kfed2020

Bad haircuts and the aspiring investment banker look... lol. (some of) Harvard in a nutshell. I'm so sad that I won't be here when you all come next year! Do come. Harvard needs you.

You know, though ... an interdisciplinary degree from Harvard/Yale/etc. ain't so bad. There are some programs -- Harvard Am Civ, Yale Am Studies, Berkeley Rhetoric, etc. -- that are so well-known you won't have much of a problem, because scholars trust that students from these fields receive incomparable training. Not to mention -- and this is big: Harvard would not start any program that wouldn't get its students great jobs. It cares too much about its own reputation to let an entire department of students sink, and the department really has to get those students placed if it wants to stick around. Am Civ will take care of you, believe me. Am Studies at Yale, too. I mean, currently there are two profs in the English department at Penn who have interdisciplinary degrees -- one from Rhetoric (who's currently DGS) and one from Harvard Am Civ, and she graduated in 07 I believe. And I know at Princeton English they have two junior faculty from Performance Studies at NYU and one from Rhetoric, so -- recent hires. At this tier of schools, what's more important is really the work you're producing. If you know what kinds of departments you'd want to teach in, tailor yourself early on to make a name for yourself in that field. "Harvard," "Yale," "Berkeley" etc. will always get your job app at least a decent look, but you've really got to shape yourself into a someone with tangible potential, just as you would in any disciplinary field! At this point, I really think we need to think less about how the schools we attend will train us and more about how we can use each school's resources to train ourselves. Keeping that in mind will make it work out for us all, I think. ... I hope. [looks to Obama to save the country from ruins.]

lol. Yeah, yeah. But later they sing: "I wish I could go back to college..." Bet you don't hear that from many engineers.

But of course! I'd also like the emphasize that most of my gripes are with professor life here. Being a student has its ups and downs, in terms of doing progressive work. Salamishah Tillet [who, oddly enough, I'll be meeting for the first time in a couple weeks] does amazing work and is fairly progressive, you're right. There's also a new jr. prof at Berkeley, Namwali Serpell, who does progressive work and is amazing, as well. And then there's me, and I"m the only undergrad doing Performance Studies work at the college that I know of; there's one grad student in the Af Am department doing it. I'd like to think I'm doing fairly progressive stuff, but I'll have to study at a more progressive place to be sure. We all 4 of us had/have the same adviser. That should suggest that it's possible to be edgy here, but that the faculty who're useful in that regard might be limited. Robin Bernstein qualifies, obviously, and so does our adviser Glenda Carpio (love her!) I also don't want to give the impression that Harvard is not a wonderful place. I suspect that no matter what you study you'll do GREAT work if you have the potential, same as anyone else at any other school -- Because there are some really important faculty who're important for a reason, and if you're someone like me who thinks that sometimes interdisciplinary scholars seem a little lacking on the disciplinary training, going to a school that appreciates disciplinarity might prove beneficial. It has for me. I've gotten wonderful training in literary theory and American history that has proven SO beneficial. If you're interdisciplinary, you'll be such no matter where you go; there's perhaps something to be said for putting the accountability on yourself to do this while the school offers you the structure and canonical training that you need. I don't know. No, I haven't made up my mind about where I'm going. Not officially... Have any of you? I need to turn in my thesis before I start thinking about my *future*. The English prof who toys with queer genres, btw, is Matt Kaiser. He's amazing. Not only is he incredibly smart and a talented instructor (he's managed to make a Victorian Lit class THE MOST POPULAR class on campus this semester. Whoa) he's also, 1) charismatic, 2) well-dressed, 3) hott. Lord.

