reluctanthuman

Anyone else just waiting around for schools to get back to them so they can get on with making a decision? So looking forward to being out of this limbo and planning the future. At least I had a snow day from work today and could take Ursula on a nice hike: 

Just dropping in to share this, in case anyone could use a pick-me-up via humorous, eccentric, and historical feline portraiture. Eulalie Osgood Grover, writer of children's books and the original cat memer (c. 1911): 

(enjoy further perusal: https://archive.org/details/kittenscatsbooko00grov)

I desperately want to hear back from my last few schools so I can start making decisions already. I feel like there's just a huge number of impending life choices waiting to crash down on my shoulders. Anxiety does not sleep and, apparently, neither do I.
Hope everyone's doing okay and managing the stress! We'll get through this one way or another. Fingers and toes crossed for each and every one of you!

I'm a fourth-year PhD at Ohio State.
Has your PhD so far been what you expected it to be?
The first two years were about what I was expecting and looking for. The seminars I took were, with a couple exceptions, fabulous and interesting. Reading for comps was even better -- I felt like I could finally do what I'd come to do, namely, sit and read wonderfully intricate, complex literature. The last couple of years, after I reached ABD, have been more difficult. I had a major "fuck this pointless shit" moment after my comps, and didn't do anything for a solid six weeks afterward. Morale has improved somewhat since then, and I've enjoyed working on my dissertation when I give myself the time to sit down and work on it. But the isolation and lack of motivation can be difficult. When you're in coursework or studying for comps, those things come from outside: you are around other smart people, and in order to keep pace, you push yourself to keep up with or exceed others. When ABD, in the absence of those things, you just have to train yourself to work regardless of motivation and the nagging suspicion that what you're doing doesn't matter. Overcoming that anxiety is half of the battle. And, to be frank, I wasn't prepared for the shift toward a structureless work life. It took me the better part of a year to write my first chapter, and far more time was spent on those process issues than the actual ideas of my chapter. 
What are you impressions of your program?
It's okay, though not fantastic. The size of the program makes it very easy for a painfully introverted person like me to be more or less anonymous. The department is so large that you will know a fraction of the people in it. If you come in with an MA, there's a good chance that you might get lost in the mire, because you're out of coursework so quickly that you don't have the time to build connections with faculty and other grad students. 
Has anything about your program surprised you?
The general lack of active interest people have in you or your project. They're willing to help you if you seek it out, but no one is concerned enough about you to "touch base." It can be easy to fall through the cracks. 

How are you feeling in general about your experience?
Not great, though I think that has less to do with my experience at OSU than my general sense that graduate education in the humanities is kind of a shit show. It's unconscionable how many admits programs make, knowing full well that a small fraction of them will get the jobs that they're all working toward. That's not right, and the pollyanna-ism that supports it ("You have got what it takes to make it! Your project is especially great!") is both pervasive and unbelievable, given how otherwise intelligent and aware of structural/systematic problems faculty are. 

Have you found your research interests changing?
Yes, of course. Your interests should change, because when you enter grad school, you really don't know much about what professional literary study involves. Personally, I found myself moving from the study of rhetoric and logic to premodern ecocriticism, the subject of my dissertation.  

