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oygevalt

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  • Application Season
    2020 Fall
  • Program
    English

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  1. Hey, Wimsey! I think it would be super worth it to reach out to Penn State to ask if they are able to offer you additional semesters or years off of teaching in order to match your WashU offer. In fact, I happen to know that schools with similar profiles to Penn State have historically been willing to negotiate this, especially when they can go to the dean's office or other administrative unit and say that they are trying to match a student's competing offer. At the very least, it can't hurt!
  2. Hey, @Tessjane77! I did work before starting grad school, and it was one of the best decisions I could have made for myself! Obviously what works best for one person will not work best for another, so this isn’t advice that is meant to apply universally. That being said, it is super liberating to know that if academia doesn’t work out, I know that I have marketable skills that I have built in another field, and that I could return to that field or use those skills to start a new career after I finish grad school. Professors also like to see that you’re not fresh out of undergrad— it can sometimes indicate maturity, and can sometimes means you had time to gain skills that would be helpful for a particular assistantship. I had an undergrad professor who advised me to work for a few years before applying to grad school, and I am very glad he did, for all of these reasons! All this is just to say do not despair if you find yourself having to take up work outside the academy in the fall — it can bring a host of benefits for when you return to academia! The start of grad school is hard for *everyone*, no matter whether or not they/she/he took time off. However, a few years of work experience can give you perspective in grad school (and remind you on your most stressful days that academia isn’t everything!) and also allow you to hone your skills of navigating bureaucracy, managing a work/life balance, and treating grad school as a professional endeavor (not an extension of undergrad).
  3. I think these thoughts are so important to consider, and perhaps help us wade past the shine of an enthusiastic offer from a program! I agree that the grad school application process is so difficult that it is hard to imagine that it is only the first of many challenges. I've spoken to too many current PhD students (from all kinds of institutions) who all entered graduate school thinking that, in this market, they would be the exception. It seems this belief in exceptionality is the rule among grad students. All of the opinions gathered here (including my own) center in one way or another on the failed promise that PhD => TT job. Cobbling together advice that others have given me (and in particular the advice of one amazing professor), I wonder if the most productive way to make the decision for whether or not to pursue a PhD centers around two questions: (1) will I be losing something huge in the 5+ year process of pursuing a PhD (either mentally, emotionally, socially, opportunity cost in another career, or (!) financially); and (2) does the thought of pursuing a PhD sound sufficiently enjoyable to warrant pursuing it for its own sake. If you're going for that second question, perhaps add a third: (3) will I be able to drop out of my program if I find that it is not as enjoyable as I had anticipated. I also think frequently of this New Yorker article by Joshua Rothman about the decision to pursue a PhD in the humanities in this job market. The link is here: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-impossible-decision. From this article (sorry suck at font formatting ? ). What percentage of graduate students end up with tenure? (About one in four.) How much more unhappy are graduate students than other people? (About fifty-four per cent of graduate students report feeling so depressed they have “a hard time functioning,” as opposed to ten per cent of the general population.) To make a rational decision, [a friend] told me, you have to see the big picture, because your experience is likely to be typical, rather than exceptional. “If you take a broader view of the profession,” he told me, “it seems like a terrible idea to go to graduate school.” And later in the article: [...]there’s the fact that graduate school, no matter how bad an idea it might be in the long term, is almost always fulfilling and worthwhile in the short term. As our conversation continued, my friend was struck by this. “How many people get paid to read what they want to read,” he asked, “and study what they want to study?” He paused. ”If I got into a really good program, I would probably go.”
  4. I agree with much of what is being said here and just want to push back on this one point— I have seen international placements (eg in strong universities in the UK) from schools in the top 30 (and possibly more, I just don’t remember atm), not just top 10. I think your chances of an international job at a non-top 10 school will hinge largely on the types of training you seek out on your own, in an departmental environment that has not necessarily planned on training students to be attractive to the non-US market. “Chances” in quotations because no one has control over their chances in this market.
  5. If you wouldn't mind--would anyone be able to point me to where that discussion was? Just trying to reduce the anxious need I'll feel tomorrow to check my email all day...
  6. WildeThing, I'm experiencing the same thing... I'm definitely expecting a rejection at this point but I suppose they'll post it tomorrow?
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