Prose
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Posts posted by Prose
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4 hours ago, DoodleBob said:
For example, your AOI and thesis is in X, but that does not matter towards your addmisions prospects for a program that specializes in Y. As I have lurked here on the gradcafe, I have read advice that this is not the case.
This was an excellent explication, 10/10.
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Do an MA but taking another 'long shot' at 34 in something like academic philosophy of all things is risky to say the least.
What exactly do you want out of becoming a graduate student in philosophy? Not sure "access, networking, conferences" are clear/good enough reasons. Your money and time, I won't care what you do - just giving things to think about.
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just declined
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Tufts is your clear best choice, by far.
- The_Last_Thylacine, Scoots and AB1234
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11 hours ago, The_Last_Thylacine said:
relative privation
This is why I have trust issues with you
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11 hours ago, Scoots said:
I really wonder what kind of work/study people are talking about. I spend most waking hours thinking about philosophy, but I couldn’t really call that work. I’ve been out of the academy for a few years now, but even when I was studying for my degree, I doubt I could manage more than about 10 hours of productive reading each week, on top of a few lectures. It didn’t hurt my grades, or—it seems—my chances w.r.t. PhD admissions. Talking to my undergrad professors (at a top 10 Phil. Gourmet department) this seems to capture their experience as well.
If you’re spending 70 waking hours reading papers and engaging in directed academic study each week, I imagine you’ll produce beautifully polished academic work, and be up to the minute on all the latest fads... but will it really be interesting, creative philosophy? (—I mean, perhaps you can make that work, but I feel it would hinder more than help?)Wittgenstein was mentioned as an example of a hard worker. As far as I can tell from biographies etc., that meant open-ended pondering of philosophical questions, reading detective fiction, and discussing philosophy with his friends and students. I can’t imagine that’s the kind of study under discussion here.
only 10 hours of productive reading a week? what? If that works for you then great but that's not and should not be the norm.
also I'm not sure what the last two bits are about at all - I'll try working less than 70 hours a week and see if I feel closer to writing the next Tractatus? Philosophy is hard work, whether you're Kant or an assistant professor, and the image of some manic, genius mind sketching up groundbreaking work is poor fantasy (this is probably even more true now in contemporary, professionalized philosophy - which everyone here wants to do - than ever).
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2 minutes ago, Syndicatte said:
How on earth could you possibly work a job (part-time or full time) ontop of all that?
I'm doing an MA so a full-time job isn't relevant, if by part-time you mean something like TA duties, I suppose I'll have to cut down on my reading hours when I start TAing, but probably not by too much.
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ditto @brookspn
also I just have certain goals I want to achieve that I can't achieve by putting in 30 hrs per week, just not possible - I also think there's people out there doing 70 hours doing stuff much harder than reading some stuff and writing some stuff, so I say work as much as you can handle
and as for how much time is REQUIRED to be 'good' at philosophy depends on you and 'good', but as said, that's not really what's under discussion here.
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22 minutes ago, markovka said:
How many hours a day do you sleep, seriously?
haha 6, if I get more than that I feel tired
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2 hours ago, Eternity said:
A question about recommendation
How important is the professor's fame?
A letter from a assitant professor and a letter form a professor (both are strong recommendation), will come much difference?
Pretty important depending on the prestige of the program to which you're applying, all else equal (i.e. the famous person doesn't write a bad letter).
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4 hours ago, DeliciousH2O said:
Thanks for sending over the other post!
As to why my GPA is so low (as much as I hate excuses) is my job. I work 30-40 hours a week to put myself through my undergrad so some courses get more attention then others.
My major GPA is good and my grads in my AOI are 4.0. Also I will definitely have my LORs address it.
I'd stick to MAs next cycle.
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2 hours ago, DoodleBob said:
Dear The Grad Cafe Philosophy Community,
I am looking for advice on how often you all spend doing philosophy outside of class seminars (teaching or enrolled) in a typical week. How many hours do you spend reading? How many hours do you spend writing?
I am inquiring so I can better understand what a typical week of time management is like for an academic philosopher, so I can then know how to improve my own time management.
Thank you!
70-80 hour 'workweek'
6 hrs. in seminar / ~60 hrs. reading / ~14 hours writing
Writing hours can fluctuate depending on time of term.
