Cotton Joe

I know that U of Mississippi and Tennessee and NC State don't fund all MA students either. I was just listing programs which I know offer funded MA lit programs. I know that these programs offer funding to at least some of their MA students because I was accepted with funding to many of the programs on that list.

Does Penn State still offer a terminal funded MA? Of course I can just go check for myself, but I feel like when I was looking for my program, I had read that they only admit students to their MA who plan to stay for their PhD program. I guess that means that you technically could do an MA and leave, but the feeling I got from what they indicated in their admissions info was that you are essentially going to their MA program as a feeder into their PhD, and if you don't want to do a PhD there, they don't want you for the MA.

U of Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisville, South Carolina, and North Carolina State all offer funded MA programs if you are currently located in or interested in moving to the southeast. Off the top of my head, the funding at those programs includes tuition remission (to varying degrees), health insurance, and stipends that look something like this: Alabama: $14k/yr (Alabama also has a really nice fellowship available to MA students called the Graduate Council Fellowship which is service free for one year and carries a stipend award of $19k. They really like queer south studies there, if that is something you are into.) Tennessee: $10k/yr Kentucky: $15k/yr Mississippi: $10k/yr Louisville: $15k/yr South Carolina: $8k/yr NC State: $10k/yr

Could you provide a bit more info about content writing and how to find those kinds of gigs? Feel free to PM if you would prefer, but I would certainly appreciate some more discussion about this. I currently have applications out being considered for writing gigs with NYT and a gaming blog called Goomba Stomp, but I don't expect much from those, and I also don't know if they are quite the same thing as what you're suggesting.

Accepted to rhet/comp MA at NC State with teaching assistantship. This was one of top two choices for so many factors, but I am disappointed in the stipend amount they offer for MA, which is only $10,000. It's going to be a hard decision. NC State is the best match for my interests, has the most active faculty in my area, offers great support for the TA process, and Research Triangle is a great place for my SO to find work in her field. But the stipend is the lowest on my list. Any suggestions?

Yes, I got the same email. I think the graduate school reviews it first then decides whether or not to pass it to the English department. When they say it has been "referred," I think that means that the graduate school passed it on to the department. It took about a week after I got the "referred" email to get an acceptance letter from the DGS.

There's something weird about the two big public schools in Kentucky. I've heard that they have a law that states that their departments aren't allowed to compete for applicants, but I can't find any sources to back that up. If you look at UK, they only seem to offer graduate programs in literature. Likewise, Louisville only offers a PhD in Rhet/Comp, not Lit. as far as I can tell. Kentucky also does not have many dedicated Rhet/Comp faculty. They just started the Rhetoric, Writing, and Digital Studies department, but it is not open to graduate students. You can work with those faculty, but you can't write a thesis/dissertation in it yet. I assume their MA is likely a bit different, but from what I know, there is likely a reason they did not ask you to indicate.

That deadline's actually only for their MA in English. Still a Feb. 1 date if you're interested in terminal MA.

Yes, only to MA. I forgot to put that in my OP, but I just I added it.

I think NC State's deadline is Feb 1. https://english.chass.ncsu.edu/graduate/ma/admission_info.php Their admissions page says "February 1 to be considered for teaching assistantships; June 15 for admission only."

I applied only to MA programs, and only one of my applications is for rhet/comp, the rest lit. I wanted to apply to both Louisville and NC State for rhet/comp, but I ran out of application money and picked NC State out of the two. I haven't heard from them yet and likely won't for a while as I believe their app deadline is actually really late at Feb. 1 Broadly, I am interested in identity development through online writing on niche forums like political forums, gaming forums, and grad school forums like this one. More specifically, I want to work with the intersection of political, racial, and religious identities on extremist forums like white nationalist and neo-Nazi websites and forums. I am also interested in the visual rhetoric of memes in spreading extremist ideologies.

Would you mind giving me your general feelings about the program, school, and town? PM if you don't mind.