Haha. I might be jaded... You might be right... You probably are. But, in a way, that's kind of what Harvard does to people, and that's maybe something anyone who wants to come here will need to learn for him/herself. I love it here; don't get me wrong. But I've seen too many brilliant professors get the boot for 'not being good enough,' and too many wonderful youngish (in academia-years) professors come from elsewhere and realize how much they dislike it here, for reasons that I'm beginning now to understand as I think more about my own life in this profession. The fact is -- and it's true, and it's known: Harvard is not the place to be a rising young star. That's not how this school works. Other schools nurture, develop, etc.; Harvard steals. The big names rarely started here. They were poached. And they're often traditional; if they're not, they're just remarkably bad-ass, but what academic culture deems "bad-ass" seems, on the whole, to be fairly prescribed and predictable, to me. And whom Harvard steals is very much dependent upon what those people do as well as how well they do it. Don't hold your breath for the English department to ever hire someone in Performance Studies -- even if Princeton, among others, finds it completely legitimate. See how many classes in Latino/a studies we have here, across the entirety of the college/grad school. You can count them on one hand. We don't even have a specialist in the Romance Languages dept. Did you notice, by the way, that our women/gender/sexualities division is not a department, but a 'committee'? Ask English undergrads how hard it'd be for them to get a film class to count towards their requirements, while you're at it. Hell, I'm the only undergraduate in Comparative Literature who's an African Americanist; I'm the only one who even remotely bothers with queer genres, as well. In Comp Lit! FYI, there's also only one Prof in the English department who's even willing to teach a queer class, and he hasn't gotten tenure yet, so check in again in 5 years to see if he's still around. etc. The fact is, many of us /will/ do great work -- and many of us /will/ be marginalized by schools like Harvard. I say "etc" because I think we need to figure out for ourselves which schools belong to this category; even among the Ivies, it varies. There's a reason I didn't apply to English here. There's a reason I didn't even study English as an undergraduate. Luckily, Harvard isn't the be-all end-all of rational academic decision-making. But I do think it's reflective of a particular type of academic culture that I -- being someone into performance studies, queer genres, etc. -- plan to avoid like the plague. Who would my colleagues be? Who would support my work? I think Am Civ is a different kind of department, in that it's interdisciplinary by nature and you can make it work for yourself. And the Harvard name will carry you far. But don't -- if you do interesting, edgy things and want great institutional support and an actual chance at tenure -- try to teach here.

Hey y'all. I had a pretty good run at applying to graduate school this year, and I learned a few things that might be helpful. I'll write them in direct response to the OPs suggestions for himself, because these were exactly the things I worried about when applying this year. 1) GREs. I would make a point of getting at least a 600V, but beyond that I wouldn't stress too much over it. In simple terms: which speaks more to your potential as a scholar? -- your GRE verbal scores, which account for 30 minutes of your life, or your writing samples, which demand much more of your intellectual energy? The things profs at each of my schools remembered about me had everything to do with my ideas and nothing to do with my numbers. I put grades in this category, too. 2) Subject Test. This probably depends on your field, but on the whole, I wouldn't stress so much over this, either. I bombed (seriously: bombed) the GRE subject test and got into a top tier school that required it. The GRE subject exam only means so much. At the end of the day, while great, broad training is important before getting to graduate school, this is training that any grad program worth its money will go out of its way to provide you. It's also training that's best reflected in your transcript. Not to mention -- for someone like me, who studies African American and queer genres, that test seems largely to think that what I want to study is canonically irrelevant, so f' it. 3) Pick good schools for yourself. Yes: apply to a good range of schools, but don't apply anywhere that isn't a number one choice. Applying to schools you're not excited about is a waste of money if you know you wouldn't seriously want to attend -- even if you're sure you could get in. The PhD process is lonely and isolating enough without the added torture of hating your school, advisers, etc. Really think about what you want from a program: Ask not what you can do for the program; ask what the program can do for you. Heh. I, at least, found that approach pretty empowering, and it was good to keep in mind as a narrowed my list down to my 7 number 1s. As well, I think people too often make the mistake of applying to a program for too few professors of interest. Realize that you're going to need to appeal to a committee of people, and that appealing only to a singular professor isn't going to cut it, especially at top-flight programs. There are many (very crazy) people who apply to Columbia to work with G.Spivak (again, they're crazy), but if she isn't on the admissions committee -- and even if she is -- your app is going to need to convince the other 5 or so readers that they, too, would love to see you attend their program. This doesn't mean you need to have a wide wingspan of interests, but it does mean that scholars from different corners of the discipline have to be convinced of your importance to the field. They're looking, not only for students, but for future colleagues; the applications that stand out are the ones with which the professors can put themselves in conversation as potential peers. It also helps to apply to schools that are moving in the direction of your work. One of my schools is really getting more interested in performance studies and African American studies, as reflected by recent hires; I would've been a crazy person not to apply, not only because it was becoming more of a fit for me, but also because new faculty hires means the schools are looking to build cohorts of students interested in those fields. It's a very good strategy for getting in -- and more importantly, a great strategy for determining 'fit.' 4) Don't publish. I really wouldn't worry about this. You've plenty of time to make a name for yourself in the field; publishing now seems almost too professionalized for applying to graduate programs that intend to indoctrinate you into this profession. Unless your work winds up in a highly respected journal with a very stringent peer review system, the adcom is always going to rely more on its own opinions of your work than on the stamp of approval from a little-known journal. Work with the goal of making that sample the best it can be for the adcom; publish later. 5) The SOP is high priority. Agreed. My SOP is probably one of the best things I've ever written, and that's because it took me about 5 months to write. And it's only 2 pages! Give it to friends who aren't lit geeks; does it provoke them? Does it make them want to ask you questions about your work? Do they find it confusing and inaccessible? Too jargonistic? Too long? Repetitive? These opinions help... I hope this helps...

