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Deletethis2020

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  1. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to CFraser in Avoid LSU English   
    I saw that, a few months ago, someone asked if anyone could say anything positive or negative about LSU English to help them make their decision. I can't, in good conscience, continue to avoid sharing my experiences at LSU in the event that I might be able to dissuade students with other options from attending.
    I'll jump right in.
    Attending LSU for English is probably the worst decision I have ever made for a number of reasons.
    1--cronyism and favoritism is the order of the day. All decisions for favors, decent classes, good schedules, awards etc. are determined by whether or not you are liked by the current administration and staff people. This includes basics like getting the admin. assistant to enroll you for required hours so that you'll carry the correct number of hours to remain a TA. There is a list of people (physical list) showing who is liked and who is blacklisted from decent class schedules.
    2--admin and staff (and yes, sometimes other graduate students) are openly abusive via email and sometimes in person. If you are sensitive or can't handle abusive language from your superiors, avoid this department. You shouldn't have to put up with abuse or end up in therapy or on pills or whatever because of the cruel culture of your PhD program.
    3--racist, sexist, etc. Part of #2 encompasses the blatant racist, classist, and sexist culture of the department. In fact, at the end of last semester, a group of graduate students finally felt they had had enough of LSU English's racism, sexism, ableism, and every other form of discrimination you can possibly imagine and sent out an email manifesto to the entire department demanding change. A series of meetings with the Diversity Provost were held and I'm sorry to tell you, nothing has changed, and it won't change. Racism and other forms of discrimination are too deeply embedded in the department culture. I'm also sorry to say that the other graduate students take part.
    4--not a single school year goes by that the department doesn't threaten to take our paychecks or tuition remission away from us. They find ways to justify it each time. If you are independently wealthy, are supported by your parents, or are not supporting your own family/children, this may not matter to you, but it causes stress to everyone else.
    5--LSU (the university) has been the recipient of deep, deep cuts from the state each school year. That alone would make me too scared to begin a program here now, just aside from the problems in the English department.
    6--Generally disgusting state of the actual building. This might be minor, but Allen Hall (English building) is regularly infested with rodents and cockroaches and floods often. Allen Hall is not ADA compliant, either--FYI
    In general, I do not have a single positive thing to say about LSU English. People are cruel, vindictive, a student has almost no recourse, and nothing ever changes. Also, if you are Rhet/Comp, avoid. The Rhet program has been killed. They claim to have one, but all the faculty are on the point of retiring and no attempt to hire new faculty is made. If it helps you to know this, multiple English graduate students have, in recent years, died here from substance abuse. These students were the victims of cruelty and bullying. The graduate student culture is built on bullying--people here are not friendly. Maybe these issues are all common to graduate programs, but my other friends in English across the country have no stories like these. You might think I'm simply a malcontent or had a unique bad experience, and I don't care if that is what you think--everything I've said is true.
    I hope this helps your decision.
  2. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to Marie-Luise in Comparative Literature, 2013   
    I never approached professors with the questions "is this good enough". I approached with the question of whether they are generally opposed to the second PhD and they said no. So I applied. I never expected their encouragement to be a guarantor of success either. I am not that naive.
     
     
    No, I don't need a second PhD do learn how to work comparatively, but I need it for the theory and the approaches of faculty members of the department and outside. As for my compelling reason (at least it is one for me), I wanted to work with one particular professor, who is in Classics actually, but I also wanted to do the programme because it taught theoretical approaches which are difficult to wrap your head around if you come from a background with purely philological training. I also felt that my (comparatively short) PhD programme had not taught me all the tools I needed to be a medieval European literary scholar, which is what I want to be and which said professor can help me with since his own approach is close to what I intend to do. I also want to get a research degree from a more mainstream field ( I am in Celtic now), not only because it is economically more viable, but also because I can contribute both to medieval European literary studies and to my first field like very few can if I do Comp Lit.
    So no, I am unfortunate in that my degree spells PhD and not MPhil which is a step down but only a year less than the PhD whereas the discrepancy between the masters and the doctoral level in the States is much greater. So to sum up:
     
