wreckofthehope

There are super cheap buses between NY and Boston, and you can travel overnight (if you don't mind being a bit tired when you arrive). Amtrak is more expensive; even the Northeast Regional is about $80, but you can get a student advantage card which gives you a discount. But...travelling the NE corridor is literally the most productive place I have found to do work, so...it might not be too bad!

Hey! Two really good places for Cultural Studies in Europe, that offer very, very good funding (you're a full fledged employee of the university), are The University of Amsterdam, and the University of Copenhagen. In the UK, Goldsmiths and Birkbeck are good (though Birkbeck's London Consortium no longer exists, and that really was the best place in the UK for Cultural Studies) - but funding is scarce. The U.S. has more options, e.g. UC Davis, Minnesota and a wealth of pop-culture oriented humanities programs (if that is where your interests lie).

A Cambridge MPhil is just the same as an MA elsewhere, it's just called that because of the practice of awarding MAs to Cambridge BAs a certain length of time after matriculation, without any further work. There is the same issue at Oxford, which is why their English MAs are called MSts.

I'm presenting in the British Popular Culture area. Can't wait; soooo many interesting/fun looking panels!

There are a few exceptionally strong geography programs left in the US: UCLA and Kentucky, to name a couple of the best, but almost all top private schools closed their departments a long time ago, like you said. (Hilariously, the QS world rankings had a geography ranking a few years back that was topped by a bunch of US schools that don't have geography departments...just goes to show what a crock of shit rankings are!). Not being from the US (and being a geographically inclined lit student) , I was a little taken aback by the two geography posts above!

I reckon American Modernists have the most sex, but that it's probably faintly unfulfilling.

Good luck! If you'll be looking for jobs in the UK, one thing to do might be to scour departments for their new lecturer hires in your field and see if either Leeds or Manchester are educating a large portion of those hires. Just cos, if one of them is, then that would be a big plus in their favour. I know in my subfield, in the last five years or so, two unis (Sussex and Birkbeck) completely dominated hiring so even though another uni might be a marginally better fit, one of those two departments would probably be the safest bet for getting a job.

Americanists Unite! I do post-45 stuff: cultural history, fiction, film. I'm mid-degree now, I guess (final qualifying exam this semester), yikes.

Outside of maybe four or five universities (Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, St Andrews and maybe Edinburgh), UK schools are almost all unknown by name in the US. There are exceptions within highly specialized areas (York for Medieval Studies, Essex for Government) but the majority of academics wouldn't know where, say, Durham stood against Kent in the general university pecking order, and will probably not know anything much at all about either. So, I'm not sure you should worry all that much about it. In any case, within the UK, rankings, as such, matter very little at the PhD level and for jobs afterwards, most PhD students are drawn by funding and supervisors to a particular university which for a particular topic could mean that Kent, say, is a far better place to be than Oxford, for example. The US job market is, of course, very rank-sensitive but, like I said, considering the pool of universities you are choosing from I don't think the perceived ranking is going to matter much because of the general lack of awareness of UK institutions over here. I'm from the UK, Durham is the most highly ranked for undergrads (seen as just below Oxbridge), but it's almost unknown in the US. Manchester is likely the highest ranked internationally because it's massive and research heavy. I'd hazard a guess that Leeds or Kent are better for the OPs subject, since they both tend to be places where less traditional academic disciples flourish.

If I could upvote this by a million, I would.

Well, I'm English and I do American Studies/Cultural Studies type stuff, so I don't know about being a savant as much as being marginally aware of the 17 schools that do my subject in my homeland

No problem! They do have an MA in American Studies and Film Studies that might work for you (and I know they also have AHRC funding for MA students, somewhat unusually, and you may also be eligible for that - the rules on giving it to international students seem to be up to the university that holds the awards).

I'm not certain...it's my impression that the funding is through Am St, but I could be wrong as I don't know the Film dep't too well (and there's a fair amount of crossover faculty-wise).

Kamisha: take a look at UEA American Studies, they have funding explicitly for US students (one of the only places I know of that does this) and they have both the top film and media department in the UK and one of the top Am St dep'ts.

I'm in a TOTALLY different field, but I did my BA there, so feel free to PM me if you have questions about the uni or colleges or the English Faculty, or anything really. I wouldn't be intimidated - if you're good enough for a US PhD program, or good enough to apply to one, then you are a serious candidate with a good chance of being accepted. It sounds like Ox would be a good fit academically, so go for it. The MPhil is usually a research degree at Oxford... if you were planning to stay at Ox for the DPhil then doing the MPhil would be worth it (because your MPhil work is the start of your DPhil work); otherwise, the normal MSt should be fine. Most UK Master's are one year. Disability provisions for UK students are quite good, but they come mostly from the government, not the university (or, at least, from the government through the university) and so I suspect you would not be eligible. All that said, if this would be a second Master's (am I reading your post correctly?), I'd personally be very wary - what would it add to what you've already got to offer?

