I'm currently on a Fulbright teaching grant, and due to the various stresses of relocating across the planet, having to plan 8 university courses in English language instruction, with no text, from scratch, and a variety of other factors, I missed USC's preferential consideration deadline. I'm assuming this means I probably won't make it in. However the fit with their faculty was so great (in my mind at least) I felt compelled to apply anyway. Weirdly I had a dream last night that I got accepted there... Wishful thinking, no doubt.
I'm a cultural studies/visual culture/communication studies overlap person. I mostly applied to American Studies programs, but I applied to two communication programs, UCSD and UNC. It's funny though because I applied to USC's ASE program, which has a lot of faculty in Annenberg, so its sort of like I'm a communication applicant there by default. I don't think I've seen anyone else yet that's applied to UCSD's Communication program... Anyone? Anyone?
I applied to 8 schools, a mix of AmStudies and Communication programs. I did my MA in AmStudies but my focus is visual culture, cultural theory and popular music.
AmStudies programs: William and Mary, USC, Kansas, Brown, NYU; Communication: UCSD, and UNC; Cultural Studies, SUNY-Stony Brook (or SBU, whatever they're calling it now).
What are your areas of interest?
Just got an email from Rachel with my assignment in Turkey. I'll be at the Mehmet Akif Ersoy University in Burdur. Anyone else receive their assignment?
Ah, thanks SVN. Didn't realize we'd be leaving so late, though from the fact that the Fulbright site says that we're expected to attend an orientation in Ankara in late September, I should have guessed!
Hey Turkey ETA recipients- I just got off the phone with the Turkish embassy re: visa applications. Sounds like we can't start our visa application process until we have a letter from the university we'll be teaching at as well as the Board of Education (YOK??). Anyone else have this info? I tried calling Rachel yesterday about visa stuff but she didn't answer, and hasn't called me back. So it would seem for the moment all we can do is get our health clearance, and then move on from there...
My feeling is that it would have been nice to know these details up front (assuming that it is the deal for us, and not something different for 2011-12, which is CED5220's opinion as expressed on the spreadsheet). Simply because my side project proposal was somewhat location specific too- I'm an arts writer, and am interesting in documenting the contemporary art community in Istanbul where I have relationships with artists and curators. Not that I can't travel from other locations in the country to do this, but I wouldn't have discussed it in my application had I known there was absolutely no chance of being placed in Istanbul, which the new description would imply. Hopefully this won't interfere with my chances of getting picked!
I was looking at the link below... I don't know, maybe I'm totally bonkers? Like I said, I could swear it was much less specific before, in regards to the affiliation section... Not that it makes a difference one way or the other- I just thought it was interesting that the new description indicates that ETA's will ONLY be placed in locations outside of major metropolitan areas, whereas the one I recall was much more ambiguous.
http://us.fulbrightonline.org/program_country.html?id=108#yok
Hey Turkey ETA finalists- have you guys seen the new ETA descriptions on the Fulbright website? Looks like they've really revamped the program for 2011-2012. Do you think this new description will apply to us? They definitely weren't this explicit before about placement locales- before I think it just said something along the lines of "placement may be in areas outside of Istanbul and Ankara" or something along those lines. This sounds like a completely different ballgame. Any thoughts?
Thanks for the input all. The comment about the increased number of people needing to be placed and the size of the offices totally makes sense. With somewhere between 35 and 50 needing placement, I can definitely understand what a massive logistics snafu this must be. Well, we continue to wait! Character building indeed SVN! I'm pretty well past the freak out stage at this point. I was checking my mailbox/inbox obsessively for a little while, but I've figured out how to live my life without refreshing every two minutes (mostly! )
Here's to hoping for us all!
Thanks ced5220 for this update. So torturous indeed! I know there's nothing anyone at Fulbright can do to speed up the process and I'm in no way bitter (it is what it is), but man 2-3 more weeks is a long time! Did you get any sense from Rachel what the hold up is? Do you think it's a money issue, and that maybe they won't be able to take as many people as they originally planned? Or is it just that for whatever reason it's taking a long time for them to get throught the decision process, and it doesn't have anything to do with funding or other potential problems? Obviously there's no point in speculating if she didn't provide any info besides what you've already reported, but I can't help but be curious....