    1. I want to work with a specific faculty member
    2. my first PhD was not a satisfying experience in terms of academic skills due to its short duration and lack of formal coursework/organisation
    3. I dont have a masters (this relates to point 2)
    4. The programme at Harvard can give me what I need/want + I get to work with the professor
    5. I get to employ skills and gain others which a Celtic postdoc would not enable me to do and you can't do a postdoc in another field even if you have the skills; no one would hire me for a Classics postdoc even if I had demonstrated that I had superb Latin skills in editing or whatnot.
    6. No one hires you in the US unless you have a PhD from a US university or from Oxford or Cambridge. Let's be honest, exceptions to that rule are very rare. If I want to be on the US market, I need a US PhD. Might as well get one where the programme and the prof are a perfect fit and which has an excellent reputation.
     
    Are these reasons compelling enough? Tell me if they are not and I'll stop trying so hard. I don't know how outspoken I can be in an actual personal statement. It would be interesting if you could tell me that.
  3. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to Madik in Help in applying?   
    Hello everyone. I graduated with a bachelors in English a year ago with a GPA of 3.0. Now I want to apply to a Ph.D program. I don't have any publications either.
    1) My first question is: With a 3.0 would it be a good idea to apply to ivy league and/or topnotch schools? I'm sure I'll get a response telling me there's nothing to lose except I have to save my money just so I can register for the GRE. Those application fees add up.
    2)Also, what schools are good to apply to. I'm interested in African American Lit as well as American Lit, haven't really made a final decision. I don't really have anyone who can advise me on this matter so I'm turning here.
    I'm currently looking at the University of Virginia, Rutgers University, Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL), University of Pittsburgh, Rice University, Vanderbilt University, and University of Maryland (UMD).
    Any helpful advice would be appreciated.
    Thank you.
  4. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to Watmeworry in GRE scores   
    My BA GPA was 3.75 and so is my grad MA GPA 3.75 . I have great LORS and I think a strong essay, but on the GRE's I froze. I scored 670 verb, 450 quant and this is the worst, 3 on the essay. Since most of my LORs will talk about my great essay skills, and also because I was told by two of the English dept at Columbia that a 450 on verbal was okay by them, I just sucked it up and thought the admissions will tell this is anomalous.
    Actually, I type terribly and spent most of the time trying to fix the typos and this together with the numbing panic attack that happened half way through the exam... I knew what the outcome would be.
    I am hoping that this won't impact too heavily. Any thoughts?
  5. Upvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to Baudelaire in Penn   
    FML: A def rejection, an implicit one, the never-ending UVa, and now this shit show. Thanks stellar record at Ivy-quality M.A. program: you really did the trick. Well, back to teaching high school...
  6. Upvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to Cato's Daughter in Cornell   
    I got in with funding...If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. Implicit rejections everywhere else I've applied except Columbia, where I haven't heard. I'm in total shock.   
  7. Upvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to SuperPiePie in Colleges Rescind Acceptance Offers   
    The problem is usefulness has diminished greatly. Back in the day I agree it was important, but the importance of science and engineering as of today far exceeds that of the fine arts. My significant other and my mother are both artists and one is majoring in comparative literature. They are probably just as smart as I am and work just as hard, BUT the applications of what they are doing I will not admit are greater than the ones I am working on. Literacy is very important, and although in the past it has brought us to where we are, we have plenty of teachers to teach us how to read and write and at least interpret important papers or readings. If you want to do research about a certain writer's style or a certain time period, that's fantastic. But that does not mean that it will somehow make everyone later in the world better off even if you succeed and become famous.

    My argument was speaking about the general public because their respect stems from application of study. I look at the individual and that is why I fully respect the field, but many people just want results and product. If any big revolutions are going to occur NOW (yes the past there were many in literature but also MASSIVE ones in science and engineering like the industrial revolution which pretty much changed the world flat out).

    If you look to the future science and engineering have larger chances of changing out world and helping people who are sick or in need of food and water. That is why most people put money into these fields. Your argument about flourishing in the past is true, but now we have overcome that hump it is time for us to take over. You guys got us out of the stone age, now we will take you to the space age.