Are there any hardships you've faced that you want to share?
I've already mentioned the isolation and motivation issues above, and to that I'll add crappy interactions with others. Don't get me wrong, there are a number of great, super cool people in grad school—other grad students, faculty, and staff. But there are also a lot of assholes in grad school, especially professors, who can be aloof, callous, and simply rude. Because I had such personable professors in undergrad, I wasn't quite prepared for the lack of "humanness" coming from some faculty. And, of course, this isn't meant to be an absolute statement. But the bad interactions seem to stick out more memorably than the good ones, unfortunately. 
How about any successes you'd like to celebrate?
Institutional fellowships, well-paid internships, well-received papers delivered at national conferences. It's not all bad! 
I think my big question for current students is: what do you wish you had asked about or known when making your decision? Anything undergrads wouldn’t have the foresight to consider about PhD life when applying? 
I would have asked more pointed questions about money and the longer arc of the program and how it imagines its advisors to operate. For the first, I would ask more about the actual conditions enabled by the funding you receive. Does it allow you to do the things you enjoy outside of school? (To stay sane, you must have a life apart from school, some thing or things that have nothing to do with textual criticism or departmental politics or the eccentricities of this or that professor.) Are vacations out of the question with the money you earn? (Probably, but still worth asking.) What kind of apartment can you get with the stipend? Can you go out and do things socially with the money? Etc. etc. etc. In short, you just need to think about your priorities beyond your education, and try to get a sense of how the material realities of grad school will allow you to stick to those priorities. 
Regarding the second, I would ask current students about how things have changed over the course of their tenure. How is life different in the coursework period from the exam reading period or the dissertation period? How has your dissertation advisor's role changed in that time? Has s/he continued to offer the same level of commitment or guidance, or has their interest in you or your project waned over time? If you already have a solid sense of the literary period you're going to be working in, you might start asking about how individual advisors work with their mentees. Which are the people who can never find time to meet with you? Which are the kind who will go out of their way to oversee and develop your work? Who will be honest with you about your shortcomings? (This is really important -- you ideally want to find someone who is both kind and honest. Many can be brutally honest, and many—most, even—will be too chickenshit to tell you when something sucks and why.) 
---

waitlisted at Michigan State! "high on the waiting list"

I really love the Knowing Animals podcast that discusses animal studies.

As a current student, and someone who has a lot of friends in many different kinds/feels of programs, let me try to answer as best as I can, re: what to think about when visiting:
You MIGHT click immediately with the campus/faculty/students. Or you might not. Neither one is (necessarily) an indicator of anything. You might not click immediately because you're nervous, or the students you'll get along with best weren't around when you were visiting, or because some people take a while to get to know. Or you may click, and then it turns out that that faculty member is actually fairly hands-off when it comes to advising, or that student goes on leave, or the one conversation you had turns out not to be indicative of any further connection. 
I have a friend who is super close with their cohort and faculty members. I have a friend who gets along with some of the people in their program, but not all of them, and isn't close with any of them. They're both very happy in their situations. I'm somewhere in the middle, and also happy. 
Remember, this is a professional situation: as long as you feel like you can get along with people, and won't mind shooting the shit for a few minutes before talks/class/etc... that's the main thing! The friend who isn't close with anyone in her program has a huge friend circle totally outside of the school, and thinks of being in her program as going to work (note: this is, of course, easier to do in a big city. If you're in a small college town, maybe care much more about potential friends). While I know not all of you are coming right out of undergrad, if you are, remember that grad school isn't necessarily an all-encompassing social situation like college is. 
A few things I'd recommend thinking about, during visits:
1. Do you think the conditions here will allow you to work as best as you can? Will the stipend REALLY work, or might you have to get some loans/work an evening job? Does there seem to be a lot of structure? Is there a grad student union? What's expected of you over summers? Ask current students about one thing that they wish they could change about the program. 
2. Rates of burnout and depression are really, really high among grad students. Maybe you're the sort of person who likes to put your head down and do nothing but work... but if not, what other resources are available to you, to help you avoid that? CAN you find friends outside of the university if you want to? Is going to live music important? Do you like being able to go hiking? Are you really into, say, yoga-- and is there a yoga studio around that you think you'd like? Don't forget that you have to be a person, too! 
3. What's the insurance like? Do you have any specialized medical issues that might be affected? For instance, I know two students in my program who had to switch off of the school insurance plan because medications they needed weren't covered/weren't covered well enough.
4. Think about not just "can I survive?" on the stipend, but what it will get you. What I mean by that is: will you have to live with roommates? Are you REALLY ok with not living by yourself for the next six years? Will you have money to go out to eat every now and then? Do you like flying to see your family often? Yes-- you're probably going to have to live tightly and compromise no matter what, but genuinely examine what things in your life that cost money add significantly to your happiness, and decide if they can stay there on the stipend you're being offered. 
5. If you're a woman (and this probably applies to PoC and queer folk, too!), ask other female (PoC/queer/etc) students about their experiences there. Is there some institutional sexism? Are there other students (or faculty) that they complain about? 
 
