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diehtc0ke

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  1. Downvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to thestage in Waiting for Guffman (the waitlist thread)   
    turns out they give you a limit.

    what will you think of next, internet
  2. Downvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to thestage in Waiting for Guffman (the waitlist thread)   
    if there's any post more interesting than a series of endless dumb gifs, it is a post complaining about button clicking on the internet

    just to annoy you I am going to downvote every post on this page. serious repercussions. CAN YOU HANDLE IT!?
  3. Upvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to strawberryfrap in Waiting for Guffman (the waitlist thread)   
    Hi! I just declined offers to UCONN and CUNY. Both offers were fully funded--UCONN's came with the OSP award, and CUNY's with the Graduate Center Fellowship (25,000/yr teaching one class a semester for years 2-4). Hope this helps someone with their waitlist! 
  4. Upvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to ghijklmn in Final Decision Thread 2013   
    I'm going to Northwestern! Feel so good to be done deliberating!
  5. Upvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to theoretician in Stanford   
    Is anyone else going to be attending Stanford?
     
    I am going to be joining the Chemistry PhD program and wanted to see who else is going to be there.
  6. Upvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to Fishbucket in what is "hot" in English today?   
    And that is exactly why the humanities has such a bad reputation. I think an articulate person actually SHOULD be able to describe why their field is interesting to outsiders. It shouldn't be an impossible, or monumental task. We need a better sort of language if we are only able to convey what we value to the people in our immediate vicinity who already share exactly our background and our interests.
     
    And asleepawake: something can be both novel (as in, the new name evokes a sense of excitement) and a rip-off of an old idea (the name is actually just a way of labeling thoughts from a philosopher of a different epoch). There is no contradiction in that, it happens all the time. 
     
    The fact is, it's hard to come up with something really profound to say. It's much easier to take things that have already been said, gather them together under a catchy title, and call it a new field of study. If we interrogate what about these fields actually makes them new, we find that Montaigne was playing around with these ideas in the 16th century. Show me one thing about post-humanism that is TRULY new, and I will give you a cookie.
  7. Downvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to Fishbucket in The Canon   
    I really don't think Toni Morrison is a good writer at all.
  8. Downvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to Fishbucket in Waiting for Guffman (the waitlist thread)   
    When someone is very insecure, their whole body becomes a button
  9. Downvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to Fishbucket in Waiting for Guffman (the waitlist thread)   
    Regardless of how you want to phrase it, getting in off a waitlist is often a longshot and it does mean different things than getting an outright acceptance. Generally funding is a very different story for waitlisted applicants, even the ones who manage to get an eventual spot in the program.
  10. Upvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to TripWillis in CUNY or Re-apply?   
    I disagree. I think honest dialogue is good. But, I've had plenty of rigorous debates on here without bomb throwing. I also don't get how Don't Hate's posts were "honest" when they seemed more like naked provocation. The only thing intense about her presence was that she was acting, under circumstances of anonymity, the way that no one would act in real life if they wanted to have collegial relationships with people.
  11. Upvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to planesandtrains in CUNY or Re-apply?   
    pretty sure this thread was just created to start shit. don't take the "bait" people! I have a feeling that fishbucket's alter-ego shares initials with mr. lawrence, if you get me...
  12. Upvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to Taco Superior in So, for all of us rejects .....WHO is ready to try again this fall?   
    I already covered this in the "Plan B" thread, but I'll refresh here (in case anyone wants to message me I'd be happy to chat): It's my 3rd time applying and I got into a solid program with full fellowship for 6 years and nominated for additional (American Studies) fellowship. I did retake the GRE (170 v, 151 q, 5.0) mostly because I skipped the math section the first time. I wrote new sample and statement and looked for fit in my programs. I'm 36 and have been working in construction for 12 years so I had a lot of 'splaining to do in my SOP. I've had a lot of help along the way and would be happy to pay it forward in terms of what insight i've gained in 3 years of apps.
  13. Upvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to ZacharyBinks in School Lists 2013 (Where are you applying?)   
    Speculative fiction is not at all my area of interest, but have you read Beyond the Binary? It's a collection of short speculative queer fiction stories, and I really enjoyed it.
  14. Downvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to Fishbucket in Opinions on Fat Studies   
    How about next we do PMS studies, and then Bad Haircut Studies, Unflattering Outfit Studies, Shrill Voice Studies... Basically reduce every trait that people find naturally repellant into an "unfairly marginalized minority group" and build an academic sub-discipline around it. I think that will move the humanities in the right direction, and certainly real minority groups won't be insulted at all. 
  15. Downvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to Fishbucket in Opinions on Fat Studies   
    We can definitely study it, but not just to create a new narrative to describe why disabled people are actually better-abled than un-disabled people. I feel like that falls more into the realm of Chicken Soup For The Soul and self-affirmation than rigorous academic research and theory.
  16. Downvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to squire_western in Opinions on Fat Studies   
    It totally makes our field a parody of itself! It's just the "intellectual" discourse attendant to the ridiculous idea in this country that being overweight is a "lifestyle choice" that is totally divorced from any kind of personal responsibility.
  17. Upvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to bluecheese in 0% Confidence of Acceptance   
    I have at least twice as many rejections as you (fyi). Anyway, I'm tired of people who didn't apply to that many places being angry at (and condescending toward) people who did.
     
