shepardn7

My voice is just quiet, and even quieter when I'm in a more serious setting and trying to keep things formal. I'm also a girl, and was teaching in my early twenties, so I looked a little young and small. I found it difficult to establish my authority in the classroom at first, but I think I started to get better at it as time went on. 1. Yes, it is okay to not know the answer. But do follow up via email or during the following class period. 2. Speak confidently but keep the tone friendly. You want the classroom to feel welcoming, but you want to maintain some kind of authority over it. Be friendly with them, yes, but be less so when they are texting, talking, or sleeping in the classroom. If they stop preparing for the class, you can even start giving weekly quizzes if the subject matter allows it. 2. Be firm. Usually, the professor will help you by being the firm one whose rules you simply enforce (I did not not have this experience, as I taught my own courses as a "graduate instructor"). But students will often try to get extensions they don't deserve, or BS you after missing more than the allotted absences or handing in late work, etc. Surely excuse students who have legitimate reasons they can document (e.g. doctor's note), but watch out, because some will try to play you (even with fake doctor's notes). I agree with a poster below that writing all the rules (down to every last detail) on your section syllabus is a good idea. 3. Never let your TAing compromise your own work. When I had to grade papers, I would try to grade a certain amount per day so that I was never stuck with a stack of 20+ papers to grade in one period. If my own work made it impossible to get it done by my personal deadline, I would make them wait a few more days if the syllabus allowed it. This is for their benefit as well as mine: if you do put your work first, you will often have a big stack of assignments to grade in a short amount of time, which means the quality of your grading will suffer by the end. You can also enforce certain rules about emailing assignments or drafts, saying that you'll only look at drafts or other work in office hours.

I could not agree with this more, especially if you have some other debt or burden (mortgage, credit card, undergrad loans, car, children's college fund, etc.). I know a dream is a dream, but sometimes you need to consider your post-graduate happiness--the cost of a dream in a time when your "dream" job's funding is cut via most university budget plans. Maybe it's because I've chosen one of the most non-lucrative fields imaginable unless you write mass-market trade fiction (literary arts...poetry...indeed), but I would never, ever take out more loans (beyond maybe 5K) for a degree in my field. It's just not worth it, to me, especially because I have around 20K in undergraduate loans already. My goal is to teach creative writing and undergraduate English courses OR work in editing/publishing. Realistically, I will not make enough per month to pay for loans beyond the loans I already have (if I can find a job within a reasonable amount of time) within the first five years (at least!) after graduating. I'm not saying that miracles don't happen, but you can't count on them in the humanities or even social sciences. It depends on the field, but consider this: even professional degrees don't always pay off financially. Lawyers, for example, have a difficult time in a bad economy. Now consider how the funds for many humanities and arts programs suddenly become expendable, especially for schools with low endowments. Even science programs need to endure drastic budget cuts--after the school is done reminding humanities people that their work doesn't matter, of course. I know someone with a degree in Urban Planning (which, I think, the recession hit hard). He was the only student accepted to a particular two-year Harvard program and could not find a "professional" job upon graduating (with, I believe, about 200K in debt). You can imagine how talented he must be--to be the one student accepted to this program--and he's currently teaching at a community college and living with his parents. Now imagine how much the name recognition of "Harvard" (no matter how prestigious the individual program actually is) helped him get his community college job. On top of that "Harvard" name, he also attended Cornell (with a Horticulture degree from the Agriculture school). None of that made much of a difference when the economy didn't want or need his work. He's making money in the academic realm, obviously, but the loans are not as easy to pay. I don't mean to be harsh. Lord knows I'm not the voice of reason re: financial success in life, with my MFA in poetry! (LOL, right?) But consider how worth it this debt and stress is. Working during your graduate program can make it difficult to fulfill your academic obligations to the best of your abilities, and doing so--being brilliant and relentlessly thorough in your brilliance--is usually crucial to landing a decent academic job. More, people need to note your brilliance; people need to know and respect you. It's not impossible, but it is hard to mentally deal with the intellectual rigor your paper/project/dissertation demands after some hours working retail or whatever. That said, if you find it easy to write academic work after working retail or coffee slinging for 5 hours, you can probably meet those demands. And also, obviously, there is no way to pay for all of tuition and living expenses with a part time job. I think people sometimes look their gift horses in the mouth. Yes, TA positions might take from 15-20 hours a week and pay poorly on paper, but 1) you can make your own hours, and 2) as low as stipends might seem sometimes, the school is also paying your tuition, which means even a 10K stipend w/ tuition remission can actually be a 30K-50K paycheck! I complained about my low stipend in my master's program, but it's really not that low (it was about 11K) when you consider you don't have to pay for school. I'm all for following dreams and investing in non-lucrative areas for which you have passion, but the years spent in grad school (versus taking a more traditional route and getting a decent paying job) is enough of an "investment"--don't add a very real financial burden to that. Public loans are one thing. Private loans are another entirely. They're brutal, and usually not as kind to their borrowers when their income is below poverty level. Of course, I don't know your field, so consider this an open letter to anyone considering taking out a great deal of loans (I'd say more than 5-10K, depending on your saving and job prospects) to pay for a non-professional (or at least non-science) degree.

