harleth

Everything is a tradeoff in the capitalist hellscape we're in. There's some good advice in this thread.

Although I'm absolutely in the "she's a skeeze" camp, both the video and Ramus' posts speak to conditions that seem accurate to me, and echo what I've heard from other late stage grad students or post-academics. It is very worth taking to heart. I know universities are pushing to do alt-ac better, but they're not good enough to be truly helpful yet.

I will also say that what Sigada says about the private sector is true. In this, I can put on my own wearied veteran hat, and add:
The work is typically mind-numbingly mundane. The corporate world is, largely, a very stupid and vacuous place. Prepare yourself for things like content mill writer jobs that prioritize mediocrity, vacuity and speed over quality, having to speak corporate-ese, working for horrible impersonal corporations that try to mask their cutthroat capitalism with nauseating veneers of humanity, and being subjected to backhanded gossip, token diversity statements, and all the social toxicities people complain about with academia - except with even less genuine effort at ethical behavior. Have you ever spoken to a really terrible business major? It's like that at least 40 hours a week.  You may or may not have the time and means for vacation and hobbies; if you do have the time and means, it may or may not be scarce. I have friends who have, largely, pretty engaging and well-paying jobs who regularly have to work 60+ hours for deadlines, have 10 vacation days a year, and the like. And again: the work tends to be mildly offputting at best.  The tradeoff is generally more job security, but you still don't necessarily have a whole lot of that. I have learned to never treat a job as secure. What I can be secure about, I guess, is that I can typically find another job if the present one doesn't work out.  Ramus, I hope your tech job continues to work out for you, but I have to warn you that after a couple more years you may feel as I did: as though your brain is melting out of your ears. I had a reasonable job that I was good at, too - flexible schedule, a modicum of creativity to keep things a bit interesting sometimes. Still absolutely mind-numbing at the end of the day. I would gently suggest that lionizing the middle-class white collar life based on your experience at a single job is a bit tone deaf. A lot of people, even among the middle class - who are so much luckier than those in the lower-class or gig economies - are struggling mightily.
There are jobs with more meaningful work to be found in the nonprofit, publishing, high school teaching, or public sectors. They can be great, and they can also be unbelievably overworked and underpaid. It's up to the individual to decide if you think going for that is a good idea, or if you think you can get one of the better positions. 
For my part, I am ecstatic to have 5-6 years out from the workforce, and if I don't get a TT job I will go back to what I was doing. I know that even if retirement takes a bit longer as a result, I will be happy I made this choice. 
Regardless, the best piece of advice here is that you need to be proactive. Start working on your alt-ac contingency plan now, and the most important thing is to get job experience. Do internships, basically. My university has an internship program especially for humanities PhDs that funds internships that would otherwise be unfunded. Take advantage of things like this - or, just take advantage of your summer stipends to get internships. Entry-level jobs require experience and you need to get it before you graduate. Discuss with career counselors and just look at job descriptions on Indeed or what have you. Take a look at the requirements and the skills section. Decide on what you think you can tolerate, and work at gaining those requirements and skills. Don't rely on your professors and don't postpone this. Basically, dedicate a couple of summers to internships, and cultivate skills and your network throughout.
I'll add one final thing: this entire discussion dodges the systemic and political dimension to all of this. Academia needs reform: the tuition problem, working conditions, societal devaluation of the humanities and obscene "professionalization" and corporatization of everything are all huge problems that need our activism, whether or not we get TT jobs. The answer to academia's problems, in this broader scheme, is not "encourage the people who want to get PhDs to join the white collar workforce," even if that makes sense to some degree from the personal angle.  
However we hack it, the key is to try to wrangle a livable working life out of an economic system that is not designed in our favor. Best of luck to all of us with that.

