Hey, I'm trying to get my letters of recommendation all wrangled up for my desires to get a PhD in philosophy
I'm freaking out right now, mainly because I only ever did like one course with most of my professors. Out of the two I worked closest with, one of them has been kind enough to work like pretty closely on the process, and the other one has been dead silent because of a bunch of things going on in their life, and am in the process of trying to re-open that communication channel.
The other big hurdle is that for financial reasons I am on the opposite end of the United States as I could not find a stable job near my college that could pay DC / Northern Virginia levels of rent.
Currently, due to this, I only have like one real letter of recommendation on lock-down.
I am thinking of going to get an MA to try and drum up two more, but the issue there is that it seems like all the MA programs for Philosophy in WA require 3 of em.
I also was part of an Accelerated MA program for the college, used it to take Graduate level work, but due to the move that the family was making I kinda had to ghost out and am concerned that might lead to bad blood with one of the professors I want to get into contact with but I'm worried that if I broach the subject that'll create that bad blood by bringing it up.
So, the question becomes:
1. Should I reach out to the professors I only did like one course with, but who seemed to respect the general cut of my jib?
2. Should I look to other sources for possible letters of recommendation? Both in other departments, my English classes for instance, or outside of academia proper? Working a normal job right now and am thinking of asking one of them to give me a generic one, if that might be of use?
3. Any tips on trying to get the conversation started and not feeling like a miserable and selfish bastard for taking up a lot of their incredibly busy and precarious schedules?
