ComeBackZinc

I would just support what Stately said about having more outs on the job market. A small but consistent number of PhDs go straight into industry, and those can be fulfilling careers.

I'm sitting in the guest bed, dog curled up at my feet, Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism on my lap, taking alternating sips of wine and coffee, listening to a podcast, and churning through a final paper that's due tomorrow morning. You guys are gonna love this so much....

Never underestimate the power of mental momentum. Over the course of a few months, you've go through manic effort, panic, elation, huge life choices, elation again, and then... waiting.

Those were two of the first rhet/comp books I ever read. Love them both. Two more I would recommend to anybody interested in rhet/comp are The Rhetoric of Rhetoric by Wayne Booth and Composing Research by Cindy Johanek,

For the specific question of what to do if you decide you do want to switch offers, call BC and be completely upfront. Be apologetic, be polite, and speak specifically about the funding, which is a very legitimate and understandable reason to switch (especially given the reality of the lit job market). Don't burn your bridges.

You're right, of course.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2012/04/grad_school_admissions_grad_cafe_exposes_gen_y_s_job_search_angst_.html And, with that, I think I'll bid this forum adieu. Creepy....

This is just one man's opinion, but I figure chasing trends is a recipe for a headache. What's trendy now won't be by the time you finish your dissertation. And what's trendy then won't be by the time you're up for tenure. Good scholarship is good scholarship. Keep your focus on that.

Oh, I don't disagree with you there.

You said on a different post that this forum is "easy to troll." I used my amazing powers of deduction to conclude that you are, in fact, a troll. And you haven't done much to dissuade me from that stance since.

I would add the desire to teach.

That woman has more presence than any human being I've ever encountered in real life. And I met President Clinton.

Depends. Often, if you have a grad student's badge, they'll just hand you a book. Sometimes they'll make you fill out a form and give it to you, sometimes you fill out a form and they'll send you one in the mail (typically, only to a departmental address). Now, how honest you are in all of that is up to you. Most of the time, the forms indicate that you're getting the book because you're interested in teaching it, and you'll have to sort of indicate that such is the case. In practice, they usually don't care, but you can keep the pretense going in the conversation. I mean, I'm teaching a freshman composition learning community, but I still got a free copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses. I don't think there's anybody who was "fooled" by my ordering a desk copy for evaluation for a class. That's just the protocol. At the booths at big conferences it can depend a lot. Usually, be polite, be upfront about wanting a free copy of a specific book, and you'll get it. At C's this year I asked for a copy of the Rhetorical Tradition, which is like $80, and the lady just handed it to me without question, or a form, or anything.

One of the advantages of registering at a conference of MLA's size is that you'll need your badge to get into the convention space where you can get free books and swag.

I wouldn't even call it fortunate or unfortunate; it's just life. There's no human endeavor where patronage doesn't play some role. Part of the reason for that is that this stuff isn't nefarious, or thought of in that way. Nobody ever says "ah, this PhD applicant is totally unqualified, but my buddy wants us to take him/her on." The reality is that, with the crazy numbers in this process, people are both entirely qualified and helped immeasurably by their connections. If you're looking at hundreds of applications of eminently qualified candidates, all with perfect grades, great writing samples, and SOPs that seem to fit, how do you whittle the pile down? Well, if you know another professor, and that professor says "this kid is brilliant," it's going to make a difference. And that's not even necessarily wrong. But in a context where a top school might have a cohort size of, say, 6, when you have only a handful of people taking advantage of those kinds of connections, you're still talking about a significant difference in who gets in and who gets let out. Prestige of BA/MA institutions matters, too. I think it is so rarely discussed in large part because it's immutable by the time you are applying, and people in forums like these want to accentuate the positive. But, sure. Prestige matters. Professors are susceptible to the glamour of prestigious U's too. There are a lot of exceptions to this stuff, of course. My BA is from an open enrollment public U, for instance, and I'm sure many others here have similar stories. It's an arcane, alchemical process. But those things do matter and you can't afford to just ignore them when considering this process.

Perhaps email and ask?

And what a great program.

BOOM. Congrats, Trip.

Big, big smile! I know it can't have been an easy choice to turn down such a fantastic program as Penn State. I'm thrilled to know you're coming here.

Bonus for our friends in the gay community: in that episode Slater refers to Screech as a twink.

So happy for you guys. (ps I think the best episode of television is the one where Zack finds out he has a Native American grandfather and has a vision.)

Congratulations to all! UT is such a great school.

Signed, everyone who came after Hegel.

Looks like "Angel Pru." Then again, I was the idiot who forgot to write in reverse, so.

I should say that I was only affirming that grad school can have its share of pretentious jerks, and that people need to take care about not romanticizing too much. That's all. I've never been to Austin, although a good friend of mine finished his PhD in African history there within the last couple of years and he loved it.