snappysorbet

Thanks for your response, michpc! I definitely like the idea of taking advantage of the drive as a roadtrip. I don't particularly want to drive one of those big UHaul or Penske trucks, although I'll do if if the price is right. What kinds of things have you heard about PODS? I don't know anybody who has used them, but I checked out their website and it looks like it would be easy enough to do if planned right.

Hi folks!

So, I've basically committed to a grad program in Tampa (just have to send in the paperwork) and I'm now starting to think about the logistics. My BF and I are currently in Boston, and so far we're thinking we'll move in July, but the question remains: how? I've been thinking about different options: PODs, UHaul, paying a moving company, shipping my car vs. driving south, etc. Anyone have any advice or experience with this type of a move, and what would be the best way to do it and still remain sane? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I also want to add that you'll want a pair of boots for those winter months, and I'd recommend something more substantial than Uggs. You want something that will keep you warm but also survive getting wet and trudging through sand, salt, sludge, and everything else that comes along with snow, think North Face or LLBean or something similar. Splurge a little and you'll get a pair that will last you for multiple winters, and those transitions in between seasons, too.

I also want to add that you'll want a pair of boots for those winter months, and I'd recommend something more substantial than Uggs. You want something that will keep you warm but also survive getting wet and trudging through sand, salt, sludge, and everything else that comes along with snow, think North Face or LLBean or something similar. Splurge a little and you'll get a pair that will last you for multiple winters, and those transitions in between seasons, too.

I've just found this thread, and it's awesome! Nice work, ladies. GardeningGrad, and anyone else, I'm hoping I can get some advice: I've spent the last 6 years in Boston, and I'm heading to Florida this summer to start my PhD. This whole sunshine/warm weather thing is COMPLETELY foreign to me... any suggestions on dressing for the heat and still looking professional?

If I get that Rochester spot, I'm shipping you a pallet of Ramen. Name your flavor!

Everytime I see this thread, I start playing "Gangster's Paradise" in my head. . .

RockDenali, you seem doggedly determined to get a rise out of the literary studies folks, and I’m not entirely sure why. Granted, you could have meant for the comments you made to come across ironically, however they don’t naturally lend themselves to that interpretation. Whichever you intended, I’m surprised anyone who studies languages and communication (literature or rhet/comp) doesn’t take extra special care to guard tone while participating in an online forum, where the absence of intonation and body language in conversation increases the likelihood of miscommunication.

In any case, I don’t know why seemingly apropos of nothing you’ve chosen to post antagonistic remarks in a thread where people are legitimately trying to provide the OP and others with helpful advice. We all have varying interests within the English discipline (none of which, in my opinion, maintain an inherently superior or inferior status to another, but contribute to a collective understanding of the language), and whether they’re literature, rhet/comp, Early Modern studies, Victorian studies, or flying carpet theory, there’s no need to discredit the posts of literary studies GCers (especially on the basis that we can’t seriously consider their input because they focus on literature rather than rhet/comp—which, speaking of argument analysis, I believe is an ad hominem.). Personally, I view rhet/comp methodology as critical to my literary studies approaches, so I take particular offense at some of the assumptions you make about scholars in my field. What’s more, setting one field against another is unnecessary, unproductive, and worst of all, destructive; as society continues to dismiss the relevance of the humanities, those of us who recognize and believe in their intrinsic value need to band together and endeavor to put our best intellectual foot forward for the sake of preserving the discipline. We don’t stand a chance if we’re constantly bickering among ourselves.

I assure you that I’m not trying to pick a fight here, RockDenali. I’ve read some of your posts in other topics, and I sincerely appreciate your contributions. I think you’ve made many insightful, down-to-earth comments that others have undoubtedly found helpful—hence why I’m particularly confused by these aggressive bursts. Sorry for the monologue: I just want the sandbox to be as amiable an environment as possible.

I need to stand up on behalf of other rhet/comp people here-- Not picking a fight, but I think this is something that needs to be said. I know plenty of people that go to English PhD programs that do rhetoric and lit, so I'd disagree. I would say that RockDenali is correct to say that you can't take the rhet/comp path just as a way to pursue literature. But there are programs out there, I'm fairly certain, that can be a productive place in which to pursue rhetorical analysis of literary texts. These would have to be programs that offer an English PhD with an emphasis in rhetoric and not a standalone rhetoric department, of course. The key would be to look at the dissertations that come out of these programs to see if this type of work is valued and encouraged by the department. There are departments out there where lit and rhet folks (gasp) actually get along.