Harvard comes to mind, as well. Helen Vendler ain't a theorist.

Has NYU notified yet? My friend applied there, but I'm afraid to ask her about it...

I don't know if I'd blame this on adcoms, or even departments themselves. Keep in mind all these decisions are filtered through the Graduate school; it's very possible that the adcoms have made their decisions and shipped them off to the higher powers, where they're being mailed out along with all of the other departments' decisions. And shooting people in the face is kind of a brutal image... I don't know that anyone deserves to die for rejecting someone, not even in a joke.

1) Hot mess. I'm leaving it at that. You took it to a new level, such that I can safely admire it while still maintaining that good grammar is an asset to the aspiring intellectual. 2) We were and we weren't. Harvard's af am department isn't just an 'af am department' -- every student is pushed to work within a particular discipline outside of the department in order to be more marketable and disciplinary. I used English as an example because it's the dept. I know best, but I'm sure what I said holds for the other departments. 3) Sure we can. Do their advisees produce challenging, fresh work -- or don't they? You can't judge a book by its cover, but I think it's fair to judge a professor by his/her intellectual legacy. Look at Judith Butler -- her intellectual spawn are everywhere, and they're often doing great things. Sure that has a lot to do with their own capabilities. But the commonality in adviser and their willingness to constantly engage her work speaks volumes. (Also, I know for a fact that she's helpful/nice). Also: I would never say Harvard's culture is changing. I merely meant they're more undergrad-friendly than they used to be. I wouldn't put my money on some radical ideological shift anytime soon.

(Pet peeve alert: "c'est la vie," and "converse." Conversate is not a word... I hate to be 'that guy,' but we're getting PhD's, people! We need to step it up!) So, yes: many of the faculty at Harvard are superstars lacking in free time, but do realize that Harvard isn't shy about being a little grad-focused. Certainly that's been shifting, and yes there will always be professors to avoid -- Homi Bhabha would be an example -- but there are some really great mentors outside of some of the 'bigger names,' and these people are big names themselves: Larry Buell, Phil Fisher, others. I've not heard negative things about studying with Elaine Scarry. I mean, sure, she doesn't have an email address and is a little loopy, but she's a great ally. Helen Vendler is my friend's adviser, and he seems to adore her. I've heard good things about the medievalists, as well. As well, any Af Am student is going to have to work with Evelyn Higginbotham at some point, and she's got the tough matriarch style that some students find very, very beneficial. There are problems with Harvard's faculty, but I don't know that I'd accuse the English department as a whole of bad advising.

