qbtacoma

Can I hear the gossip about Harold Bloom?

Thanks a lot for posting that, runonsentence. One thing the author points out that struck a chord is that going to grad school can be equivalent, money and labor-wise, as working almost any other job right out of school for those of us in our early 20s, except we don't risk our bodies to do it. And a point that really needles me in the "just don't go" camp is the implication that the life of the mind is only for the independently wealthy, like there are no other forms of compensation. Obviously this rebuttal shows what bunk that is.

Wow, lots more this year compared to last. Was this due more to the forum just being more well-known now, or the site restructuring, do you think?

Now, if only Sigaba had said it like that from the start. It is interesting to think about why one person can read the statement "I am [race][gender]" and think "This is supplementary information about someone" and another person can read the same thing and think "Why is this person so insistent on sharing this?" I had an "aha" moment in high school psychology when my teacher told us about the tendency of white people and men, when asked to describe themselves, to list personal traits first, while non-whites and women tend to mention their race and gender before all else. (Obviously that data comes from the US context.) It just really drove home to me how people in positions of privilege don't see it, don't even incorporate it into their sense of self. Actively being aware of one's own body is evidence of receiving negative reactions from others based on having that body. I suspect that when people check back with themselves and ask "would I ever describe myself in this way?" their answer to that question feeds into the initial response to the "I am [race][gender]" statement.

Of course! Keep being awesome.

It is always better to include brief mention of why your grades faltered - no more than a sentence or two. Otherwise the adcomm will have no way to know that you were struggling with something legitimate (as opposed to, say, laziness), but if you discuss it too much it winds up sounding like an excuse. And too much space also takes away from the real point of your SOP, which is to outline your fit and future academic research path.

This is not an exclusive forum, and Zeemore is quite qualified to advise the OP, as she has pointed out, more so than someone who is nominally in a history program (such as myself, or you, since you didn't deign to offer the OP any real advice pertaining to professors in the field). In any case the OP is in a stage where most general information is helpful. And I think you should answer the question about why you thought one sentence in an informal post was the OP defining every aspect of his work in terms of his race and gender. Do you not hear the rest of us who say that is an exaggeration? Also your implication that people who object to your tone just can't handle the "intense" debate culture of academia also is a bit off-base. It is possible to be both passionate and respectful, and your posts are generally not the latter. I find your elaboration, even parts I disagree with, interesting and worthwhile, but that doesn't excuse the fact that you hijacked a thread with a personal attack and then told one of the discussants with practical experience in the subject that she wasn't worthy to take part in the conversation because she is in a different field. Rude and unacceptable.

A common thing these doomsday articles assume is that the grad students in question are 1) not knowledgeable about the kinds of opportunities available in the academy (i.e. very few), and 2) just going to grad school because they don't know what else to do with themselves, as opposed to a passion for their subject. Obviously members of the Grad Cafe are probably among the most informed of all the applicants to graduate programs, and so people who are already attending will know better than I if that is true, BUT in my own estimation these assumptions do not appear to reflect the grad student population. Am I wrong? Are grad students just sheeple blindly following the advice of out-of-touch professors? I really do not think this is the case.

It is funny to learn how annoying this question is, but too late for me. I just asked my Spanish TA this question a few days ago! Whoops.

Just me, you really should have chosen Eeyore as your screen name.

Yes, Sigaba's tone is inappropriately hostile, and if people want a thread on identity politics then they should go start one elsewhere. I mean really. The first sentence of the OP was background information, not strictly necessary to his question (but almost everyone does this) and similar to other commonly shared, generally irrelevant information like "I went to a small liberal arts college" or "I grew up in China" or "I'm queer." I can't believe people are upset by the mere mention of someone's personal identity. (ETA: "Irrelevant" in the sense that the OP's academic record is the measure by which adcomms will admit him and it is also the main thing we are assessing here. Obviously his identity isn't irrelevant to him as a person.) OP, your writing is what is really going to make you stand out more than your stats, which are of course very good. Polish your writing sample and your SOP until you never want to look at them again. The key with doing this successfully is starting early so that you have plenty of time for rewriting. One thing I think most people would do differently (including me) is that we would all start the application process earlier. That's my best general advice, but definitely poke around Grad Cafe - lots of pearls of wisdom are scattered around.

Reality TV, but better!

Honestly, why should we trust any of her credentials? She clearly has a tenuous grasp on reality. I suspect most of these jobs don't exist.

