wreckofthehope

Anyone else had a cat that refuses to eat wet food? I've tried getting her used to it, but she just will not eat, so in the end I've relented and feed her purely dry food, but I'm worried it's not that good for her.

I'm also doing a novels field...have about 50 books on this first list. I read everything once, make a general 'thoughts' note, then do a second pass through (not necessarily reading the whole book) and make more detailed notes about how the book fits into the topic of my exam, particularly useful sections, and how it relates to other texts on the list. I have regular meetings with my committee to discuss groups of texts from the list,too. Our exams are only oral exams, so practicing talking about the books is the most important part, I think...

Yup, first of my orals is next month, gah.....

Anyone with offers from MA/ Boston schools: the 15th is Patriots Day and Marathon Monday. So, schools are closed I think (at least mine is). I have no idea if this affects the 15th deadline, but just thought I'd point it out, in case it might.

Also, maybe something like UCSC History of Consciousness? I would look for continental philo friendly interdisciplinary departments. Emory's ILA, perhaps; it also might be worth looking in Canada since it seems to me like they are more friendly, in general, to contintental thought. I didn't get the sense that Stanford's MTL would be good place to do continental, at all....maybe I'm wrong? Edit: to second Buffalo Comp Lit, and to add Penn State Comp Lit and Emory Comp Lit.

YYYYYAAAAAAAAYYYYY!! I'm so happy for you and Two Espressos!!! I basically come here to check if you two have gotten in, yet!

I understand that concern, but in practice it doesn't bear out (in the UK at least). I personally find US academia far more stiflingly homogenous than UK academia, and I think the tenure system is probably partly to blame: you have a very strong incentive to tow the party line, so to speak.

I don't know much about labor laws in this country, but in the UK almost all academic appointments are permanent and non tenure track (though an increasing number are fixed term, e.g. three year contracts)... you're protected by the fact that you have a contract...if you perform the duties that you've been hired to do, it should be kind of hard to fire you.

Tbh, I really don't think it's grad student labor that's making the job market shitty; the oversupply once they finish, does have a big impact..but it's the shift away from TT faculty to adjunct staff that is lowering the number of TT positions available. I come from a country without tenure and, honestly, I feel like the US would benefit from a reappraisal of the need for tenure...why aren't permanent, non-tenure track appointments more common? Hell, why aren't they the norm? Tenure is lovely and all that, but it's really expensive, there are good reasons for universities not to want to hire TT faculty but because it's seen as the gold standard post-Phd job, you end up with a wildly uneven and difficult job market where the choice is between ultimate security (tenure) and ultimate insecurity (adjuncting)....there is a perfectly reasonable middle ground that is completely unavailable because academics cling to the idea that tenure is necessary.

I think another thing that pushes departments away from small cohorts is that it would lessen their impact/network. My department accepts cohorts of 4 people a year, and always has; while we have a pretty great placement rate, with such tiny cohorts there is never the critical mass of grads to be able to work the alumni connections or really build the awareness of the program in the wider English community very easily....smaller cohorts limit a program's reach and power and many programs don't want to give that up.

This is crazy popular in Scandinavia, too.

I was wondering this about Hopkins more generally when I looked at the new USNews rankings. They're extremely well ranked in English, too, but I don't think I've seen anyone on these boards apply there over a three year period which seems so weird. Are we self selecting to not be Hopkins types, or is there something else going on? I know personally when I was applying I considered the humanities center but then decided that I had too many 'elite' programs on my list and so took them off. Looking back, I actually took the wrong programs off (Penn and Hopkins) and the left on the ones that I really had no chance at, because they're really not a good fit for my work (Harvard, Chicago). Stupid.

Sure, but it seems pointless to apply to Oxford if funding is an issue since you are so unlikely to get it (especially if you are an international applicant).

They're fairly likely to get into Oxford, any UK school accepts a much, much larger percentage of applicants than US schools do. For reference Oxford accepts around 45% of PhD applicants; the hard part is getting funding, which you almost certainly will not get for an MSt. That said, I'd want to apply more widely too - increasing the likelihood that you will have multiple offers to choose from is usually a good idea, it might meant the difference between paying for a degree out of pocket or being paid to earn the qualification. Edited to add: I just checked the Ox stats - 57% acceptance rate for English DPhil, 37% for English Master's degrees.

Oh noes, I'm in trouble... I'm part of the dismissive "some." There's a bizarre idea in this thread that popular culture has no aesthetic value...or that people, academics included, get no aesthetic pleasure from reading popular fiction, for example.

For GRE vocab revision, I just used magoosh ( not sure if anyone already mentioned it as haven't read through this whole thread, but yeah).

Brighton Center is perfect for BU, plus it's really nice. I would go a bit further along Washington, though: between Brighton Center and Oak Square. Between the hospital and Allston along Brighton Ave tends to be where a lot of BU students live, whereas from Brighton Center to Oak Sq it's more grad students and young professionals.

Yeah, during rush hour it takes FOREVER. I wouldn't live around Cleveland Circle and take it, but if you lived in, say, Lower Allston/ Soldiers Field area and were commuting to Cambridge, I think it would be fine. Lower Allston is a nice quiet area too...a little enclave of family homes.

You can take the 66 or the 86 bus directly to Cambridge from Allston or Brighton, depending on where exactly you're located.

After page one they're just showing the old rankings anyway... the first time I looked there were definitely differences (because I noticed my school had moved up four places) but now, looking again, they are the same as they were before. Not sure if going mad, or not...

Why would they do that? To maintain a more stable-looking set of rankings? To me it renders these sort of useless...I mean they're essentially just a bellweather of perceived prestige, which is fine if that's what you're looking for, but using an average of contemporary and out-of-date perceptions just seems pointless. The only school that seems to have moved significantly is Carnegie Mellon, am I right? I remember it being lower ranked. I guess we can assume that any moves were actually more pronounced in the 2012 data than they appear in the rankings because of the diluting 2009 data influence...

I was in the UK but my situation was similar, of course the tuition was much lower than the numbers being bandied around here...something close to $5500 for the whole degree. I continued working in my full-time job while I did my MA (and did grad apps while writing my dissertation). It was really hard, and I was incredibly stressed by it ( I hurt my back pretty badly during the year, which I think was stress related), but it's not impossible to do. Like Datatape, I also finished in time - one year - and got a Distinction. An MA is required in the UK to progress to the PhD, so it wasn't really an option not to do one - I hadn't decided yet to apply to the US. I loved it, and I don't think I would have been accepted without doing it. I think I would be a lot less inclined to do an MA were I from the US, though, especially one with a big sticker price...because your system is set up to move straight from BA to PhD it seems like you may as well try less expensive routes to the same goal (maybe taking a few grad classes as a non degree student somewhere and using them as a means to write a great writing sample, for example). The OP's situation is kind of different, though...this is not really an unfunded terminal MA, and she's likely to get funding moving into the PhD portion.

I don't think Washington's MA is the same as an unfunded terminal MA, and if it was me I would think about it as being in a different category...it's really an unfunded first year in a well ranked PhD program ( so extra congrats!). If you are likely to get funding as you move into the PhD portion of the program, then it is not nearly as much of a risk as an unfunded MA elsewhere (in fact, it's barely a risk, since you know the money you are paying out is definitely leading to a PhD...the question really is whether you can afford it, both right now and long term - will taking out loans for an unfunded first year have an impact on your job search etc?).

I'm super excited about this! Just found out a few weeks ago p.s. Trader Joe's is overrated, it's good for alcohol and stuff like desserts but you can't actually buy stuff to make a meal there.