I was also going to say (in a slightly different way) that the work you are doing now with immigrants made me think of how at home you might be in a Rhet/Comp program. I'd suggest checking out Louisville if you do this again-- they have Bruce Horner and Min Zhan Lu who are both doing exciting work with trans-lingual studies right now. There's a lit requirement, and from the students I've spoken with it sounds really flexible about what kind of lit you do for your comps. (meaning-- horror might be a possibility). But whatever you do, I wish you well.

After reading your blog, I'd say your proper home is with us rhetoricians, compositionists, and applied linguists. Ditch literature. Academic literary studies is nothing but a giant circle jerk. Do you really want to be someone who can crack a joke about "The Laughing Medusa" or talk for more than two minutes about post-colonial queer theory's relation to contemporary Caribbean poetry? Psh. Useless. The work you're doing has a place in the academy. Come on over to the rhet/comp pool. Water's nice and warm.

letting me pay the rest of the postage for an absurdly large acceptance letter to a program I did not apply for.



Sincerely,

Catherinian

Hi all! I know there has been some talk about specific rhet/comp concentrations and a few comments on other threads about where people are applying, but I thought it might be good to get our own thread started. So, if you're willing to share, where are you applying? what are your specific interests? And anything else you'd like to share with the class.
I'll get the ball rolling with my ridiculously long and ultimately very expensive list of apps:
(these are all PhD programs, btw)
Bowling Green (Rhetoric & Writing)
Iowa State (Rhetoric & Professional Communication)
Kent State (Rhet/Comp)
Louisville (Rhet/Comp)
Miami University (Comp/Rhet)
Michigan State (Rhetoric & Writing, already rejected, boo)
Nebraska (Comp/Rhet)
NC State (CRDM)
UNC - Greensboro (Rhet/Comp)
Ohio University (Rhet/Comp)
Old Dominion (English - Rhetoric & Textual Studies)
Purdue (Rhet/Comp)
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (Rhet/Comp)
UT-Austin (English, Rhetoric concentration)
TCU (Rhet/Comp)
TWU (Rhetoric)
University of Utah (Rhet/Comp)
VTech (Rhetoric & Writing)
University of South Florida (Rhet/Comp)
Wisconsin - Madison (Comp/Rhet)
Wisconsin - Milwaukee (English, Rhet/Comp concentration)
whew! My interests are primarily first-year composition, writing program administration, technology and writing, new media, women's rhetorics, women's and gender studies, and critical theory.
Good luck to everyone this application season!

Perhaps if Mr. Crankypants had read my posts closely enough (maybe he's got too much grading to do to read things carefully, and in that case he has my sympathy), he'd have noticed that I was speaking from personal experience. I taught a 2-2-2 load myself during my MA (yes, on quarters). And, moreover, I've never had any time off from teaching throughout my entire graduate career. I definitely do not attend one of the Ivies, which shield their students from excessive teaching, and whose students (perhaps not so coincidentally?) land the best jobs regardless of quantity of teaching experience.

Less teaching isn't just some ivory tower dream. It has real, practial, material consequences for your graduate career. It means navigating your graduate career more quickly. It means having more time to write your dissertation so you can get out into the world, stop eating ramen and taking out loans, and start that glorious 4-4 load. Even teaching-oriented colleges want to see evidence of research and professional development, and most liberal arts colleges want their hires to be not only good at teaching but top researchers in the field. I think it's irresponsible to suggest that teaching a lot is the path to success.

Additionally, when a program makes it its policy to offer more money for less teaching, it attracts better graduate students and competes with better programs for those students. This reason, perhaps most obviously, is why you should steer clear of programs that expect so much teaching for so little in return. I turned down a program with a 1-2 teaching load for one that was 1-1. Expect that other people are going to do the same.

I'm very active in labor issues for TAs, and that's why I would urge a future grad school student to go into a labor contract with his or her eyes open. You need to compare offers from other schools and see how the workload/pay compares to other schools of a similar rank and location. For instance: If the school 150 miles away pays its graduate students 5k more a year and guarantees a fellowship year, then why is your prospective school asking you to teach so much for less money? What's going on there? And if you have leverage (i.e. better offers from other schools) then use it. There are plenty of threads here that give advice about negotiating your offer.

