ComeBackZinc

Two young scholars enter. Only one leaves alive.

1. "Hey, Prof So-and-So's last advisee is graduating this May. We need a couple more people studying Prof So-and-So's field, Queer Cyborg Novels of the Long 17th Century. Pull a couple out of the pile." 2. "Hey, Prof So-and-So? This is your old advisee, Associate Prof Such-and-Such. I've got this kid graduating from our BA at the end of the year. She's a great student, super smart, hardworking. And remember how we hired one of your advisees two years ago, and I was on the committee, and I threw my weight around? Yeah, anyway, look out for her app. Thanks!"

One thing to bear in mind: sometimes faculty members go off script and email admitees before the official results have been released, so that can be why you get a weird early notice or two on the board. I think the practice is frowned upon, but if the faculty member is tenured, they can pretty much do what they want.

UW system schools have already cancelled a bunch of faculty searches, and they're talking about laying off pre-tenure TT faculty. A friend of mine in the system was told by her chair that they might not be able to do her tenure review on time. So devastating. In conclusion, fuck you Scott Walker.

A couple things I can say for sure is that a) people have done it successfully in the past, always of course by being extremely polite, and that the ability to negotiate varies wildly by institution and department. In a lot of schools, DGS's have no ability to influence a grad student stipend; in some, they have some wiggle room. Go carefully, but it can and does happen.

This is part of your perennial reminder to never take those rankings seriously.

Hey, here I am, after all! And I'll tell you, going to grad school was the best decision I ever made. So I'm always trying to say these things from the point of view of someone who gets it. I just sometimes feel like people here say "I get how bad the market is" and then demonstrate, right after, that they don't really get how bad it is. So I just want to urge caution and express the other side a little.

I just have to say-- it's not just R1 jobs that are incredibly competitive.

I agree with almost everything that Wyatt's Torch says. I made the choice to enter an English PhD program in much the same shape as others: I had been on the job market for a couple years, I had gotten almost no offers, and those I had were far worse working conditions than being in a PhD program for not much more money. So if you go in informed, and you are prepared to move on away from academia after 5-7 years of work, then I totally get it. I made the same choice! Just make sure that when you say you are prepared to move on without getting a permanent position at a university, you know that's for sure true. You've really got to be 100% confident and comfortable in that. If you are, go for it; I personally am always deeply annoyed by the paternalism that crops up in a lot of "don't go to grad school" arguments. Just take the time to really deeply consider that possibility as a very likely outcome. That's all I mean to suggest.

I know that it is always sensitive when people bring up the job market here, so I'll just say this really briefly and everyone can feel free to ignore it if they choose. But I think that people who don't get in anywhere should think it over as an opportunity to extricate themselves from a field with truly brutal structural economic issues. You might look back one day and see this as dodging a bullet. I'm on the academic job market right now, and while I'm lucky to have some opportunities, I'm in a significant minority for PhDs who are graduating now. The market contracted even further this year, despite the fact that many people predicted a bounce back. The numbers were bad before 2008; they were cut in half that year; they not only have not recovered but if anything have gotten worse. People here have a general sense that the market is bad, but I don't think they (or most faculty, really) have absorbed just how bad it's gotten. I cannot stress enough what a brutal, dispiriting market it is. So I encourage you to give genuine and deep consideration to getting out of the race altogether, if you find yourself without any admissions. That's my spiel, and I won't clog up this thread otherwise. Good luck in general no matter what Plan Bs you guys decide on.

Man you guys are all meeting up at Cs the one year I decide not to go.

Programs aren't rigorous. You chart a rigorous path or you don't. I suppose the minimal amount of work and reading and effort you have to invest will vary from program to program. But at the high end, it's on you. Nobody is going to be looking over your shoulder to ensure that you're doing the necessary out-of-class work that is such an essential part of your graduate education. Nobody will handhold you through submitting to conferences, collections, and journals. Nobody is going to ensure that you're taking a sufficiently deep, varied, and challenging course load, beyond minimum departmental requirements. Rigor is something you can create, or not. That's true of essentially any program.

I would certainly not worry about hits to Academia.edu. There's no good that will come from worrying about it. Personally, I've actually discovered a lot of great work, and had some people find mine, through my Academia page and my website. But it's really not worth worrying about who's seeing it.

Let me hasten to add: I'm 100% with you on the theoretical side. It's absurd that a profession that celebrates intellectual freedom has some within it that are so terribly picky about minor issues of self-presentation and decorum. It's like the ideal of intellectual freedom, for these people, only applies to those who are only already in the club.

It may be another form of elision by professionalization, but that theoretical objection doesn't undermine the practicality of the advice. Which is to say that there are lots of different kinds of people on adcomms/search committees, and not all of them are entirely enlightened or open-minded, and the literature of the job market (especially) is full of deeply discouraging stories about minor reasons that committees found to disqualify specific applicants.

