way that "sticks." So I have pushed myself to find opportunities to "teach" an author or idea, either in one of my local community book readings or by writing a blog post or something. 3c) I have adopted my own in-text note taking style that helps me both learn material as I read and find the important passages and important quotations when I come back to the text later. You should experiment too.

I agree that some nuance is necessary when we think of "administrators" and what their role is in higher education's problems. Ideally, administrators would work to solve those problems, and some do. But we should also not lose sight of the university officials who hire union-busting firms and who intimidate adjuncts who speak up. In my local area, leading up to and after National Adjunct Walkout Day, university admins went to a lot of trouble to identify the "troublemakers" behind it all, going so far as to hold fake solidarity meetings with moles in them. One of my friends and fellow organizers has essentially been fired after the semester ends. My attitude towards administrators is critical and demanding.

To be frank, I think "professionalization" should include activist work, organizing, and training in both theory and practice. Higher ed needs to learn to fight back.

I'm fine with taking a good long look at what PhD programs train for and asking whether they train for the right things. But I must challenge the partial myth that there is a surplus of PhDs, and that the problem with academia is that there are too many graduate programs. That may be true for some fields, and particularly fields that the university seems to be moving away from (and of course we can challenge whether they should or shouldn't be moving away from those fields), but a large number of courses in higher education are taught by people who have merely masters degrees. A large number of courses in higher education are also taught by people who aren't even in the field that the course is in. We need to be clear about where the problem in higher education lies--in legislatures, in board of trustee meetings and certain administrative offices, in Scott Walker's head, etc.--and not shift the blame somewhere else.

Tough choice BLeonard. Try not to "look back" too much.

I generally support the thesis option if you're trying for a PhD. After writing one, the dissertation is not as scary to me. I think it would be if I hadn't written a thesis. I took a couple years off after my MA so I was able to shape up my thesis into a very fine writing sample.

Yes I would advise anyone to get an MA first. The MA lets you learn and be a part of your field before you get into high-stakes PhD stuff. You get to learn your place in (or maybe out) of the field, and whether academia is what you really want after having a substantial taste of it. Also, you will be a much more competitive applicant. From a departmental perspective, if I were on an adcom, I would push for not admitting any BA applicants to a PhD program because the risk is much higher IMO.

It's hard to give specific advice without seeing your writing. But I can tell you some reading practices I have been doing to help my writing. I've been pushing myself to read slowly. While I read, I write down words that I see the author use that I don't know or do know but want to use more often. I also write down phrases and sentences that I think are particularly well said. Then when I write, and especially when I revise, I look through the list of words and phrases and steal sentence structures and verbs/collections of verbs, test them out in new ways, etc. It makes for slow reading, but it's improving the quality of my prose significantly and I am internalizing new vocabulary and expressions. Edit for examples. Some expressions include "constant and constantly renewed" from Lukacs or "X activity is relativized/absolutized" or "tensions and contrasts, rhythms and forms," or "becomes aware of its own proper function" from Horkheimer.

Movement is happening...I got off a waitlist! Now I have to actually make a decision. And not an easy one.