The question shouldn't be "How much CAN you teach?" I'm sure that any of us, if called to, could produce an unbelievable amount of labor. The issue is about discerning the attitude the graduate program takes toward its students. Teaching load says volumes about a graduate program's values. Does the program want its students to be successful at both research and teaching, or does it need to employ TAs to staff an endless supply of English 101 classes? Does the program/university/state value TA labor, or does it have an attitude of entitlement? (You're just so lucky to be getting your tuition for free that you should be thrilled to double up the load.)

Also, I'm so glad that Mr. Crankypants brought up the various constraints of the job market. Of course no school will hire someone without teaching experience--not even the biggest R1s. But here's where quality is much more important than quantity. That's why it's important to inquire about the variety of classes you'll be able to teach. Everyone starts off with some form of an introduction to English or composition. But what about everything after that? Does the program let you teach upper-level English classes that pertain to your interests? Will they allow you to design your own classes, or do you have to work from some pre-ordained curriculum? Do you have to wait until you've advanced to candidacy to teach anything other than introductory classes? Will you have opportunities to work at the writing center (a valuable thing for rhet/comp people)? Will you be able to swap out your teaching assignment for other useful assistantships, like helping to run the writing program or working as a research/editorial assistant? It's been my experience that the job market likes people who have a variety of skills--not just those who can teach a succession of identitical composition classes.

Additionally, I'd like to turn this argument around. Perhaps Mr. Crankypants feels that the wealth of teaching experience is sure to land him a better teaching job at the end of the cc tunnel (and I'm assuming that the job is not going well). As for me? Well, I'm not so sure--especially since the days of hiring people based solely on their teaching experience have passed. I know that in order to be competitive on the job market, I'm going to have to prove that I'm capable of many different things. I've got the teaching down; I'm also going to have to publish, present, work as an editor of a journal, and get some travel grants. After all, most of the people I'm competing with go to better schools AND have teaching experience. I'm going to have to distinguish myself in some other way. I wish the simple answer was just "teach more." But the job market is more complicated than that.

And that's my final point: It's all about GETTING to the job market. My friends who got a teaching-free year? They get there a little faster. Or they get more time to work on their dissertations (I have to speed through mine). And most interviewers have asked them what and how they teach--not how much.

Hi everyone,

I've been accepted to a few schools for direct entry PhD programs for American and Middle Eastern history and am now trying to decide between them. One of my main issues is funding. The schools that are offering funding are all doing so in the form of graduate TAships. Is it possible to succeed in the first years of a doctoral program while working as a TA?

From reading posts, it seems like most schools offer packages that include tuition waivers and stipends of 20K with no requirement to teach in the first few years. However, the packages I've been offered have no stipend and all require working as a Graduate TA, where I would make on average 13-15K. Is this doable and is it standard for schools to offer some students lower amounts of funding?

Advice appreciated. Thanks.

Abandon the lit ship, lyoness Come join us in rhet/comp. Some capital is still valued; someone has to teach the workers how to write and communicate in today's complex workplace . . .

As an ex-teacher and a soon-to-be English PhD student, this stuff really makes my blood boil. In addition to the "recovering lost scholarship" and "maintaining a level of intellectual competence" arguments that have already been made (which should be enough on their own to justify the existence of humanities research) there is a far more practical purpose for paying graduate students. We are the ones who teach the undergraduates at the universities that fund us! How hard is it to realize that, in our stead, the university would have to pay a faculty member, whether tenured or adjunct, around twice as much as they pay us! Maybe the universities should just stop paying anybody to teach English or Philosophy or History or Ethics or any kind of suspect experimental sciences. Apparently we've already made all of the advances that humanity can make. We are the pinnacle of the evolutionary ladder and all we have to do is spend the rest of eternity maintaining our current status quo. Or...OR...Plato knew what he was talking about when he recognized that a healthy society needs their philosophers (in all subjects). Unfortunately, we are on the road to raising a nation, and possibly a world, of dunces who can't read Plato because paying someone to teach others to do so isn't worth the money. Once that happens, we can all be pleasantly ignorant of the fact that invention and advancement are always born out of philosophy.

I would prefer that we continue to pay people $10,000 to $25,000 a year to teach undergraduates and tutor in writing centers while they learn to pass on philosophical understanding, and to break new philosophical ground, in graduate school. I may be a little biased, though.

Sorry, I know I'm preaching to the choir.

Oh, and wild_rose, those goes WAY beyond party politics.

