Wonton Soup

Take this with a grain of salt as I am not too familiar with Carnegie Mellon. But I understand their one year master's programs are usually unfunded and have a reputation of being a way for CM's English department to make money. I personally would not attend a one year masters anymore than I would attend a 3 year PhD. The time matters; the quality of education will be lower simply because there's not as much time to absorb everything.

The tri-college Auraria campus at Denver had a successful adjunct rally. Between 50-100 people showed up, and lots of media. If people want to learn more about the adjunct crisis in higher ed, or just higher ed political economy in general, check out these links. http://seiufacultyforward.org/research-resources/ http://college-table.wgbh.org/college_local http://www.studentimpactproject.org/state_report_cards

I think it is not uncommon for people to switch over to rhet/comp after doing a lit MA. I know a couple professors and several graduate students who did it. However, all of the people that I know who did this got their MA at a university with a reasonably healthy rhet/comp program alongside the lit program. The exposure helps. So if you end up doing a lit MA at an Ivy League, for example (which typically don't have rhet/comp programs), then the switch will be hard.

Most of the people who are worried about school status and exclusive, elitist adcoms seem to be in literature. If you're not in lit, don't worry about it. If you are in lit, I defer to other people's advice =)

I want to be sensitive to people's unique needs and situation. But, generally speaking, an unfunded MA is a foolish decision for the student and an unethical one for the department. The department is basically using unfunded MAs to make money for themselves at the cost of a human person's financial well-being. These departments do not have the institutional support or TA lines to create or maintain a full graduate program. They need to acknowledge that, especially in the context of political economy of English post-recession. Instead, they try to shift the costs of their program to the students so that they can live the life of a traditional professor, with graduate students and mentoring and all the things they had in the past and imagined having when they were graduate students. It's unethical and unprofessional--harsh words, sorry, but true. As a student, you need to stay far away from this. There are perfectly good FUNDED MAs out there. You may have to wait a year, but it's worth it.

I don't like waiting.

Unraed touched on a key point--in rhet comp it is much more common to get an MA first. I think in part this is because many undergraduate programs insufficiently prepare students for rhet/comp research. At my own undergrad we had two and a half rhet/comp professors (out of 20 total) in the English department and I was able to take maybe three rhet/comp courses.

Firmly, strongly disagree with the assessment that capitalism "works well in many respects." No. I do agree that we are being a bit simplistic here, but then this is gradcafe forums, not an academic journal or some other medium. Vent all you want, IMO =)

*waits*

Yes, you should email the DGS for wait list info. Some departments have one master wait list, others have wait lists by area--or, more accurately, they have wait lists by intended POI so that one prof isn't overburdened.

I remember "coasting" a bit in my last undergrad semester. First it was due to to the stress of rejections and checking the website, then later after I was accepted I had my mind on that more so than the final fine arts elective or random paper I was supposed to be doing.

Well, I'm officially wait listed at my top school. Someone, somewhere, is ahead of me and is going to decide whether or not I go there. Who is this person? Don't they know that the job market is bad, or something? I heard you can make a lot of money teaching overseas *nod*

Hi all, I'm chiming in to send solidarity to those who frequent the forums but have yet to receive an acceptance letter. Stay positive. Also, I'm chiming in to rant because the GRE makes me mad, and it should make you mad too. Not insecure. Not inferior. Mad. The test in no way measures a person's ability to function as a successful scholar or teacher in their field. It provides data that is of marginal or no use to departments at a cost that is exorbitant and unfair (It does not take $17 to mail my scores to a school, ETS). I do not know why schools continue to require the GRE, but frankly I think it is a bit of an embarrassment that rhet/comp, a field that regularly reflects on the validity and reliability of assessment methods and their socio-economic/cultural exclusivity, requires the test. In my opinion they are being complicit in a system that exploits a group (prospective grad students) that has no organizational power or voice to defend itself, all to feed money to the monopolistic corporation that is ETS. ETS claims to be a nonprofit and it has legal status as one, but be sure that they are highly profitable, are exempt from most income tax, and lobby heavily for their interests. Rant over. Sorry for potentially derailing this thread--it's supposed to be about "applicants," not activism. I just saw some nice people feeling bad about themselves when they should be getting angry. It may be a fruitless anger because again, the people on the forum typically have little institutional power, but personally I find even fruitless anger to be comforting sometimes.