I don't think meritocracy is ever real, in any circumstance, and that the case for that is not political but empirical, with a growing tide of meticulous research demonstrating that received advantage plays an enormous role in life outcomes. Take, for example, Gregory Clark's book from last year The Son Also Rises, which demonstrates that it can take as long as eighteen generations for the received economic advantage of parentage to be dissolved. And that's all over the educational research as well. That said, we can and should work to make systems more fair and egalitarian where we can, and from what I've seen, there is a major premium attached to coming from a prestigious program, in a way that's out of step with our typical visions of academic merit. That's hard for people to hear, because there's an inherent bias towards wanting the system you're in to be fair, but I think it's important that we at least have it out about this tendency.

Of course some do. (And, by the way, I have it on good authority that many grad directors check this very page.)

While I agree that there are major issues in this study-- perceived in field prestige is more important than general perception of the school, after all, and there are huge differences between the hiring numbers between different programs within individual departments. But I'm also glad to see this in this space, because I fear that this is one of those issues where there can be a bit too much optimism. Of course there are exceptions where people from programs with lesser reputations get competitive jobs, but they are indeed exceptions. And with the overall numbers so bad, the power of these tendencies can be strong. It's very frustrating and unfortunate.

I'm in my fourth and final year, and I'm 33. Many of my classmates are older than me. Starting your PhD at 30 is not at all unusual so don't feel bad about it. I would recommend Wayne Booth's The Rhetoric of Rhetoric and Thomas Conley's Rhetoric in the European Tradition, both of which are brief and accessible. Unfortunately there's no individual text that performs the same functions for composition. I will say that anyone getting in this field should be aware that the job market, while much better than for lit, is still the academic job market. Which means it's tight. Really tight. Whatever sense some people have that an R/C job guarantees you a job should have gone away following the financial crisis. It's also my opinion that we've overexpanded, with too many doctoral-granting programs now. (Of course, the problem cannot be solved at the supply side.) I'm not saying this to discourage you or anyone else, just to make sure people have a realistic sense of what the rhet/comp advantage means and doesn't mean now. Lots of impressive students from good programs struggle to get placed. That's just a fact. For that reason, I recommend that you be somewhat mercenary in your career, in the sense that you pay attention to the market and what it's currently rewarding. I'm not saying that you should chase every fad. I am saying that you should think strategically about how you get credentialed and what you write your dissertation about. I also think that people should expand their definition of job success. There's lots of great non-TT jobs out there-- writing center jobs, administrative jobs, jobs in various teaching and learning and research centers. These can be very satisfying, rewarding careers and shouldn't be dismissed because they don't come with the potential for tenure. And look for more outs. Try to build the kind of resume that could help you apply to positions in related fields. There are great jobs out there in industry, working in areas like technical and business communication, environmental communication, etc. Keep that stuff in mind as you move forward.

It's a separate application process for MAs and PhDs. However, if you complete your MA here and are in good standing, and you develop a strong working relationship with faculty, you will almost certainly be offered admission to the PhD program. I would urge you to consider not deciding about whether to get your PhD before you start your MA. The pinch has come to rhet/comp writ large in terms of jobs-- it's still far better than lit, but since the financial crisis, it's become much more difficult. As you're likely aware, our placement record is competitive with any humanities program in the country, bar none, but that doesn't mean it's easy. One of the ways that we deal with it is to place some people into industry and some into alt academic positions-- a good number of our graduates have gone into non-TT writing center and admin jobs, which can be great gigs provided you're not hung up on tenure. Anyway: I'm just saying that the decision to pursue a PhD should be taken with trepidation no matter what the program, but getting a funded MA is a no-brainer if you're interested in the field. We fund all of our MAs; everyone who is offered acceptance into the program is offered two/five years of tuition waiver and stipend. The pay is not good, but the area is pretty cheap and after your first year you should be able to work three quarters time, which is much more doable, financially. It's a great place to be, though I will echo others in saying that there are a lot of great programs out there. So cast your nets wide, and let me know if you have questions. One thing I'll say upfront: the department has no formal waitlist, which can be very frustrating for people, because it can take a long time to hear anything back. Don't be insulted by the wait. The department feels that a formal waitlist can make people feel like they are less valued than those who weren't waitlisted. I'm not sure if that's worth the wait or frustration, but that's the rationale.

I do have some concerns about the housing around the university Let's chat! I've actually helped people from GradCafe find housing in the area in the past so feel free to contact me. is there any benefit to having your application sent out early? From what I understand, 99 times out of 100, they won't even know you turned your application in early. Don't sweat it.

That's a great list. As always, funding should be a very important criterion. As you know, Purdue R/C funds all of our MA students, although the stipend is low ($1,350 your first year with an option to work 3/4 time after that, bringing your monthly paycheck around $2,000). Please let me know if you have any questions about Purdue. PMs are fine.