    (sorry!--I was quickly trying to explain why the thread got off gear... there was someone basically trolling in it yesterday... I didn't mean for this post to have any sort of tone... best of luck to everyone!).
     
    Also! You got into Penn State! So all is well!
  18. Upvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to Porridge in 0% Confidence of Acceptance   
    Here is a picture of a kitten.
     

  19. Downvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to DontHate in 0% Confidence of Acceptance   
    It's amazing to me that you guys call what I'm saying "nastiness." Seriously? You don't think that the real nastiness is just going along with all the mindless Penn State worship?

    Here's a little valuable reading on groupthink and moral culpability in the case: http://ideas.time.com/2012/07/17/penn-state-cover-up-group-think-in-action/
  20. Downvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to Swagato in 0% Confidence of Acceptance   
    Being a victim doesn't give you any privilege any more than being black makes someone an automatic authority on racial politics. I'm not targeting you; it's just a pet peeve I have whenever I see that line of argument adopted by anyone.
  21. Upvote
    diehtc0ke got a reaction from ahembree in Philadelphia, PA   
    I actually go to Penn but I live and have lived with people who go to Villanova. The train ride isn't terrible. We live in West Philly and the train ride is about an hour and pleasant enough though it does involve a transfer. It seems like most of the grad students I know live in either Center City or West Philly and do the commute thing. That means they haven't needed cars, which is a good thing because I find Philly to be quite a hassle when you have a car (ie, there are too many blocks which require a parking permit to park for more than two hours, there's absolutely no parking outside of a parking garage in center city at any reasonable hour of day, etc). That said I do know someone who goes there and lives in West Philly with a car and it can be useful. I myself have a Zipcar account and that's worked out really well, imo.

    And Philly is totally a bike city--you'd have no problems there. Hope that helps.
  22. Upvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to gradschoolwannabe in U Chicago MAPH   
    For me, academics is a passion (as I'm sure it is for many others). I find the idea of being funded to learn stuff pretty cool, but as far as expenses go (I was admitted without funding) I would much rather read and study hard on my own than spend 40,000 on Chicago. As much as I love W.J.T Mitchell, that figure isn't appealing. My goal isn't to get an awesome professor job at the end of my PhD (though it would be nice), I just want to be immersed in a fun academic environment.
  23. Upvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to desaparecido in Fit-ness   
    My thoughts on your concern regarding the SOP and shifting interests: In my opinion, at least, what the adcom is looking for, even if you decide to change your focus, is someone that can write convincingly for 2-3 pages about a project they're very much interested in, at least at the time. Saying "I'm interested in writing about Little Dorrit and Bentham" is one thing (in the eyes of the adcom), but writing a really interesting 2.5 page proposal of a project that interjects in the current scholarship about LD and can interestingly explain how your project adds to the conversation in the field, and how such-and-such university's faculty and/or resources would benefit your work immensely - that's another thing completely, and I think that's what adcoms look for in terms of "fit."