 
Anyways, just a few things to consider! Good luck to all of you in visits!

I am WITH YOU ON THIS. I even had my 3 LOR writers tell me 3 vastly different things about contacting. I ultimately contacted to request a phone conversation about the program and to update my CV with them, but ffs it was pain trying to figure out what i should do.

I am so so SO confused about writing an e-mail to Michigan. In my mind, I am either thinking “getting off of the waitlist will happen whether you do something or not if the list moves, so let it be” or “are you stupid, of course you should do whatever you can?!?!?”
Why every single step of this process has to be so full of anxiety?

I've been able to keep it together up to this point! Officially in freakout mode!

I'm the director of grad admissions in English at an R1 university. I'm not lurking to find any information on applicants! (By the time we've read your applications multiple times, we have more information than we can even process!) Rather, I'm trying to figure out what information might have been shared about particular/additional fellowships awarded--specifically, whether other admittees are aware that they were not awarded these funds. FWIW, GRE scores are really bad predictors of who will succeed in graduate school, and we try not to rely on them almost at all. 

Congratulations!

I'm waitlisted too! At least we got something though 

god i hope my rejection from michigan comes today so i can have a good solid therapy session tonight where i hash out all my feelings of inadequacy without any blind hope hanging over me in the background

Eighteenth-century! 

i wanted another tattoo when my grant money came in but I'm saving it for dental stuff/vacation/moving expenses. got my 13th tattoo in October and it's been far too long since.

I always get new tattoos/piercing done when I am especially stressed (and depressed). It really does help since it makes me extremely aware of my physical body and *absolutely nothing else* for 2-3 hours--which is, luckily, much longer than a therapy session...

I’ve been waiting on my next piercing, but now might be just the right time..?

I always get new tattoos/piercing done when I am especially stressed (and depressed). It really does help since it makes me extremely aware of my physical body and *absolutely nothing else* for 2-3 hours--which is, luckily, much longer than a therapy session...

Anyone else here use tattoos as (one of) their form(s) of therapy? I'm getting one today and feeling like the timing couldn't be better. Nothing like a couple hours under the needle to make you forget about existential woes. 

Sorry to hear that. From what I've heard UChicago has always been a mess when it comes to the way they handle all these applications, but this information probably does not help the situation  

@placeinspace oh thanks! Just checked the portal and there it was, sweet sweet rejection. (By the way, they don't even sound kind like the way other rejection letters do, it's just a "yeah we don't want you" letter...)

I had to refresh the portal. No email for me!

@jadeisokay That's true. When I got rejected from Stanford, one of my best pals said "I wanna throw you a party for even applying with the crazy semester you had. Someone at Stanford read an essay you wrote!" and that was encouraging. Same to you--you toughed it out through a really not ideal amount of stress and obligations last semester. Fingers crossed for you as well. We may be down but we're not out yet ☺️ Your research is compelling, specific, and significant, and I'm sure you'll end up somewhere great!
 
This post sparks joy! Thank you ☺️I think I need to reframe how I'm thinking about this. Just surviving the last six months was an accomplishment. None of this is discouraging--in fact, it's very encouraging, both about this cycle and about what the next might be like. I was thinking that even without having submitted my papers to journals yet, if I were to apply again, my CV next year will have the added elements of 3 poetry publications, 2 conferences, 1 guest lecture, and a TA position; my SoP will be clearer and more specific, with a more meaningful sense of the topography of my plan of study. Hoping for good things for you this cycle--I'd be shocked if you didn't get into a great program.

Ugh, the doom and gloom is real today, y’all. ? Why are some days so much harder than others?