I mean no disrespect at all( please understand I'm a person who turned down a funded Ph.D. offer to do an only partially funded MA), BUT I've never heard of decent programs making you fund part of your Ph.D. However, based on results here and on the results board, there are people in the humanities AND hard sciences (like NYU's Math Ph.D. . . WHAT?!) who are being asked to foot the bill for the Ph.D. This is absurd, in my opinion. Is this trend because of the times or something that has been existent for awhile? I mean, these are EXCELLENT programs asking candidates to fund part or all of the Ph.D. for AMERICAN (please don't read this as imperialism, just border considerations . . .ahem taxes and residency shit) students. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for admits or anything like that, but really? Is this the course American higher education is taking? In light of our abysmal primary and secondary system, I could see that America would want to capitalize on what has been, to date anyway, a largely superior grad education system, but I highly doubt any of these excess fees are going back to the state, etc., so what's the deal? Is the inherent business nature of grad schools overcoming the dedication to education so that the interest in making money is motivating these insufficient funding offers? That seems TOTALLY counterproductive to the idea of scholarship and research in my opinion. Please, please, please, American House, don't abolish the DOE AND, more importantly, Senate don't approve. That is the means that many people get access to education at the post secondary and then, by extension, graduate level. Sigh. It's so sad to see the way politics is going in this country.

Where did you see those dates?

I wrote up an exhaustive--and exhausting--list of questions before my visit last year and am pasting it below. Keep in mind that encoded within these questions are assumptions and preferences that are likely specific to me and what I was looking for. Also, though I asked many of these questions during my visits, I also found that, in the scheme of things, most of these questions--or, I should say, most of the answers--didn't really matter in my decision-making process. In much the same way that stats tell you something, but not necessarily something useful, about what programs are looking for and what your fellow applicants are like, these questions often tell you structural things about a department but not what it actually feels like to be there. Everyone's mileage will vary, of course, but I found myself not caring if, say, prelims were written or oral (though I had a preference) if everything else about the program was appealing. In the end, if it's a program you love, you'll jump through whatever hoops it presents. I highly recommend visiting schools, as there were programs at which my instinctive reaction told me everything I needed to know after about 5 minutes of being there. Additionally, visiting schools lets you make contact with people who will be important to your work regardless if you end up working with them directly. Good luck! It's an exciting, if unnerving time, and as difficult as it was last year to weigh the options, I found myself missing the sense of possibility after I had made a decision that I was (and am) very happy with.


-PLACES TO STUDY AND WORK
-Where do most people do their writing and reading?
-What study spaces are available? Do students get a carrel? Do those who teach get or share an office?

-LIBRARY
-What is the library system like? Are the stacks open or closed?
-What are the library hours?
-Are there specialized archives/primary sources that would be useful to my research?
-Are there specialist librarians who can help me with my research?

-FACULTY
-Are the faculty members I want to work with accepting new students? Are any of those faculty members due for a sabbatical any time soon?
-Are professors willing to engage you on a personal level rather than just talking about your work?
-Are there any new professors the department is hiring in areas that align with my interests?
-Students’ relationships with their professors – are they primarily professional, or are they social as well?

-FUNDING
-Is funding competitive? If so, do students feel a distinction between those who have received more generous funding and those who haven’t?
-How does funding break down among the cohort? i.e., how many people receive fellowships?
-How, if you don’t have much savings, do you make enough money to live comfortably?
-Are there external fellowships one can apply to? If so, what is available? Does the program help you apply for these fellowships? How does receiving an external fellowship affect internal funding?
-If people need more than five/six years to finish, what funding resources are available? (For instance, Columbia can give you an additional 2-year teaching appointment.)
-Do you provide funding for conferences or research trips?
-How often is funding disbursed? (i.e., do you get paid monthly or do you have to stretch a sum over a longer period of time?)

-COHORT
-Do students get along with each other? Is the feeling of the program more collaborative than competitive?
-Do students in different years of the program collaborate with each other, or are individual cohorts cliquey?
-How many offers are given out, and what is the target number of members for an entering class?
-Ages/marital status of people in the cohort – do most people tend to be married with families? Are there younger people? Single people? What sense do you have of how the graduate students interact with each other socially?
-Do people seem happy? If they’re stressed, is it because they’re busy or is it because they’re anxious/depressed/cynical/disillusioned?
-Is the grad secretary/program administrator nice?
-What is the typical time to completion? What are the factors that slow down or speed up that time?
-I’ve read that there are two kinds of attrition: “good” attrition, in which people realize that the program, or graduate study, isn’t right for them and leave early on, and “bad” attrition, in which people don’t finish the dissertation. What can you tell me about the rates of each, and of the reasons why people have chosen to leave the program?