    I completely agree, without language we would be screwed over. However, now that we have it it's not like we need millions of English Ph.D. students to help teach people to read and write. We need English teachers to teach elementary school and high school. You can do that without a Ph.D. Like I said we are now in the age of science like it or not, and that is how the world is and represents it self as. So I thank all of you for your contributions in the past. But now that we got enough knowledge to communicate decently, let us take over. You guys got us out of the stone age, now we will take you to the space age. Just because you were the king once does not make you the king now. Just because no one gave a shit about us many centuries ago doesn't make us the paupers now. Things are not equal, and it has always been this way. Just learn to accept it.

    Think of it this way, if 90% of the world's English students decided to be lazy and stop doing their studies, it would be sad but the world would still be alright for awhile. If 90% of scientists and engineers just gave up and stopped working, we would be in some... deep... you know.
    Note: Once again RESPECT the people who work so hard, but money goes where it needs to go, not where respect needs to go.
  8. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to Medievalmaniac in Colleges Rescind Acceptance Offers   
    I've just been depressed that those engaged in such shenanigans chose to do so as English candidates. Why can't some other discipline get picked on for a change....?

    I know people perceive English as being an "easy" major...but I mean - especially for those of us who are medievalists - we're required not only to master our specialty area and two other areas of concentration in English, but also 2 or 3 (dependent upon the department's requirements) languages besides English, one of which must be Latin. We are also strongly encouraged to minor in one or more appropriate fields - Art History, Women's Studies, History, etc. etc. And it's no longer just reading books and journals and doing close readings and comparative work - now, you also have to be proficient in the mind-numbingly difficult practice of critical theory, as well as the exploding arena of online resources and research.

    It's not exactly the walk in the park people think it is to be an English doctoral student/professor. I wish the discipline received more respect in the greater community.
  9. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to anthropologygeek in Tattoos and the Grad Life   
    Your right, you must be professional in your work too. Luckily in real life I am. I have been doing a ton of research and I am tired when I get home. Sometimes I don't proof read an online message for an online forum.
  10. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to Delilah in Essay question   
    Hello, I do not know if I am over analyzing a particular essay question or if the following question is horribly written. Please help?

    "Describe any emotional or physical characteristics or limitations which should be considered in planning for your social work training."

    Do you think that they are asking if I have any limitations, or are they talking about potential limitations regarding the time consuming program?
  11. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to Medievalmaniac in Friended by My Grad School   
    I think it is acceptable to message them back and check it out. I would word it something like, "I am always happy to receive new friend requests! However, it seems odd that I receive one from the admissions office of a university to which I have applied. While I certainly have nothing to hide and will gladly provide you with access to my Facebook account, I would like to verify first that this request was made by an officer or employee in your graduate office and not by a robot or spammer. Thank you, XXXX"

    Then, the ball is in their court. But I think as long as you make it clear you are just verifying this is "for real" and not trying to hide anything from them, you're good.

    Also, depending upon your privacy settings, their requesting you as a friend is all it takes to get your profile information and friends list made available to them.
  12. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to StrangeLight in It Has Begun   
    not that tickle requires any defense, i'm gonna give it anyway. in her three rounds of applying, the first resulted in an MA, and the second in "consolation" MA offers due to lack of funding, something you will all become familiar with in just a few months. your "really, I hope you get in somewhere" implies that you think tickle has had two previous rounds without success, which is very bitchy of you, as well as inaccurate.



    i admire your courage to use the word "bitch" without actually typing out all the letters. that takes guts to remove a few letters so you can somehow justify your usage of a pejorative term without having to take any personal responsibility for it. you get to put the word in our head without feeling like an asshole in the process. either use the term and own it, in all its ugliness, or don't.



