fenderpete

Which MA did you apply for?

Either: 1) a week of intensive surfing somewhere hot or 2) a week of scuba diving to get PADI qualified somewhere hot. Having spent a year in a landlocked country I'm pretty ready to go crazy in the ocean for a while.

I'm kind of also in a position professionally now where I feel like time out in academia and coming back would actually multiply my attractiveness to employers. I feel like I should have tonnes of momentum after two years of climbing the ranks, but instead I feel kind of stalled and know it'll be tough to jump up a rung without an MA and time to schmooze with an internship. I wouldn't mind skipping 5yrs right about now.

Second time around for me, but it feels more like first time as the original first time was back in 2009 applying to PhD programs when I didn't have a clue. I applied very selectively, and mainly targeted programs that I know fund well. I will hear from all of them pretty much simultaneously (first two or three weeks of March) and could well be in the middle of nowhere when they get in touch. Having spent two pretty tough years in rural field postings, I'm ready to be in a capital city - whether that's DC, London, Paris or Kinshasa. Being in the boonies with no social life leaves a lot to be desired after two years. My current contract ends in June but I imagine I could extend, the question is whether I could move to the capital... Plan B - I should have three months between hearing back and this job ending, so that's going to be a time of lots of job applications and looking for lateral (if not vertical) moves in my current job. Something has to change though, as I'm starting to feel a touch ground down.

On the plus side at least I know i won't hear jack until early/mid-March so kind of limits my need to hit F5 yet.

I went pretty high-risk too and only applied to schools I'd love to go. So now the fear is setting in of what I do in June if I don't get in somewhere with funding. 2 months to go. Ack. Worse still, I'm somewhere with very sporadic email access so I may not find out until a week after hearing.

Ugh.... Being back home for Christmas without the distraction of work is making me actually start (horror), thinking about grad schools. It's now getting to the point where I'm going to have to put my money where my mouth is with friends/family. Before I've been able to downplay it all as 'there's just no way of knowing where I might/might not get in with/without funding.' Now it's all going to turn a lot more concrete in the next few months. I can't help thinking it'll end up being all or nothing.

You didn't really need to delete all your posts from this thread Captain Crunk. I think all of us were simply trying to point out that living overseas, plus having a close relative work for USAID is not the same as doing the job yourself. USAID has changed HUGELY in the last 10yrs, let alone 40yrs and entry-level now is very different from when the whole US approach to foreign affairs let FSOs and USAID officers employ a far more fun 'run and gun' attitude. Not so now. The last thing I want to see is people going into int. dev. or taking on an MA before they know it's exactly what they want. It's a huge investment of time, money and emotional capital. If you are one of those people who knows exactly what they want out of their career without doing it before, good luck and you have our blessing. On the other hand I can't emphasize enough the difference between living/travelling abroad and having to get up and drag yourself into work every day even if you're suffering from giardia, your staff are stealing from you or the government has decided to kick your NGO out of the country with no prior warning. 6 months or a year of field experience now could help you avoid choosing a speciality in int. dev. that you won't want to work in 2yrs from now, let alone 15yrs.

You might also want to check out AMidEast - they work all over the Middle East and do teaching English programs in most of those. Also - I'd suggest holding off on applying before you're ready, and use the $300/400 dollars you'd spend on applications to use to support yourself volunteering abroad.

Just don't turn into one of those people who has zero empathy with people who work in the field because you've never done it. Not lecturing, I mistakenly thought you were asking for advice.

I'd go for tattoo it on your forehead rather than staple it. You may well have known what you wanted to do, but in my field (international development) the reality is often very different from the idealised or dreamed-for reality of doing the job. Unless you can answer questions like 'how did you feel when the project you worked hard on failed through no fault of your own' or 'can you be satisfied living on your own in the field for a year' or 'how do you feel about bucket showers when it's freezing outside' I'm really not sure you can be considered prepared for this career. This isn't meaning to come across as snarky either (do we need a snark-o-meter for this sub-forum?) but these are things you don't get from wanting to work in development. The dream career you picture may well be horrifically boring, personally unrewarding or too challenging in reality. For example, when I graduated I absolutely loved International Crisis Group (I still do) and thought no job would be better than working for them. Having worked with them in the field now, I know that while the work they do is hugely important and valuable to other NGOs (and in-country stakeholders), I'm not cut out to spend all my time in the field researching. I'd rather work on building local capacity in a more hands-on way. That is something I definitely couldn't have told you prior to graduating or even prior to getting out to the field after an HQ position. Maybe that comes across as condescending too, but the fact that we have been places/done things means we can speak from a relative position of authority to people who are yet to have their first field experience. MYRNIST is speaking from the kindest place in the world - trying to prevent someone from falling into a rather large professional pitfall.