The issue is that what you're saying is absolutely obvious to everyone here, yet you insist on using this insufferably condescending middle-class savior tone. No one thinks they're "any different from the folks five years ago." They know they're in the same situation, accepting the same risks, resigned to the likelihood that a PhD will not be profitable because they've heard the warnings already. And they'll still do it despite the risk because, like young people for centuries, they have an ideal and inner drive they want to play out in all of its drama instead of taking the practically-optimized route. (And yes, before you say it, they know--I know--that it will probably end in disappointment and burden them with some regrets, but that's life.) The reason I and others roll our eyes--not scoff, which is a self-congratulatory way to imagine the negative reactions to your post--is because you have not figured out something unique, you have reenacted the most predictable plot in the world. Most people who have advice stemming from an extremely common experience simply give that advice in brief and move on instead of, yes, proselytizing and being dramatic when they are not immediately met with applause and effusive thanks for their effort. So, here is my own patronizing advice to you: try being more like those people who say their piece and then move on instead of the whole performance you're doing here.

This whole post comes across as just another form of proselytizing. I am truly sorry that academia disappointed you as it will many others, but please consider that the people here are intelligent enough to question these issues without needing to watch someone sell their brand in a TED talk. 

So after being pretty sure of a shutout, I've just been accepted into a fully-funded MA programme!!!!! Beyond shook 
If anyone has attended UK, please do drop me a message! 

I JUST GOT IN TO UC DAVIS WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!! 6 years' funding!!!
 
i'm so hoping this means good things for my other fellow confused applicants like @Magic Lanternoh my god i'm going to puke. 
 
i was at work and my boss thought something terrible had happened because i screamed his name and was laugh-crying.

I finally have a reason to wear makeup again

GUYS! IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE!!!! THE BABY ARTICLE IS OUT IN THE WORLD NOW!
I do hope some of y'all can relate to this as well. 
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-graduate-school-rejection-letter-as-written-by-my-anxiety-disorder-at-3-am

I kept going and McSweeney's is publishing another essay I sent them!!! ? Bye-bye, academia! Going be a satirist now!!

I think my application cycle has officialy ended, I was denied from around 12+ schools and accepted to only one, which I guess is all that matters... I will most likely attend the program that offered admission to me in the Fall--I really wish you all good luck in all your endeavors, this cycle has been extremely tough

YALL! I got into my dream program at UVA!!! I can’t believe I did it!!!!
i got the email while I was at my nanny job and started crying and shaking. I told my child I was happy because I was going to be a teacher and she hugged me said “I hope you will be mine next year!” Cue more tears. 
 
I can’t believe this is real!!!

I'm sending everyone good vibes - I just had an amazing phone call with the DGS at the Minnesota Writing Studies program who offered me admission! I was staring down a shut out, pending waitlist movement, but now I got into my top program. It's possible, y'all! Every single person here is a great academic and can make it happen!

thank you. same to you

Hi! This list of questions might be helpful: https://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/62633-campus-visits/?do=findComment&comment=1058227359
 

fwiw i imagine it wouldn't hurt to ask about where they are in the process. might shorten the waiting period if nothing else? fingers crossed for you

Is this like Mary-Kate and Ashley throwing a dart at a map to decide what movie they're doing next? Does anyone know what I'm talking about? 

thanks! i need it hai'mlosingit. I was one of the second wave of Cornell rejections. I did put down German as a secondary department for them, but I doubt I'll get into that program. Their Comp Lit was a better fit for me than their German dept is.

congrats!! please please share with this thread once it's published, so excited to read it

McSweeney's took my essay, y'all!! I'm so excited to see something that's not a rejection in my inbox!

Me too. I wasn't too optimistic in the first place but I'm happy to have an answer so I can start planning for other programs. Oh well, can't say we didn't try!

For what it's worth, I also received acceptance letters from my POIs but I didn't contact them before submitting an application; they were simply given my name because their interests aligned with mine and they sent an email and offered to chat on the phone as part of the recruiting part of the admissions cycle. I guess, personally, I wouldn't read too too much into getting acceptance letters from POIs, they're pretty much just given a list of admitted students to reach out to in order to woo them to accept. 
I want to make clear that I don't think there's any harm in reaching out to POIs but myself and fellow cohort members who have gone through the admissions cycle just don't really see any correlation between reaching out and acceptances/rejections. If you have the time to do it, that's great but if you're pressed for time, I wouldn't worry about it. 

