KingNikolai1

Not to make this too political, but I definitely must say that the attitude my relatives have towards humanities professors is markedly different than engineers and scientists. This is particularly frustrating, because literature and history professors are broadly painted as these die hard Marxists running around burning the pillars of society and dousing tar on conservative children. My family and relatives may be supportive of the PhD, but the amount of times I have had to defend professors from unwarranted political attacks from those close to me is downright obnoxious. I used to be very conservative before university, but my movement towards the center and moderation of my opinion has been a benefit not a detriment from attending a state flagship. However, I have received constant warnings from my grandparents to watch out for those communists. Then I took a class with a professor who was an avowed Marxist. She mentioned it every once in a while, but she was a fair grader and taught American labor and social history. My entire department (small national foreign lang/lit) was filled with socialists and green party activists, and my research interests dealt with, God forbid, religion in literature. Every professor I had helped me refine my research and scholarship, not an ounce of disgust or apathy over my research. Yet as soon as I walked in the door during a break, you better believe I heard every tirade imaginable about those crooked academics living in their ivory towers. /end rant Oh, and I give my condolences to any of you have to deal with the gender problems of a PhD. It is an accomplishment in receiving admission, and the stress is already high enough without the added comments about children and a 'woman's place' *shudders*. I am flabbergasted when people reward the woman who put off marriage until her late 20s or early 30s and soared the ranks of career, yet they pity the woman who chooses to pursue a PhD or academia. Somehow the one attaining financial success is acceptable, but putting off marriage and childbearing for any other reason is monstrous.

I am fortunate to have not had to deal with large strokes of anti-intellectualism from my family and relatives. In general, everyone was supportive, although for the longest time my father and maternal grandfather wanted me to switch from the humanities to the hard sciences because they were the only degrees of "value." Although my siblings and parents all have finished undergrad, there definitely is a disconnect between what is expected in undergrad vs. grad school. This is where Wyatt's remarks are particularly apt because I have definitely encountered the same reaction on at least one occasion. After I accepted my offer for a PhD program, my dad often told people, "They are paying me to read a book." I wish it was that simple, and it can be passed off as a joke. The problem was he repeated it so many times in front of me it took on a mixed sense of snide remark/humor/not knowing what grad school entails. My professors definitely did warn me of the state of the academic market. At the same time, they were the most supportive and motivating people when I applied.

I agree with NoirFemme. I take the bus to campus, but having a car is indispensable when you want to get to a place without worrying about mass transit. The prices of on-campus grad housing aren't that much better than living in non-university housing within 9 miles of campus. The best deals are the off-campus grad housing in Culver City and Palms, but competition is extreme. As Sigaba mentioned, the bus runs but expect it to be inefficient especially during peak traffic. Oh and when it rains the buses become the Homeless Express, which may make some people feel uncomfortable. I haven't had too many issues, but I am a guy so I know I don't have to deal with much in terms of unwanted attention. My 35 minute (~9 miles) commute from Sherman Oaks via bus easily becomes 1 hour during rush hour. Sometimes housing is a bit cheaper in the Valley, but I am certainly moving out because the commute can be beyond aggravating. A quick note about traffic, there is pretty much always traffic no matter what time of the day. The difference is between the light traffic of 1 am vs. the parking lot traffic during rush hour.

After weeks of procrastination I finally revised my papers and turned them in right on their due dates. I've had way too much sherry over the past few days, enough to give me diabetes....

I applied to eight different places and it cost almost $1,000 between the GRE, transcripts, and app fees. This doesn't include the cost for GRE prep which I did not find as helpful as the price tag.

Yeah, I'm with @Pink Fuzzy Bunny, this quarter definitely kicked me in the ass. Coming straight from undergrad into a combined MA/PhD at a top ten 10 university has sucked the life out of me. I barely coasted through one of the seminars, but it was because I had read most of the books already in translation. Thankfully, next semester I'll have a language course to help fix my situation. Literature PhD, making me look like a phucking dork all day long.... This video has helped me destress. It helps exercise the mind (the first minute is an intro):

I have a backpack and a black briefcase. Use whichever best suits your purposes! Some people want to look cute with their messenger bag, others want to show a little pizzazz and color with their nifty backpack. My friends back in undergrad used to joke about me carrying the black briefcase, but I didn't care because it went with my personal style. I still kept the backpack because bringing 15 books back to an office/apartment in a briefcase would probably dislocate my arm.

I know the feeling, and it was absolutely awful when I was applying. One of my letter writers was a week and half late submitting to Harvard because he was converting his Apple written LoR into an outdated version of Word. If it makes you feel any better, one of the programs PhD programs accepted me despite a different professor's LoR coming in a week late. Don't stress too much!!! There isn't much you can do at this point, but I know how stressful it is. There is hope that they will get it in on time. Another prof turned his LoR in to Cambridge 12 hours before the deadline which would have locked him out of the system. Even if you consistently remind them, ultimately they have to click the send button

Academia is the long shot, but I feel I can comfortably market myself for a career in government or business if I can't find a spot at the universities. That is a long way off, since this is a PhD/MA program and most people take at least six years. I have guaranteed funding for five, and I just started. There are plenty of opportunities beyond the five for funding, but that is several years off.

@hippyscientist Congratulations!!!! @MarineBluePsy I'm not too worried about it. From what I have heard, almost every American who has entered the program has been told to take anywhere between half a year to two years of language classes in order to raise their proficiency. I will look into the meetups, it may be helpful for some low key practice time outside of the classroom.

Thankfully I am taking a normal courseload for full time which is 12 credit hours. The literature courses are required, and I opted for German because I need to pass a proficiency exam eventually.

Unfortunately not, Russian is an unforgiving language that does not translate well using software programs. At least I am getting tons of practice, and once I start taking the language course next quarter I'll be much happier.

Ohhh gosh, I wish I was reading this thread five weeks ago. The quarter system here at UCLA is totally kicking my ass, and my courses are like a ball kicking experiment. At the beginning I was regularly getting low grades on some 'easy' assignments, it started turning around though. Three weeks in, I went into "I might quit this shit right now." One of my literature seminars is 3 hours long and taught in a foreign language. All the primary readings are in the original language which makes sense, but the professor would post thousands of pages of secondary readings not available in translation every single week. By week 5 I was in crisis mode again, and I finally met up with a linguistics professor last week. I'm taking a language course next quarter to beef up my proficiency. Here I am in week 8.... German translation is becoming super difficult, I have a presentation next week on a book I still need to finish, but at least Thanksgiving is next week!!! Nothing could have prepared me for the turmoil of starting grad school in the humanities. I consistently lol that I am the youngest person in the department because I'm just floating here...... On the bright side it looks like my liver won't give out on me this quarter

I'm in Sherman Oaks too!! I think I will find a part time job to save money since I won't be teaching this first year. Orientation tomorrow will be great

I was just about to post that one