    this is not the place to blow off steam. this is the place to build up pressure. no one in your real life knows what you're going through, i understand that. but you don't even realize how stressful this process is until you can cross-check your neuroses with other applicants and realize, oh my god, we applied for the same program and he received an email and i didn't. if you didn't log on here, you'd never have that information, and so you wouldn't have that source of stress. for example, the rejection from indiana... everyone that applied to indiana will now compulsively check their emails and, if they don't find a rejection in the next day or two, will assume that they will receive an offer. if and when a rejection comes 4 weeks from now, they will be even more unprepared for it because they saw that the "first round rejections" (or however we choose to interpret this information) happened ages ago.

    also, a lot of solidarity you're finding here. you've come for advice on how to deal with the application process and remove some of the stress and when you're given that advice from people with firsthand experience, you decide it's not worth taking because we haven't "take[n] into account the possibility that [you] need to be here." really? the people that have lived this experience already haven't taken into account what this experience is like for you? really. now that doesn't make any sense.

    tickle is right. weeks ago, first-time applicants were on here encouraging each other to bombard graduate secretaries with emails saying "did you get all my stuff? did you get it? do you have it yet? do you have everything?" and tickle said, based on past experience, programs will notify you when something is missing. everyone shot her down. everyone. "no one will look out for you but you!!" and then, once the departments finally started sorting applications in the new year, many people received emails or phone calls explaining that some materials were missing. tickle was right. and when she politely pointed out that she was right, and that people should just relax and try to let go of the stress, she was jumped on for it. "no, the fact that these departments emailed me to tell me stuff was missing just proves how important it is for me to ask them in early january if they have all my stuff yet." no, that is not what that proves. not even a little bit.

    every single response to an email of "do you have all my stuff?" has been "if we're missing something, we'll let you know." and those departments would let you know whether or not you emailed them once a week saying "is all my stuff there?" so, after some really negative reactions to tickle's polite and CORRECT advice, she decides to say "i told you so." and then you call her a bitch. oh, i'm sorry, a b**ch.

    but if i feel this way, why bother coming here anymore? well, for one thing, there are other forums on this site that are still useful to me. for another, it's an excellent source of procrastination. and initially, i thought giving some advice or insight would be helpful on this forum, since i found it helpful when i applied two years ago. but now i'm just sticking around to watch the rejections roll in from some of the more pompous, self-righteous, and delusional among you.
  13. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to TMP in It Has Begun   
    I said that in another thread but nobody listened. Nobody listened when I said to relax, departments will be in touch when something's missing. Nobody listens to me at all and I'm a third time applicant.

    Seriously, listen to the old-timers like me and StrangeLight, huh? I'm only here to keep you all from becoming disasters, or rather it's just hysterical to watch you all flip-out over every single little thing... only because once you all get into graduate school, you'll very quickly realize that you cannot control every single little thing that goes on because the world isn't about you.

    So let me say this explicitly. TOLD YOU ALL SO.
  14. Upvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to my future is history in It Has Begun   
    This is probably the best advice that's been posted in the history of this forum. The worst place to be, as a high-strung nervous wreck, is a forum full of other high-strung nervous wrecks. It's like a runaway reaction of hysterical resonance.

    That being said, I'm a masochist so I'm here lol.
  15. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to StrangeLight in It Has Begun   
    hey man.

    i told you guys to log off. trust me. you'll get emails when you get 'em. and even if it's posted on a website 3 days before you get the email that it's been posted on a website, who cares? you don't need to say yes or no to anyone until april 15.

    the next three months will crawl if you do this to yourselves. and they'll be really, really unproductive, too. i know it's difficult, but just log off the grad cafe.
  16. Upvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to TMP in It Has Begun   
    I sent all of my official transcripts anyway. So I'm not surprised that I didn't get a call.
  17. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to Tejaswi in eng2011 roundup   
    hey can u tell me how to check my application status for Suny-Stonybrook?? thx!
  18. Upvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to gradstudent84 in How will you celebrate?   
    Update my facebook status. Hahahah!

    No one's mentioned it yet but I KNOW for a FACT that more than half of you will do this (assuming you all have an account)

    Then I will email/visit my letter writers, take my family out to dinner, and gloat share to all my friends.