The way I think of it is simply in terms of schools where one develops one's career and schools where one goes to die. Fact is, Berkeley, Michigan etc. are schools where one goes to develop his/her career. They have higher appreciation for up-and-comers and are really a place where these junior faculty and thrive and produce their best work. Harvard et al, on the other hand, are the places where one goes to die: after they've produced their best work, after they've risen to the top of their field. It's the place where you go to be eminent, because the status of the school works in your favor and, of course, your bad-assness works in the school's favor. Think about it: Summers, Mankiw, Pinsky, Vendler, Bhabha, the list goes on. "Tops of their fields." Bernstein is great. But she's got to make some serious moves if she wants to stick around.

Still, though, KLH, you're in a quite wonderful position. Congrats on those acceptances!! Where are you leaning?

Harvard Am Civ is great, you guys. Congrats! It's really a quite rigorous and wonderful program, and students there seem happy, which doesn't always seem to be the norm in interdisciplinary programs given that 'interdisciplinary' comes with a degree of 'can't please everyone.' And yeah, Bernstein is a sweetheart. Undergrads love her, too. Buuuut... be weary of growing attached to untenured faculty, should you come to Harvard. A fact of life here is simply that the vast majority of them won't be sticking around. Sucks, but so it goes.

And I've heard Cornell is an altogether sad and depressed place. Something to think about. I was just at a visiting weekend for another school, and 5 of the G1s said they all turned down Cornell for their current institution because it seemed like students were way too unhappy. Imagine that. Grad school. Unhappy. Heh.

To be fair, Gates doesn't really promote himself as an advisor these days. There are some great people in the department, but it's true -- resources are limited. The thing you have to remember, though, is that all students on the PhD program are required to get a masters in their primary field. That means, if your field is English, potentially taking classes with Marjorie Garber, Larry Buell, Elaine Scarry, Homi Babha, etc., in addition to Werner Sollors, Biodun Jeyifo and Glenda Carpio in Af Am. Same with any other field. When you think of it this way, really you have all the resources that someone in one of those primary fields with would have -- plus the added benefit of great interdisciplinary race training. Really only good for the highly motivated, but definitely a strong program altogether.

I know a couple of people who are flying down for the interview this week/end.

hey, sorry for not seeing this. yes, i know because of my institutional proximity to the department -- but also because i got my rejection letter yesterday. =) womp womp. and also-also, it's no small secret that programs hesitate to take in a grad student that went to that same school for college, and since 2 of us applied this year, i knew it'd be the other person, whose project is much more of a fit for af am than mine. i really need to be in an english department.

Hey, no I don't; I only asked whether they'd be making decisions by the end of the month, and got confirmation Yes.

Congrats!

hey guys, don't give up on hope -- just today someone posted that they'd gotten the call from upenn saying they were accepted, and that's half a week after some of us were called. i dont know why there's ever the delay, but dont give up just yet. i'm confident that things will work out, in one way or another, for all of you. expecting the worst sometimes lends itself to pleasant surprises, but hopelessness is such a drag.

Hey, Wish I knew more, but I didn't think to ask. The website says they get about 300 applications for 20 spots (with a matriculation rate of 10) -- but who knows, with endowments shrinking and schools wanting to conserve, maybe they are accepting fewer and putting more people on the wait list, and maybe more people applied than usual. Schools seem to be calling in waves, though, so I think it's fair to say that today wasn't the end-all be-all of the acceptance process. Good luck!

Princeton, too...

I don't know, but my instinct is to say it ain't over til its over - or til the fat lady sings, as they say. I wouldn't assume a rejection unless I were holding it in my hand, if only because this process is volatile and random enough that you've got to allow for a few surprises.

Sorry, I don't know anything about Berkeley. My above post was referring to Stanford. although, given how few people posted acceptances to Berkeley on this page, I'd guess that Berkeley is nowhere near finished with its acceptances -- but who knows.