-JOB MARKET/PROFESSIONALIZATION
-What is the placement rate? How many of those jobs are tenure-track?
-What are examples of institutions in which people in my field have been placed?
-How does the department prepare you for the job search? Are there mock interviews and mock job talks?
-Are the people helping you navigate the job search people who have recently gone through the process themselves?
-If you don’t get placed, is there anything the department can do for you? (e.g., can you stay an extra year?)
-How does the department prepare you for and help you attain conference presentations and publications?

-SUMMER WORK
-What is encouraged/required?
-If there separate funding/is the year-round funding enough to live on during the summer?
-Do people find themselves needing to get outside work during the summer in order to have enough money?
-Am I expected to stay in town in the summer, and what happens if I don’t?

-LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT
-What is done to help people who don’t have language proficiency attain it? Does the university provide funding?
-What is the requirement, and by when do you have to meet it?
-Given my research interests, what languages should I study?
-When do you recommend doing the work necessary to fulfill the language requirement? (i.e., summer before first year, summer after first year, while taking classes, etc.)

-LOCATION REQUIREMENTS
-How long are students required to be in residence?
-How many students stay in the location for the duration of the program? (i.e., how many dissertate in residence?)
-How is funding affected if you don’t stay?

-Incompletes on papers at the end of the term: What is the policy, how many students take them, and how does this affect progress through the program?

-TEACHING
-What sort of training is provided?
-What types of courses do people teach?
-Does teaching entail serving as a grader? Serving as a TA? Developing and teaching a section of comp?
-How are students placed as TAs? Is there choice about what classes you teach and which professors you work with? Do classes correspond to your field?
-How many courses do you teach per semester/year?
-How many students are in your classes?
-How does the school see teaching as fitting in with the other responsibilities/requirements of graduate study?
-How do students balance teaching with their own work?
-Is the department more concerned with training you as a teacher/professor or with having cheap labor to teach their classes?
-How, if at all, does the economic downturn affect teaching load/class sizes?
-What are the students like? Can I sit in on a course a TA teaches to get a sense of them?

-METHODOLOGY
-Is a theory course required?
-What methodology do most people use?
-Where, methodologically, do you see the department – and the discipline – heading?
-Is interdisciplinarity encouraged, and what sorts of collaboration have students undertaken?

-Typical graduate class and seminar sizes

-What should I do to prepare over the summer?

-Ask people I know: What are the questions – both about the program itself and about the location – I should ask that will most help me get a feel for whether this is the right program for me?

-Ask people I know: What do you wish you knew or wish you had asked before choosing a program?

-Is the school on the semester or the quarter system, and how does that affect classes/teaching/requirements?

-What is the course load for each semester, and how many courses are required?

-What kind of support is provided while writing the dissertation? I worry about the isolation and anxiety of writing such a big project. What does the program do to help you break the dissertation down into manageable pieces, and to make the experience less isolating?

-What do writing assignments look like in classes? Do they differ based on the type/level of class and/or based on whether you intend to specialize in the field?

-Ask professors: what have you been working on lately?

-Ask professors: What is your approach to mentoring and advising graduate students?

-How long are class meetings?

-How often do professors teach graduate courses?

-Are course schedules available for future semesters (10-11, etc.)?

-Can I see the grad student handbook? Are there any other departmental documents – such as reports on the program prepared for accreditation – that I can see?


-QUALITY OF LIFE
-Prices – how does the cost of gas, milk, cereal, etc. compare to other places I've lived in?
-Cost and quality of typical one-bedroom apartment.
-What does the university do to provide you with or help you find housing?
-When (i.e., what month) do people start looking for an apartment for the fall, and where do they look?
-Is it easy to find a summer subletter?
-How close to campus can—and should—one live?
-What grocery stores are there in town?
-How late are cafes, bookstores, malls, restaurants typically open?
-What do people do to make extra money?
-Does the town have more of a driving or a walking culture? What is parking like near campus (availability, ease, cost)?
-Where do most English grad students live? Most other grad students? Most professors? Where is the student ghetto? Do most students live near each other, or are they spread out far and wide?
-How far does the stipend go in this location?