    Just being honest here.
  19. Upvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to lyonessrampant in Good idea to go travelling while waiting on applications?   
    I love travelling too, but I would also advise against this or at least recommend you delay until April 15th, as others have suggested. A Ph.D. (if that's what you're applying for) is a good chunk of your life. If you end up totally hating the city/environment where a school is located, that could really impact your happiness and satisfaction for a long time. Further, and more importantly in my opinion, you miss out on the opportunity to go on campus visits where you can meet the professors and (some) of the cohort you'll be spending a lot of time with. Getting a feel for the department can be really important. People don't usually talk about things like potential schisms between two professors in your area, and if you potentially want to work with both of them and later find you can't due to the internal disivion, that could really affect your research. At campus visits you get a good feel for interpersonal dynamics, departmental attitude, and grad student opportunities. I wouldn't want to miss that.
  20. Upvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to eklavya in Typos--very embarrassed   
    Things like these - small/big typos, choice of words, forgetting to switch department/program names between different SoPs, etc - are common. There is no way any one is going to be 100% satisfied with their applications. We all make mistakes, and the adcomms know that. They won't come to a decision based on a trivial error. Chill out. You'll be fine.
  21. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to spd970 in Anyone willing to look at my list?   
    don't bail on Emory...I didn't want to go to "Georgia" when I went there for undergrad, but Atlanta didn't really turn out to be what I thought "Georgia" was. Great school, excellent facilities, and top-notch program!
  22. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to jakebarnes in Tattoos and the Grad Life   
    You're in a PhD program and you still don't know the difference between your and you're?
  23. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to Medievalmaniac in only days away?   
    Yes, please, take my screening process for fellowship candidates as a major exaggeration intended merely to illustrate my point. In no way did I mean for that to be taken super-literally!! I was simply trying for an example that would be clearly a fellowship candidate sort of application - but as DietcOke and others have pointed out, fellowships depend on a wide variety of variables.
  24. Upvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to soxpuppet in only days away?   
    You are right - I was looking for "in waves" and came up with the wrong term. My apologies.



    This was also true for me as well - my point, just to clarify, is that 1) my admissions with uncommon fellowships didn't necessarily happen in mid January (one was either LATE February or early March), 2) I can think of examples both from my personal experience and from the experiences of my friends where the main body of admitted students was contacted a day or two after the fellowship nominees (this is not necessarily universal, but it is pretty common for all admissions notices to go out the same week), and 3) not all late January admits are admitted in late January for the reason that they are prestigious fellowship winners.

    My larger point was simply that it is a very unhealthy attitude to start placing yourselves and others in such hierarchies of worth (only the "TIP TOP candidates," suggesting that fellowship awards require astronomical GPA and GRE numbers, etc.) even before, as far as I know, ANY PhD program has sent out an actual admission for English lit. And it's unhealthy to do that anyway. Yes, some schools will start notifying soon. The schools that notify early will start notifying soon; the schools that interview will start notifying interviewees soon (or already have); and a few qualified, lucky applicants who are good fits at schools that don't notify especially late may receive notice of admission with fellowship nomination soon.

    Amazing, qualified applicants who are a great fit at schools who notify later may not receive that awesome fellowship notification until even after the mid February rush.

    Yes, there are traceable patterns in the admissions timeline, but they are delicate, ephemeral, and subject to myriad contingencies. It is even more difficult to identify trends in notification patterns based on this timeline that will brand your hierarchical worth as a candidate over and above (or below) other admitted students.

    The TIP TOP candidates are the ones that get into solid programs that support their interests, no matter when that happens. That's all I'm saying.
  25. Downvote
    Deletethis2020 reacted to lasgirl in What you think the adcoms are saying about your application   
    Although apparently you're not supposed to sound optimistic about your applications, I think my committees will seriously consider me at all of the schools I applied to. I don't necessarily think I'll be accepted at all of them - of course, some of my schools were "reaches" - but if I really didn't think they'd even give my application a second glance, I wouldn't have applied.

    Everything in my application is solid. Parts are what I would consider stellar, parts aren't, but I don't have anything to apologize for.

    It makes me kind of sad to see how everyone is so convinced they'll just be laughed out of the room
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