If I get in, I'll be starting at 27. I already have a master's degree.

I am also (likely) applying to one school--the one in my current city. I might add another one with an application due Jan. 15th, but I just don't know if I can bring myself to move right now. I am not older (just 26, not in my forties with a house and child), but I do feel that committing to a five year program away from my home would be bad for my relationship and possibly for my mental health at this time. I might have applied to more if I my partner and cat could come with me. I have a good shot at my one school, but, of course, this is all very competitive and I could easily be rejected, as my first choice is also one of the most competitive programs out there. I've beat worse odds before, but that of course doesn't mean I'll beat them this time. We'll see. Sometimes you just know what you want. If I don't get in this year, anyway, I will probably apply to more programs next year; I think I'd like to give myself two chances to get into my top choice anyway.

Long distance relationships seem to work best when there is an end in sight. I'd say preferably under five years. I was in one for a year. My boyfriend finished his BA while I completed my first year of grad school. Then he moved to live with me after graduating. Of course I missed him, but it was fine. Something to consider is that "part of the problem" might actually be nearly all of the problem. Do you think you'd be exponentially happier if your girlfriend moved to live with you right now? If yes, then the LDR might be more than just a part of your problem; you might hate grad school less than you think. I guess my advice is to just make a plan for your reunion if you can, and make sure you each set aside plenty of time for phone or Skype conversations and "dates." My boyfriend and I watched a couple movies and shows together over the phone, for example. You can also send each other care packages.

I don't really know, but I'm surprised you haven't written a 5-7 page paper in any of your advanced level (i.e., non-introductory) courses. I think that would be better because it's closer to, well, the current state of your brain (three years feels like a long time ago). But I do think the longer paper will be the most important one, and the one that gets you in. And I'm sure the 8 page paper shows off your smarts in your area, which is important. Plus they know you're coming straight from undergrad and that many of your short papers will respond to professors' prompts. So, in short, it's likely a more complex paper would make your overall sample stronger, but I have no idea if the assignment-ness of the paper will actually pose a problem, especially if your longer paper sufficiently demonstrates your potential for advanced-level work.

True -- that makes sense, since they will primarily look at the quant score (which I think is a much better indicator of success in a quant-field than the verbal for a non-quant field). Still, just as very intelligent people fall on hard times and underperform in undergrad courses, very intelligent people in all fields can still get mediocre scores on a section they "should" do well on for various reasons, and it's a little scary that even in a quant-heavy field only 45 minutes of mathematical reasoning under the pressure of testing conditions could potentially outweigh a high GPA in all quant-related courses over a four year period. In other words, it's of course not sad to me that a high GRE could compensate for a poor GPA that could have been high under different conditions, but that a program would consider it a better indication of potential success and place more weight on it in general. But I think I might feel this way -- have such an adverse reaction to the idea, I mean -- because I'm in the humanities.

Well, remember I don't serve on an adcom! That's just my opinion, and how I would personally treat candidates, because I do think it's important to show the entire trajectory of an argument. You might want to wait for other people to weigh in here, or even ask one of your professor (like a recommender) just to have more than one perspective.

I think it's always a good idea to send something with a sense of wholeness and completion. In that sense, it should be fine to submit a full chapter or section of a thesis to those programs that welcome excerpts, but maybe not fine to submit, say, 15 pages of a 30 page paper. I think the committee (at least in English) will want to see a full argument with clear introduction, body, and conclusion because your ideas and how you develop them are as important as your style and ability to write well. And, no, I don't think Yale will mind if your paper has an extra page. But yes, if you have whittled down a longer paper to 16 pages, take a break and then read it again to make sure you haven't cut out anything important to your overall argument.

But it is not considered possible for "very intelligent people" to "mess up" their GRE, or have difficulty doing exceptionally well on standardized tests? Or have difficulty finding another 150 dollars to retake the GRE if they had the flu or another issue when taking it? And it is not seen as a strength that someone might have had trauma or death or what have you, and still managed to maintain a good undergrad GPA (even if those reasons sufficiently excuse poor undergrad performance, because yes, of course bad things happen and not everyone can devote the necessary attention to their grades). That's very sad. Depressing, even.