I'm not sure of actual numbers for Master's programs (you can search most university websites and there will be a document somewhere with this information). But I can say this: I'm from the UK, and I do not know anyone who has applied for an academic MA who has not been accepted (of my friends, family, acquaintances etc); finance and journalism tend to be the most competitive Master's programs in the UK. For PhDs, in English Oxford and Cambridge accept around 40-50% of applicants, I imagine the percentage is similar, if not higher, at other universities. You don't pay for UK apps (do you as an international student?) and the process is much less involved than the US, so you don't have much to lose by applying to a few - I'd say 3-5 programs would be more than enough. I applied to one...as did many people I know. Unless you've been in the UK for three years prior to the start of your program, then you will be charged international fees. Though, in the last few years scholarships for international students have improved drastically (they are still not great, though). I know UEA has some scholarships particularly for American students.

When I was applying, the then program director told me that the program was intended for people whose work could not be done in a single-discipline department. So, interdisciplinarity needs to be a central feature of your project. Don't know if that really answers your question, certainly not directly anyway...but it might be of some help.

As a clarification to the above post: I meant to say, too, that at some public schools with budget issues (e.g. Washington, most of the UC's etc), international students are at a disadvantage because they cost the school more than a US student (tuition scholarships only cover resident fees and an international student can't become a state resident). So, you really really want to make it clear in your application that you come with funding!

I'm an international student, and when I was applying three years ago UDub was a top choice for me. I ended up not submitting the application because funding is very iffy for international students (as in you are very, very unlikely to get it - this was stated at the start of the online application). BUT, if you have funding already - then I imagine there is no issue and I suspect they'd love an application from an international student who comes with funding, since you'd allow them to diversify their cohort while not having to come up with the money to do so! I would get in touch with a department administrator and see if they can advise on where/how to mention the funding - you definitely want to make it very clear that you have this scholarship. They also used to have a different application deadline for international students (in November) - so double check that!

^ that was essentially my first qualifying exam (but with loads more books). (is M. Keith Booker your adviser?)

I've used normal capacitive styluses and they're not really a substitute for pen and paper. Tablets with a digitizer, though: amazing! I have an ASUS TF810 and I use One Note for absolutely everything now - I particularly like how it's easy to organize into digital notebooks for different subjects/projects and that it all gets saved automatically, so I don't need to worry about it. Writing on this particular tablet is almost the same as writing on a piece of paper (if your paper was shiny and very solid) and I've heard that the inking on other Windows 8 tablets with digitizer is very good, too (the Lenovo Think Pad Tablet 2 is cheaper than the ASUS and is supposed to give a very good writing experience).

This is so interesting, thanks! All of our exams are oral exams and sound similar in set-up to your orals. The minor was an hour and a half, while the major will be two hours. My preparation for the minor took about 10 months, and I expect preparing for my major will take about the same, which, until now, I thought was fairly normal! Were your lists mostly shorter works/scholarship...what sort of things were on them, genre-wise? I'm guessing the big difference is the need to read and master a field of primary texts in my discipline (English), which can take up a lot of time. My current in-progress major list has about 70 primary texts (including 50 ish novels, and then another 30ish full books of secondary scholarship and ten or so articles) on it...many of them I've read before (which helps) but not with the kind of questions in mind that my exam is asking...so really I still need to read them again. We have a third oral exam prior to the dissertation that's on just the materials you'll be using for your dissertation. I definitely found the minor exam a great experience, and it helped me feel more like a scholar than a student - it felt like I was mapping out my approach and interests in a very proactive way. At the same time, though, it felt a little like a practice for what I'm doing now...with the major I'm fretting about coverage and how this exam is going to hem me in, or not, hence wanting to include as much as possible. Obviously massive coverage is neither possible nor productive, so I'm trying to fight my urges and cultivate a more task-oriented attitude to the whole thing!

Thought I'd see if anyone else who is doing (or has done) exams would care to pool tips and strategies for their successful completion. I'm currently studying for my central exam, and passed an exam in my minor field earlier this year. This one seems so much more intimidating, in part because I feel like I have to master it all (my list gets bigger every day, despite pruning)...I mean, I'm hopefully going to be making my career in this field. Argh, gots to know it alllllll! So, yeah. How is everyone else finding exams?

Yeah - maybe look more closely at other Canadian schools? While Toronto has issues funding international students, other Canadian uni's offer generous Master's (and PhD) funding. I know Toronto is the Canadian place for Medieval...but I'm sure some of the other schools could also be good fits. Calgary and Alberta have very generous funding, I know UVic has good MA funding, too, and I think UBC does also (others possibly also worth looking into: Dalhousie, Queens, McMaster, SFU, Ottawa). I'd also add that there's a thread in here somewhere on funded MA's - go through it and see if any would be a good fit. I was thinking Wake Forest's MA might be?

Though, to be serious, it really depends what bit of Brighton you are in. There's a fair amount in the little triangle between Sutherland, Comm and Chestnut Hill Ave - I used to live there and we could usually get a spot when needed (though often only after circling for 10 plus minutes). Beyond Sutherland to the east it is almost nonexistent. I don't know about Brighton Centre as I've never needed to park there.