YH94

I will say work+mfa was going to be my plan as someone who has roots and a life in NYC! Even with stipends, I find that the usual mfa yearly income cannot be livable in NYC at all without a support system. I believe someone else said if you plan on being here long-term then job-school balance is very likely to happen either way. As for Queens College itself, I think it gives you a really unique position to get a taste of many different genres (yes you can take a poetry class, but literary translation is such a selling point to me considering Queens is world's most linguistically diverse urban area~ not to mention their faculty in children's/YA lit and speculative fiction; they also encourage electives like Columbia but for a MASSIVE fraction of the cost). Access to other CUNY system classes, like at the CUNY Grad Center, was also a huge draw considering I work in edtech and would LOVE to write while also taking a digital humanities class. Overall, I applied to Queens because so much of my writing centers Greek-American experiences in the borough, and so I wanted access to their archives (Louis Armstrong museum, Queens Memory Project, Hellenic American Project, etc.). There are a lot of particulars that drew me to Queens, and so if I were you I would consider what exactly you're aiming to have access to while in the MFA. Additionally if you've not visited then distance might be a factor. Queens College is located about 2-miles from the subway and more accessible by bus. It's a bit of a hike depending on where in the city you'll be based/coming from for your evening classes. Is your job in Queens as well or one of the other boroughs? Finally, I'm not sure if you received the same but the acceptance email was also incredibly warm and personalized I went to a reading on campus a few weeks back and got the chance to speak to a current poetry student, who then put me in contact with one of his professors who then put me in contact with an author I really enjoyed. The program seems like a welcoming community!

Made an account just to respond to this lol I'm 31 turning 32, and this is actually my first application cycle with a single waitlist at my top-choice, funded school (crickets from the others and they were only 4 in total!). No publications. Not even a Creative Writing BA. (Sorta) Unrelated career. Lots of detours I took on purpose even! Frankly, though, I don't regret how I ended up here and see that one measly waitlist as proof I took the right path so far no matter how "late" or amateur. At twenty-four I experienced family crises, moved abroad for years, pivoted fields, and met so many amazing people who inspire me (creatives and noncreatives alike!). I've discovered topics that ended up mattering more to me than I realized and why, and also developed myself outside of writing. I'm a passionate polyglot, educator, hobby artist, daughter, friend, community member, and Disability activist : ). These things drive me as much as writing (which has always felt like another heart in my chest tbh), and I'm at a point where I want that writing to be the vehicle that shares these passions with an audience. You're going to get your shot, because you're going to be discovering just as much between now and your acceptance. I'm sure you already also write beautifully about things that matter to you. Just keep being curious about the world and your place in it as both a writer and a person. EDIT: Just saw @A.M.'s reponse. Exactly thiiiiiiis. Love love love the idea of "fully inhabit yourself". Let that guide you!!!