As someone who's on the other side of the cycle (phd candidate in a lit studies program), I really don't think reaching out to POIs has any bearing on admission. I contacted zero professors in my admissions cycle and was admitted to several PhD programs. I've also had conversations with faculty about the admissions process and they literally have never mentioned a prospective student reaching out to them as a factor in admissions. It really just boils down to the writing sample, LORs, and the SOP. I suppose if a POI could provide feedback on an SOP or writing sample that would be helpful but I doubt most, if any, have the time to do that. 
Fit, of course, is important to convey in the SOP but honestly you can find out way more about fit from reading a professor's recent work than from a short email exchange (especially when profs are already so overwhelmed with email from current students!). 
There is sometimes the scenario where a professor you might want to work with is on medical leave or sabbatical or close to retiring and some people encourage reaching out to get more information about those situations. But I also feel that's not necessary because if there is just ONE person you want to work with in a dept, it probably is not a great fit honestly. In hindsight, the programs I was admitted to were ones where there were several faculty whose work aligned with mine. IMO, it's really important to make sure there is more than one faculty whose work aligns with yours; I've seen people who come to work with one star faculty and then find out they're never around or their advising styles don't vibe. 
Hope this is helpful — please feel free to message if you want to chat more about this or the admissions process! It is a certainly a frustrating and mystifying process but I really do think time is better spent working on admissions documents rather than reaching out to professors. 

same, there's a few profs who MUST be on the verge of retirement that i wanted to work with but i don't think there's any polite way of asking 'are you planning to retire soon', lol. 
i mostly contacted them in late september iirc, ahead of the end of semester rush. but i ended up getting rejected from all those schools anyway and admitted to a dept where i hadn't even emailed anyone, so ymmv! not sure what i got out of the chats other than a temporary rush of validation. ?  indeed.
and yess, good luck with future SoPs!

1. Ahhh! This is my fear--someone leaving a school. The people who were open to zoom chats...when did you contact them? I might try contacting them earlier next time. Definitely hit everyone up in November, last time, which is final papers time, so.
2. I'm honestly feeling better knowing most of you didn't have this happen. My advisor had mentioned, in passing, Skip Gates contacting someone at whatever university to give them a recommendation and I was just like, "Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool. ?"
3. Good to know. 
GOING TO CRUSH MY SOP THIS YEAR.
 
 

I think there are a couple of factors that will affect the process for next year...
The primary factor will be funding. Fallout from the pandemic is going to be rough and may seriously impact funding, or, it may not. (I spoke to someone at one university about this. It is very much a "wait and see" situation for departments right now and they don't really have a sense of what is going to happen.)
The secondary factor is the number of programs accepting applications. This year, I found that about half the programs I wanted to apply to had suspended applications. I imagine others had a similar experience. The suspensions ended up funneling a large group of applicants into a smaller number of programs. Many of those programs, in turn, accepted smaller cohorts due to funding concerns. So, we had a really big supply and demand problem this year. Consequently, however, a lot of folks may opt to apply again next year, which may inflate the size of next year's applicant pool.
It is my sense that next year will be better in some ways, and the same in others. The competition may be equally fierce, but there will be more opportunity to apply to programs that are the best possible fit for each applicant. Also, having gone through this cycle, should you choose to apply again, you will be going in with both perspective and experience that will serve you well and enable you to really tailor your applications for each program, next time around. That said, I think the cycle itself may be about the same next year, but may turn out better for those who applied this year and were disappointed.

ugh, was rooting for you! got the generic rejection in the portal and it feels so much colder somehow after interviewing. glad i got some good news earlier this week & that you're already in a program, but honestly it's been rough.
i 'splurged' on some non-screw top wine to celebrate/wallow and highly recommend it! wish i could get you all wine/beverage of choice and thanks for being such a supportive/non-toxic bunch ❤️