Interesting how people keep hammering it into our (at least, Americans') heads that the humanities are no longer "relevant" (whatever that means), and yet Philosophy, English, and History are all on this list. Those who apply for (non-professional) advanced degrees are still a sliver of the overall population, but the humanities are well-represented in that group. In fact, the two "least relevant" (English and Philosophy) come up right after the two most practical ones (Economics and Computer Science) on the list. We still have to battle for respect year after year (HEY GUYZ iz thinking about bookz and art still good thing cuz maybe not important ne more???1), and so many of us still jump headfirst into the abyss, full-knowing that hardly anyone cares about us but us. Anyway, I just thought it was interesting that "useless" degrees get almost as many applications as "useful" ones (though Economics is pretty far ahead even Comp Science).

Buffy got me through my MFA program. It'd be like, "Okay, brain, just grade these next five godawful Comp papers on whether technology (which has been around "since the beginning of time") is a "good thing or a bad thing," and you can watch a whole episode of Buffy!" Buffy is the best.

The Devil's Backbone is a good one that's likely not on your radar. It's the companion film (a "boy" story) to Pan's Labyrinth.

"What are you going to do with that?"

Haha, this happened when I was applying for my previous degree, but in a different forum. My anxiety gets the best of me and I get curious and then suddenly find myself sucked into these applying communities, despite my best efforts and resolution to stay away and do productive things. Don't worry, come April, I'll be gone (either celebrating or mourning).

Here are some of my current plays (some old, some new): Leonard Cohen -- Songs of Love and Hate, The Songs of Leonard Cohen, New Skin for the Old Ceremony Magnolia Electric Co. -- "Leave the City" and "Don't This Look Like the Dark" (and really the whole albums Magnolia Electric Co. and What Comes After the Blues) -- indie alt-country The Velvet Underground -- all -- vintage rock Arcade Fire -- Funeral -- popular indie rock? Arcade Fire -- "We Used to Wait," "Suburban War," "Sprawl II," and "Deep Blue" from The Suburbs David Bowie -- Ziggy Stardust The Decemberists -- Picaresque, Castaways and Cutouts, and Her Majesty -- popular indie sea-chanties? Joanna Newsom -- all -- indie folk? The Magnetic Fields -- Charm of the Highway Strip, 69 Love Songs -- indie rock The National -- The Boxer -- indie rock Neutral Milk Hotel -- In the Aeroplane Over the Sea -- indie rock, but not as new Pulp -- Different Class -- rock? The Smiths -- all -- 80s rock? Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds -- "O Children" (featured in the new Harry Potter) -- alt-rock? Bruce Springsteen -- um, you know! Bon Iver -- "Bracket WI" from Dark Was the Night -- alt-folk? Florence & the Machine -- Lungs -- pop? I dunno. Remo Giazotto -- "Adagio in G Minor" Elgar -- Cello Concerto -- First Movement (Adagio-Moderato) -- Jacqueline du Pre Vaughn Williams -- "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis"

If you have SAD issues, you might consider turning down a school in the PacNW or an exceedingly cold and grey place, at least if you have other offers. But maybe only if those issues are severe ones -- if it's not a matter of "not liking it" but having what is a seasonal clinical depression. I suppose you won't know until you're there, though, unless you've already lived in a place so cold and grey, in which case you'd already know the answer to your question. Still, it is possible to treat seasonal depression with lightboxes, vitamin D, and/or anti-depressants, so even if you suffer from it, it doesn't mean you can't live in a constantly grey place. I went to a school in a very cold area, but one that wasn't all that sunny (or didn't seem to be). It was in upstate New York. I loved my school and wouldn't trade it for a school in a warm climate, but I do remember that the adjustment was difficult (and I was coming from CT!). It was just really hard, during that winter of 2003-2004 (I think it was?), to handle the wind chills on a daily basis. I had never lived somewhere with a dangerous wind chill and it made being outside for weeks so very painful. I had a depressive episode that miraculously didn't affect my grades but negatively affected other areas of my life. I then realized I probably had SAD and took some precautions for the remaining winters. Then I moved to the PacNW and, wow, is it grey and drizzly there. Once it rained for a month straight. That was a bad month for me. Now I live in SoCal, and definitely miss snow, but it was 84 degrees today... I think it can depend on other factors. For example, if your funding is good enough, you will be able to live more comfortably and engage in the kinds of luxuries that might make things more bearable. You also might have the health insurance for treatment if your SAD is bad. If your funding is bad and you are already miserable working a side job while doing coursework or something, the weather will probably make your misery worse. Or, for example, I found the PacNW beautiful and took drives out to the coast/mountains/etc. all the time and in the rain, which helped break the oppressive monotony of endless clouds.