- DoodleBob and seuil-limite
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2 hours ago, Krauge said:
This ties into what I was going to ask anyway. And, I know that you can’t say anything concrete without actually seeing the paper, but would a more historically based paper like mine be looked at more favorably by a classics track of ancient philosophy than a philosophy track, or is it just a bad way to proceed?
Prose is obviously right that I need to get back into reading journal articles for philosophy, but in your experience, would classics look more favorably on this than philosophy?
And, as far as articles go, how different would an article in an academic journal, say Nous, be from an article in a Cambridge Companion or Blackwell Companion? I went through a decent number of those for the paper? I’m trying to gauge what I have cut out for me.
Read Phronesis or Ancient Philosophy or Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie or British Journal for Hist of Phil
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14 hours ago, Krauge said:
Is it suggested then that I write a new paper from scratch?
Agree with @Marcus_Aurelius here. But also, it just sounds like you have very little idea what exactly you should be doing; the distinction between historical/philosophical, for example - you really need a better idea of what ancient philosophy done today entails. Read some journal articles. You've said that you're far removed from your studies, so no blame there, but you NEED to talk to an ancient philosopher about this, even if it might be embarrassing to cold e-mail them. Me and Marcus' (amateurish) thoughts probably won't carry as much weight as talking to an actual professional, but I'm willing to bet they'll say similar things.
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7 hours ago, iKantEven said:
Waitlisted at UConn, with a “50% chance of admission.”
lmao
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9 minutes ago, Krauge said:
That’s more appreciated than I can say. I’ll do that in a few months when your semesters are over.
And, while I have you both here, some professors suggested to me Boston University’s dual PHD philosophy/MA classics program. Do either of you have any option of that?
'Option' or 'opinion'? No to both.
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Tufts is the clear choice.
EDIT: Finances aside.
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Your options are limited, but as embarrassing as it may be, very kindly asking ancient philosophers to look over it may be the best option you have. I do ancient and I could read over it if you'd like.
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1 minute ago, DoodleBob said:
Besides your opinion, this thread should be pinned because it indicates the contemporary issues of acceptance to a Ph.D program in philosophy, which I feel are valuable.
Never said it shouldn't be pinned.
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1 minute ago, DoodleBob said:
I think you're wrong. There are clear precursors of a good applicant, but those precursors are not indicative of a successful applicant. And this is precisely due to the nature of the crap-chute of philosophy admissions.
I never said it's easy to look at markers of success and predict your outcomes. Just a lot easier than a lot of people think. The 'lottery'/'crapshoot' (not 'chute', LMFAO) narrative is really simplistic, cliche, and misleading, even though it has some truth to it.
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17 minutes ago, DoodleBob said:
I really hope a moderator pins this thread; I've benefited greatly from the inside scoop of all those who have posted here: spanning contemporary writing samples to the evident contentiousness of GPA/GRE numbers. This thread synthesises the gradual change and near mystical nature of philosophy graduate admissions. As a novice applicant, much appreciation for next years' cycle.
I really don't think it's very mystical - there's just a lot of misunderstanding that causes too much uncertainty than is warranted about what should be pretty uncontroversial things. Won't get into it, but this being my second cycle, my view has changed a lot to thinking that it's really not nearly as unpredictable as people think.
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6 minutes ago, practically_mi said:
Hey no worries!
Thanks! Haha!
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50 minutes ago, Moose#@1%$ said:
Wait listed at UVA. This is by far my top choice currently. So, if you're accepted or waitlisted at UVA but plan on going somewhere else please turn down the offers.
I did email them and Walter Ott responded. The email did say that he thinks an offer is unlikely but still.. haha it could happen?
Btw who thinks that GRE scores can play a decent role in a applicant getting an offer vs. wait listed?
if your GREs are good enough to get you waitlisted then you've already probably passed the mystical threshold of 'good enough' - I'll be turning down my UVA waitlist btw
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MA, seriously - it's a no brainer (I personally took this route)
obvious caveat: MA is an opportunity not a guarantee
Central European University
in Philosophy
Posted
CEU is fine. If it's your only option and the money situation is good for you, go.