    The ability to write a really strong proposal like that, I think, is perhaps the most important thing in applying to a PhD program, at least in my experience. Strong GRE scores are cool, a good GPA certainly adds to the package, but the numbers mean relatively little if, in 2-3 pages, an applicant can't explain how his/her project benefits or adds to the conversation going on in his/her proposed field of interest. The best way to help with that sort of thing, in my experience, is applying to and attending as many conferences as you can. For those, you're writing a (generally) 250-500 word proposal of a paper - granted, a paper 20x shorter than your dissertation will be, but the exercise is the same. I got shut out last year, and in the year off I applied to and presented at 20something conferences (excessive? maybe. but I genuinely feel it helped me not only become a fairly solid proposal writing [necessary for publication possiblities, grants, etc. once we're in the profession] but also helped both refine and expand my interests), but also made my CV look much nicer than it did (my CV was pretty much empty the first time I applied... no conferences, no publications, nothing outside of the few courses I TA'd while doing my MA), and makes you look like an active member of the academic community (which, I think, counts, at least sometimes).

    This, of course, is far from an exact science. I haven't gotten accepted to lots of schools I was hoping to get into, but I also got into a couple of programs I'm really, really excited about. At the time I applied this go-round, I had presented at I think 24 or 25 conferences in the last year (some of them I turned into road trips and hit 3-4 different conferences over the course of two weeks, presenting different papers at each one, which isn't a bad cognitive exercise!) and, at one conference I went to recently, met a third-year PhD student at Duke who was presenting at his very first conference - so apparently he was able to convince Duke that he had a project worth investing $100,000 into without the (what I see as great) benefit of conference presenting/proposal writing experience. That's just what I feel worked for me, and I genuinely don't think I'd have gotten in anywhere this go-round if I hadn't spent the several months prior to applying writing proposals constantly, sending them out, presenting my work (including, at times, my writing sample and things that I spoke about in my SOP, in various incarnations) and getting feedback from others in the field.

    So yeah, even if you decide after writing your SOP that you want to shift focuses (as long as there's still someone at the school you're applying to that you can work with in terms of your new interests), I think the adcom is mostly concerned with an applicant's ability to write a strong enough proposal that can clearly articulate what intellectual conversation you're hoping to insert yourself into, and what your proposed project would add to the existing scholarship.

    I hope some of that is at least somewhat helpful!
  24. Upvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to DorindaAfterThyrsis in Rutgers   
    It does get a little more over with every posting, though.
    Looks like GC members cleaned up in the Rutgers department! I think that's in the running for the school with the highest number of acceptances posted here, no?

    Again, congrats everyone! My growing bitterness in no way diminishes my happiness for you all. Honest.






    EDIT: I may need to point out that I appear to be having an extremely negative weekend. Pay no attention to me. Just let me get through a little bit of self-pity and wallowing, and then I'll act like an adult again, I promise.
  25. Upvote
    diehtc0ke reacted to bgk in Forum Stats for Apr' 11   
    Top 10 Posters


    kroms 155
    jendoly 143
    newms 118
    psyentist4good 114
    Bukharan 100
    Eigen 89
    farnsworth 88
    IRdreams 84
    crimsonengineer87 83
    Mal83 77

    Congrats kroms! 3rd to 1st place.

    By the numbers

    In total there were 15,040 posts made this month (9,138 in April 2010). There were 444,438 visits, 141,774 Unique Visitors and 2,271,802 Pageviews to the forum.
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