I decided to convert to Chicago endnotes because I thought footnotes would lengthen my paper too much. I think they'll see you have footnotes and know it lengthens the paper, but I was still a little worried because my sample is 23 pages without footnotes (it's 25 or 26 now if you count the endnotes). If you're close to the limit, you might convert to endnotes, just in case?

Thanks. I hope you're right. I keep telling myself that I'm applying to creative programs where it should matter even less than it does for purely academic ones, but I studied for three months and knew so much material and still received a mediocre score. I've never been good at speed reading under pressure for these kinds of tests; I find that I'm so nervous that I have to read a passage two or three times, and just overall had to rush through so much of it and leave more blank than I had on any of my practice tests. It's a real blow to my self-esteem and, also, reminds me just how much time I really wasted preparing for this test that could have been spent working on my manuscript and getting my work out there. But thanks -- if I still get in, I know it will all be okay and forgotten. I know someone at my first choice program accepted without scores because he was ill for the test; they let him take it in April, so they could just add the scores to his file. It's a glimmer of hope, anyway. To the person who was unsure about a 630: Be happy, very happy. You could be sub-600, like me.

Ugh, and then I used my registration number and paid again and found out I did terribly. I hate this.

OMG WTF. So I called and submitted my social and everything and they gave me someone elses's general test scores. So, I spent 12 dollars on someone else's scores!!!! Why does someone else have my social? They confirmed the number. Why don't they confirm your NAME!? Couldn't the woman spell out the letters of your last name or something? I could run this company better. I would like to add that I just got audited for a godawful amount of money by the IRS despite making below poverty wages last year, so losing twelve dollars counts, and also this has already been a terrible few days. Then I tried my confirmation number and birthday and test date and they have no record of the test. Then I tried my social security number again and they had no record at all. So for some reason my social worked for someone else's scores, and then didn't work at all. I can't call for help until Monday, when they're "open." Maybe not every score has been updated? Since Mon. is the official date? Or maybe they just screwed up my entire file, I don't know. I won't know for two days why there is no record of my scores and why my social unlocked someone else's score report. Just one more reason to hate this awful, worthless company.

I completely agree that this person shouldn't "talk to someone" to report this other person just because of a gut feeling that something is wrong. But was that advice even given? At least, when I agreed with someone above re: talking to someone, it was with this: "I agree with the suggestions that you speak to someone about this, someone you trust to give you sound advice and not just dismiss your impression as a misreading or an overreaction. Together you can develop a strategy for dealing with this man appropriately. You can plan exactly how you will react the next time you see him, "script" and everything." I think it's fine to talk to a close friend that you trust to be supportive and to keep your concerns secret. In my graduate program, I had a couple friends I could trust with that kind of information, and whose advice I believe I could trust as well. That's what friends are for. It seems too early to raise concerns with people in power, based on the description of the situation; doing that prematurely could have terrible consequences. But I do think it's probably okay to talk to a very close friend (not an acquaintance).

bear hug

I'm sure this is not the only man in the world who has held a door for you. And you said you're usually flattered when men flirt with you, so it's not as if you are freaking out about flirting in general. I agree with the person above; women are often told that they're overreacting, and only you can really judge what's happening. Don't dismiss your gut reaction to the behavior just because men often feel the need to be "gentlemanly." It sounds as if you are reading a "vibe" via body language (including the eyes) and tone of voice, beyond the surface actions. I have been "flirted" with by men innocuously and not so innocuously, and often it's not so much what is said and done, but how. It's easy to say "Oh, he's just holding doors and smiling at you! He's just being nice," but not being there in person, you really can't know the whole of it--there might be more to it. I've had men be "friendly" to me in a way that was creepy and made me distinctly uncomfortable, even though if I transcribed it here, I might get the same reaction as you (that I'm taking it too seriously or whatever). If it were me, I guess I'd just keep an eye on it and make sure it didn't escalate into harassment. I'm not one to talk to someone about it. But you could always do that if that makes you feel better about the situation. It's probably nothing but good to stay vigilant.

"How did she get X award and X fellowship with such terribly immature and lackluster work?" and "Why doesn't she have more publications?" Answer 1: I don't know how the eff. Answer 2: The work still feels inadequate so I don't really send it out enough. I also hope they don't notice or care how my last semester of senior year was such an undemanding one. I had already been accepted to grad school and didn't expect to be going further, so I took it rather easy in comparison to previous semesters, so I could enjoy the last few months and spend time with my friends. (Though two of the four courses, being in the 400-level, might look like more work than they actually were). Otherwise, I think things are pretty solid. Acceptable GRE, very high UG and grad GPA, a couple high notes on the CV, etc. It's just, you know, the most important parts of my application that feel weak. No big deal...