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that's a great story, thank you for sharing it. The proverbial 'double major' gambit is great. I need some sort of strategy like that to get some coursework, because I am hesitant to jump into a big application process without any classroom experience. I'm thinking about trying to find employment at a university that offers a tuition waiver to employees, and going to night school in the english department. There's a few different pieces there that I'm uncertain about: whether the tuition waiver or reimbursment would apply to a low level, administrative job, and whether courses in english are offered at night. I also don't know what universities' policies are on doing post-bac in english. It looks like every school is different. On the positive side, I've found more university jobs that I'm qualified for in past few days than four years of looking on the general job market, and have gotten responses today to applications I filed yesterday, whereas I'm used to waiting for about six weeks to never for a response. I would also take a university job just for access to the library. And maybe just the proximity to the english department and the professors might be of some value.

Thanks guys! Very grateful for the quick responses.

I need some counsel- I have a pretty urgent desire to move apply to MA/PhD programs, but i have no coursework in English from my BA (I discovered literature after graduation). I'm at a point in my life where I feel as though if I don't take a definite path in the direction of applying, I'll never do it. I see a few strategies to take but they would be costly both in time and money. I'm not prepared to apply anywhere without some courses first, so I guess the first question is: should I try to apply this winter after taking some fall classes or dig in and almost re-engineer an english degree over the next 18 months and apply winter 2017? *I stuck a few stats, history at the bottom The next question is what types of classes to take: online courses, post-bac at an inexpensive college, or post-bac at Penn or Columbia thats gigantically expensive? Some cobbling of all three over 18 month or go full-steam this fall? In my undergrad experience, the opportunity of working with high level professors was ludicrously invaluable, which is why I think a place like Penn would just be great to have access to the professors to develop my experience and resume. I don't know that post-bac courses there would really offer any prestige on an application, although I do worry that doing classes at the local college might look shabby. I assume I could get into an MA program at very small schools if I applied this winter, or is it possible to get into a top-50 with my resume and some coursework this fall? My gut instinct is that would be better to do 18 months of post-bac and/or online stuff and then apply to programs. This could work out to be loosely equal finance-wise (barring exceptance into a funded MA) and I feel as though I could get into a better school in 18 months. I need the opportunity to accumulate experience and a resume, and I could do that at a small MA program, but I imagine it would look better to admissions departments to have my undergraduate resume plus some english coursework, than an MA from a relatively unkown school. that might be a bad assumption though; I was wondering whether on PhD applications there's opportunity for students from small MA programs to separate themselves and compete with students from prestige undergraduate and MA programs? This obviously is all a financial head-ache. I had a scholarship in undergrad, and my parents can help me out financially, but I don't want to have to repeatedly go back to them. If I went to an expensive post-bac, for instance, I think I'd probably on my own after that. But if I did small in-state programs I think they'd help me the whole way, assuming I'd eventually get into a respectable PhD program. Also, would doing great on the GRE subjects test count for anything in counter-weighting my lack of undergrad english experience? I really don't even know who talk to about any this, which i why I brought it here. I don't know whether I could e-mail english profs at my old school or talk to the career center or what. I imagine parts of these subjects have been covered before, so feel free to direct me to relevant threads. *some stats and history: Degree in sociology from a top-ten university (3.4 gpa), where i played a varsity sport, and wrote an honors thesis that brought into play a pretty wide scope of liberal arts disciplines- My advisors were in Soc, history, and economics. My interest in literature was born out of sitting around in libraries from sun up to sundown during periods of unemployment. I'm only lumpily read, but I've taken on some challenging areas, and spent some time harassing my alumni association to give me online access to pretty obscure literary resources, well before the idea of going back to school ever popped into my head. I've looked at online lectures too (the ones through yale/berkely/ oxford) and feel that I would do very well in those classes, and I feel like I could provide a good writing sample.