There's a rejection reported from University of Tennessee for PhD, but I haven't heard from them for my MA application. Is it common to send rejections before acceptances? Or to address PhD first, then fill in open spots with MA offers?

Accepted to Literature MA at Alabama (not Strode) with assistantship and Loomis scholarship.

I'm looking at MA programs at: *Alabama: *Kentucky: Mississippi: Mid March *North Carolina State: Tennessee: Early Feb. *Any information on the empty ones? I'll do my own search and report what I find for anyone else looking at these schools, but I would also appreciate any info that anyone else has.

Great, thanks. I will check them out when I start applying for PhD. Right now, I am geographically constrained to the Southeast, so Utah is out of the question for the MA.

@Chadillac Thanks for pointing me toward Laurie Gries and Still Life with Rhetoric. Her methodology actually would be perfect for working with how the alt-right has morphed memes like Pepe (the frog) and Daily Struggle (sweaty decision guy) into online propaganda tools. University of Louisville is the main school I am looking at if I decide to go the rhetoric track. Would you happen to know anything about them or about how well my interests might fit in there?

@renea Thanks so much for the detailed response. I learned a lot from your post, and I appreciate the time you put into compiling the information for me. @Chadillac I have done some work in writing centers and have presented at writing center and WPA conferences as an undergrad. I enjoy my work, and I do not see myself losing interest in teaching writing or teaching English anytime soon. However, I also want to do some work outside of literacy research. I am interested in bettering myself as a teacher and an instructor, but I am content to follow the field and take the best training and advice on teaching that I can find. However, I want my own research to focus mostly on issues outside of classroom writing. As I stated, I am interested in analyzing and writing about propaganda and political rhetoric. What I am struggling with is finding English departments with rhetoric/composition scholars working in this area. Mostly what I find is those working in literacy and writing program research. I am somewhat constrained geographically right now. Is it possible to do the work I want to do in a graduate program where the faculty mostly works with literacy and classroom writing?

Hello everyone. This is my first post on this board. I studied English literature in undergrad and did some undergraduate research and conference presenting in both literature and rhetoric/composition. As I was searching for English graduate programs, I felt that they might not be as a great a fit for me as I had hoped. While I love research and analyzing literature, my focus in analysis is almost always on specific language use and argument strategies, and I usually enjoy using new media texts more than literature. For example, one project I did focused on improving PR for my campus writing center. Another project was a literary reading of a video game with a central argument of video games as art. As I am trying to articulate future research projects, I continue to return to an interest in studying political rhetoric, political literature, propaganda, and grassroots political movements. For example, one project I am interested in pursuing is studying the use of irony and memetic inside jokes as propaganda to demonize the other and create ideologically homogeneous in-groups on internet forums like Reddit's /r/The_Donald, /r/Conspiracy, or /r/Atheism. These issues do not fit as neatly into my favorite English departments as I would like, and I have been told by many people to consider Communications programs instead. As an English undergraduate, I never took Comm. coursework, so I am wondering if anyone has any advice on how well English undergrad studies transfers to Comm. graduate work. My career aspirations have always included a professorship, which is possible through both English and Comm. However, I am also interested in working in journalism, publishing, radio, marketing, policy research, and political campaigning. Am I correct in feeling that a Comm. degree would be better suited for following these paths than would be an English degree? In addition to career prospects, the more I look into dissertations coming out of my preferred programs, the more I find myself repelled from the English work being done and attracted to the Comm. work being done. From my limited experience so far, I am enjoying that Comm. engages social sciences methodologies and interacts with more tangible, real world phenomena and texts. English studies seem too insular and detached from the world, focusing only on a handful of themes in narrow ranges of literary works. Tl:dr: How well do English undergrad studies transfer to Comm. grad studies? Is it advisable to complete an M.A. in Comm. before applying to PhD programs out of an English undergrad? Are the non-academic job prospects better for Comm. than for English, or can they generally do the same things? While I do have extensive undergrad experience researching and presenting at English conferences, will I still have a hard time being accepted to a Comm. M.A. program with no experience in Comm. studies?

