mjdances

That tattoo is amazing. Michael is kind of adjacent to my area of dance research (broadly, circulation of US social and popular dance forms), but I DO have a friend working on him for her phd research! Best of luck to your girlfriend, too! If you all end up near Philly, Temple has both MA and an MFA programs in dance. I'm applying for their phd. The great thing about an MFA is that it's also a terminal degree, so if she decides she wants to teach in higher ed, she'll have the qualifications. the mj is for my first and middle initials. My MA is from Tisch and I am applying for the PhD. I loved my program. It has its pros and cons, and if there's anyone thinking about applying to it as a Plan B, I think it's a good idea to talk to people who have gone through it before deciding to do the MA there because everyone has such a different experience based on their goals and expectations coming into the program, their advisors, their course load, their research interests and so on. The program is expensive, short, and intense, but the intensity of the program set me up to know how I'll need to function in the first couple years of a PhD. In talking to current grad students at the places I've interviewed and visited, everyone seems really stressed out about the work load their first year. Now I've been through it and know what my needs are to not stress out so badly in that environment. Not that there won't be a ton of work or it won't be difficult. I just know what I need to manage it. I decided to limit how often I check the results search (because THAT'S the crazy-making thing for me) and to spend time on this forum. My partner and our families are super supportive, but my friends from my MA who want to do PhDs are already in a program. It's great to have some people to chat with who are going through the same thing.

scurvs22! that's fantastic that you got an acceptance from UCSD!! I think my UCB interview went pretty well. The professor asked me a few specific questions about my project, then a few standard questions: why this program, what kind of challenges have you faced and how did you overcome them, etc. The conversation was about an hour and very amicable; it felt a bit more like a chat about my interests and the program than a super formal interview. So I'm crossing my fingers. It would be a really good program for my research, since my work lives both in PS and in dance studies. Welcome to the gang, Gamb1t. I did an MA before applying for PhD programs and while it was expensive, finishing the MA does open up some other programs, and my program helped me find an approach to my research that turned out to be really fruitful. How's everyone holding up during the waiting? Anyone else working on dance-related topics?

Hey friends! I was invited to interview with Berkeley, but didn't post it on the results search. So I don't know who our mystery friend is! scurvs22 - congrats on the UCSD and Berkeley interviews! How do you think they went?

Hey! I've been active in the global lindy hop scene for a while now, and all I can say is try not to worry, and try not to internalize it when you are not asked to dance or when someone turns you down. In my experience, lindy hop scenes can be pretty tight-knit and can seem cliquey or judgmental, but usually the regular dancers are not intentionally trying to shut anyone out. They're just focused on their own good time: they're trying to dance with their friends, or that person visiting from out of town that they haven't seen in months, or to just chill and unwind. It's not being selfish or self-centered or anything, it's exactly what you're trying to do too! If they turn you down or don't think to ask you, it is almost never ever personal. As a follow, I tend to turn down a lot of leads that I don't know or that I haven't seen dance yet, and that's my choice to protect myself. While I believe social dancing is a give-and-take, I ain't got time to manage a jerky leader's energy flow so that my rotator cuff stays in one piece and so we don't end up playing bumper cars with every other dancing partnership out on the floor! I know your friend was trying to help, but I don't love the "just smile and look happy!" advice either. I would suggest trying to get to know some people - chat with folks in the dance lessons, or other people waiting to dance along the sidelines of the social dance floor. Is there a bar at your dance venue? Even if you don't drink, buy a soda or a coffee or a seltzer water, and get to know the bartender or the people who hang out by the bar. I love lindy hop, but as I come from a modern dance and ballet background, I forget sometimes about the social part of social dancing, and forget that I have to be a friend to make a friend, as my dear auntie says. Also, if I can be just a liiiiiiiittle bit catty... if your friends are young, pretty, fit, dancing in the follower's role (which is what I'm getting from the context of your post??? please correct me if I'm wrong!), and getting asked to dance all the time, the odds are pretty good that you don't want to be dancing with most of those leads and that, in the end, your friends didn't want to be dancing with them either. I love my scene and my community, but where there are young women, creeps tend to appear out of the woodwork, and they go for the pretty, young newbies. Hope this helps and hope you keep dancing!

Congratulations on your acceptances! Let me know if you have any questions about PS at NYU

NYU's admissions committee reads PhD applications and deliberates from February 1-March 8. Then they pass their decisions onto Tisch graduate admissions, and then someone will make contact. Unofficially, their decisions are released around the same time as NYU's spring break so that the current MA cohort has a "mourning period" if they were not accepted. NYU's spring break is March 14-20, so I wouldn't even worry about NYU until then. (That's a lie. I will start worrying on March 8.) I didn't realize that WashU had an MA in TAPS, though! I'm all done with my MA, but I have a soft spot for STL, and I wouldn't mind spending some time there someday.

Hey all - I'm applying to performance studies and dance studies PhD programs... I've got four in (Northwestern, Berkeley, Brown, and UC-Riverside) and one more to go (NYU). Northwestern has an in-service day today for MLK, but I'd expect any of us applying there should get an interview request or a rejection within the week. As long as the admissions committee is operating on the usual timeline. I'll keep my fingers and toes crossed for all of us!