I've connected with one of my future roommates over doing "activist-y" things (he's into housing equality issues, I'm into reproductive rights and food justice). In the past I've met great people - often retired - when volunteering at food banks or soup kitchens, so if that's at all your thing then you might get a lot out of doing a volunteer gig. Also I'm actively looking for movie/theatre buddies to see shows and then talk about them, and I'm sure most people would say yes if you proposed going to a film. Even if you hate it, you can talk about why - a successful outing!

She's so obviously crazy, I don't know that she could really affect one's reputation online. Her real danger seems to lie in threats to one's family or safety, as poor Professor Brou has experienced. I am resisting the urge to speculate about what her particular mental disorder is.

Oof - yeah, abortion's a hard one. Honestly, I've never had a good conversation on it with someone with whom I fundamentally disagree. Immigration is another hard one - I can think of three respectful discussions, ever.

She needs to get on with her life.

Especially if you are reading someone Very Important who You Need To Know, and yet that person did not deign to organize the paper in any clear way. Or if the writing style is just bad - think Judith Bulter, Foucault - then I really find it helpful to read reviews from other people to figure out what is actually being said.

Science folks will have more specific answers, but in general "fit" means exactly what you have laid out: research interests and program culture. It can also refer to methodological style. You don't necessarily need to be in lockstep with a given professor to fit within their interests, but you do need to be able to show that your past work and future interests are relevant to what they are doing. So, for example, you could have experience with a certain methodology that can be applied to Professor X's research even though your background is in another field. As far as culture, that's a more finely tuned fit question which encompasses work styles. Does your professor leave the grad students alone and have meetings only once a month, or is s/he in and out of the lab all day? That sort of thing. Some programs are more collaborative between grad students and some are competitive. If you know that your learning style requires certain things from your mentor, then you should take this into account. Honestly, though, that kind of fit question mostly comes into play after you have several acceptances.

Talk about the tyranny of the complacent majority! That sucks a lot. I think I've had a lot of good models in my life for respectful discourse - my dad, to start, along with some professors and other students or friends who I admired for keeping their heads in some heated discussions. That said, I'm certainly not above ranting to friends about things I believe strongly about, which has startled me at times when they disagree! Part of the issue is that I really like heated debate if I perceive it to be a mutually enjoyable intellectual exploration, but once emotions or personal attacks appear then I lose my appetite for it. I always really liked the image from To Kill a Mockingbird where Atticus Finch and whoever the prosecuting lawyer is go arm-in-arm to lunch after vicious courtroom debate. That's pretty much what I would like my grad school experience to be like.

Well, thanks for asking! I find it really interesting to see how other people go about the process of writing the SOP - it is so individual. With all this said, the very best thing you can do is to ask a professor to read it over for you, perhaps multiple drafts of it, or a grad student already in school. They can help you tailor the work in the best way possible to show off your voice and your academic talents.

As you say, it is only a good thing! The extent to which it will help you depends on the conference in question. Obviously a conference which primarily features undergraduate work is still good, but the best kind of conference to present at is one with in which full professors make up the majority of presenters. Even if it is a small conference (for a small subfield or a regional conference, perhaps) your work was recognized as good enough to stand next to the work of professionals. Obviously bigger is better in that your work has more exposure, but there's nothing at all wrong with making one's first presentations at a regional conference. Congrats, and good luck to you and everyone applying this fall!

Well, what are friendships for except to call people out when they don't act the way they are supposed to? As hard as it was to hear, I've grown a lot those times when my friends have told me to stop doing some rude thing. I often wasn't aware the extent to which I was doing it. Maybe it will be awkward at first, but she might eventually appreciate it if you said, "Look, I know that applying to grad school is stressful, but your behavior is unnecessarily competitive and rude. I never expected a friend like you would try to cut me down to make herself feel better - would you like it if I did that to you? What's going on here?" However, it may be she's not mature enough to listen to the critique (after an initial period of anger, of course - even mature people have trouble with this!). You know her best, and you may not want to deal with it. Good luck, though.

I suppose when the entire market for this kind of service encompasses anyone in the world who can speak English, that's enough a large enough pool of people to find plenty of folks with an extra few thousand dollars. That said, I'm sure many of them have made unwise financial choices to use these services - taking out loans, for example. Because if all they need to get a job is the piece of paper from the university, and the university doesn't catch the fraud (or isn't interested in catching the fraud, as I'm sure some of them are not), then all of this makes rational sense. It is still highly unethical, though, in case anyone (*cough*JustMe*) was in doubt of that.