What do Rhet/Comp folks do? Is a Rhet/Comp PhD always focused only on college writing and literacy issues like WPA and writing center work? If I am interested in studying propaganda, advertising, and political rhetoric, is a Rhet/Comp PhD right for me? Do I really have a better chance of finding tenure-line work with a Rhet/Comp degree than with a Lit degree? Am I more likely to find a standard classroom teaching gig as a Rhet/Comp, or am I more likely to work in administrative roles like WPA or writing center director? Why do some universities (looking at you Vanderbilt) not offer Rhet/Comp as a potential focus? If I am interested in literacy research, what are some reputable institutions with decent funding packages that I might look into? If I am interested in rhetoric research (history, propaganda, online and tech writing [like Reddit or Facebook], etc.), what are some institutions I should look into? What are some specializations or subfields in Rhet/Comp that are especially popular right now? What are some subfields that I might not know about (given that I clearly know very little to begin with)? What kind of non-academic work does a Rhet/Comp degree open me up to that a Lit degree might not? And, what other aspects of Rhet/Comp am I clearly trampling over in my ignorance in this post?

@TakeruK I am glad to hear that everything worked out for you so far. I think we are in a similar situation in that we do not want to leave our geographical region for too long. There are great schools in my region, and I know of at least three top-tier programs to which I want to apply eventually. I like your idea of changing careers if you do not get into one of those top programs. I may run that by my partner later and see how she feels about that.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I am in a similar situation. The plan we have now is that I will only apply for M.A. programs. This way, if I end up in a small town, it will only be for two years. Then, if she wants to do an M.A., I will move with her to wherever she wants to go so she can complete her graduate degree before I start a PhD. That handles the next 4-5 years pretty effectively, but then we still have to figure out what to do for PhD. Most of the schools I am looking at for that are in major metro areas, but they are also highly ranked schools which will be hard for me to get into. Either way, I think it will only be the first 2 years which will be a struggle, but she has indicated that she is willing to take a less-than-optimal job only while I do an M.A. Currently, University of Louisville, University of Kentucky, and University of Maryland are the schools on my list which best fit both of our needs. The schools which worry me wrt her work are Mississippi and Penn State, which are both in small, isolated rural communities. Both are over an hour away from the nearest major metro, and she shouldn't have to commute two hours a day for work, but I really want both of those schools, so letting them go will be a hard decision.

@urbanfarmer Thanks for the advice! If any critical approach gets mentioned, it will likely be ecocriticism. As I have said elsewhere (maybe in this thread?), I use feminist and queer theory in my writing sample, so that may be enough to convince a committee that I have some grasp of contemporary lit theory. p.s. If you're ever near Alabama and you like beer, you should try Good People's Urban Farmer saison, if for no other reason that because has the same name as your GC account (and also because it is a great drink made by great people).

@cowgirlsdontcry I recall that you are attending U of Alabama. I also found Tuscaloosa to be more expensive than expected as well while I was searching their rental listings. Those smaller college towns have largely been more expensive than most other places. For example, Oxford, MS rivaled places like Chattanooga, TN and Louisville, KY in rent which seems bizarre considering Chattanooga and Louisville are large metropolitan cities with industry and tourism while Oxford is a small town which barely reaches 20,000 in population.

@urbanfarmer Thanks for the advice. I am applying from undergrad to M.A., so I do not have a thesis to summarize. However, would it be worth summarizing my writing sample and connecting it to my stated research interests? Also, when I am detailing research interests, I have so far written out a period, a genre, and a topic, but I have not articulated a theory approach. At the M.A. level, how necessary is it to show that I have a theory approach? Also, long shot here, but is your username a reference to Good People Brewing out of Birmingham, Alabama?