Figured I'd start this thread as I've been really impressed by how friendly the professors I've contacted are and also y how quick the admin staff have been to confirm various things (GRE score receipt etc.). I really don't understand why American isn't more highly rated outside the beltway, it seems like they've got a mix of great faculty and great student support. Anyway... Anyone else applying for Fall 2012?

What were your weaknesses last time around? Have you taken steps to address them? Without knowing your profile, I can't really say the outcome will be different this year unless you've changed your app. profile.

Check you've put the right school names in all your SOPs. In all honesty, I think last minute anxiety is natural. That's how I felt before I submitted all mine. I think also the fact that you know you're submitting before a lot of other folks plays into the 'OMG something must be wrong' mindset.

To contact it is. Sadly I've already submitted all my apps, but the touching base aspect still stands. Already had one very friendly reply already! Now it'll be down to seeing what they seem like as more than bios on a faculty website...

Hey all... I'm currently in two minds about whether to contact POIs at the schools I've applied to for Fall 2012. I have a pretty good idea that the programs are a good fit and have read their work etc. so I don't really feel I'd be emailing them to do much other than make them aware of my existence, which seems a little cheap. Maybe I'm overthinking this, and it's the price of doing business, but I worry I'd do more harm than good if there's nothing I desperately need to know about the programs. I've also already had a little back and forth with certain professors via Twitter, but not with them knowing I'm applying to their programs. It's one of those things where if it might improve my chances I feel like I should do it, but by the same token don't want to do it simply because everyone else does... What are other people's thoughts on this?

You might want to check out the Government Affairs sub-forum - http://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/11-government-affairs/

Having just bitched and moaned, you are right

Princeton I'm particularly disappointed in, because I had repeated assurances that it would be up around September 20. I'm currently out in the boonies in Nepal so trying to get adequate internet coverage to work on applications isn't so easy. I've submitted all the rest, and so it's kind of unsatisfactory that the best-resourced school I'm applying to is the one with problems.

For a bunch of my apps I have one username, (which is just a regular username) then the last I had to register a new account which is an alphanumeric PIN. Seemingly not all AppYourself accounts play nice with each other.

I would take the job you have a passion for as you're going to throw yourself into it and may well end up contributing more and getting more out of it. That'll definitely come across when writing your SOP. I think looking at things in terms of which looks best is the wrong approach, as Gael says - what are you going to get out of it?

I'd email the Goldman School admissions address and ask for clarification - but I'd be surprised if it wasn't the 3-5 pages. I tend to go by the page guideline rather than words, and then if it's Times New Roman 12pt and fills the correct amount of page space I don't think they'll care if you're 20 words over the limit.

Godlessangel - Your profile looks great (really jealous of your Iraqi refugee work!) and you should be competitive everywhere you're applying. With that length of time abroad schools would be crazy not to look at you seriously imo.

Well after three months of personal statement drafting hell I've submitted 3/4 of my applications for Fall 2012 (waiting on the fourth to open its app). It was a fairly straightforward process, but as always deceptively time consuming. Annoyingly one of my applications didn't register some of my responses to the online questions, so I've had to email the school in question to get it fixed. Luckily I'm moving to Asia for the next year for work, so at least I'm not going to be agonizing over when I'll hear something. Well, at least not quite as much! BTW I'm not some super-eager guy, this is more out of necessity than desire to get it in this early lol. I figured this thread could maybe serve as a rolling 'I've just submitted' post for the duration of the Fall 2012 season. Good luck all!

Wow, real blast from the past there Looking at this shows a pretty good example of knowing what you're doing vs. not having a clue. Looking at my original states and my current stats I know who I'd rather admit It also shows what you can do to improve your app.