ComeBackZinc

It depends, in my experience. You've got to be able to credibly say that you have the background necessary to teach certain classes. And coursework, in many places, is deeply tied to secondary areas/specializations which will be important on the market. A couple course substitutions here or there won't make much difference. But there are non-trivial differences between different secondary areas on the market. The other thing is that if you are pursuing some sort of a hybrid identity, your coursework can help to reassure one camp or another that you are part of their team. I think an example of where coursework is particularly pertinent includes research methods, although this will be less relevant to you as you are in literature. In my opinion, two aspects of coursework are particularly important even if individual courses aren't taken that seriously on the market: one, because you should be turning seminar papers into articles for publication, or for chapters if not, or for conference papers at the very least. Write nothing longer than a couple pages for free; always think of where you can pitch your papers after some revision and expansion. Second, coursework is where you learn. I'm a lot less dumb now because of coursework.

God, no. Take the job.

Hit me on private messages if you want to know about Purdue. I'm here and loving it.

I encourage you to do a search of the forum for this topic, as there are several long threads devoted to the idea.

to get that cheese

Bit by bit, more jobs have been trickling out. Still a rough year but it's a little better.

^ ha I thought it was Gilbert Godfried.

Some dweeb.

A nice compliment from someone who appreciates your work should be savored! It's not a guarantee of anything, and you shouldn't get too invested in it. But you should definitely enjoy it. You deserve to.

Already on the list!! That's one bright note: tons of great public California U's.

Which is not meant to discourage! These things are cyclical.

I don't mean to be a downer, but boy, is the MLA job list brutal this year. None of my faculty have ever seen anything like it. Even by a generous definition of what's a R/C job, I don't count more than 50. And the field will probably produce at least 250-300 new PhDs this year. Being on the market, this is... somewhat worrisome! Of course, I believe there's less than 10 jobs for medievalists, so it's all relative.

Great list, great programs. Consider Eastern Michigan at all?

Hey, no problem.

This is a perennial question around here. The broad answer is that programs are very interested in trying to assess their place among programs in their field-- their perceived prestige, the perceived difficulty of getting in, the kind of clustering by discipline/focus/time period, etc. Now there are always people who pop up and say that this is a stealth way for them to evaluate you. I reject this because it's part of the most wrongheaded way to think about the process, which is a) that you need to do something special to get in and that they need to do something special to keep you out. People are forever deciding that they need to find some sort of gimmicky way to make themselves unique in the eyes of the programs that they apply to. They are also forever deciding that the programs are looking for gimmicky ways to keep you out. But the reality is that there are plenty of reasons in your actual application for departments to decide for or against you. It's simply not necessary for them to find sneaky ways to entrap you. There's so many perfectly mundane, legitimate reasons that they might reject your application. So fill out that section or don't, but please recognize: they don't need to find any special pretext for rejecting you. Honest. They aren't looking to catch you up. They're reviewing hundreds of these apps, and they're looking at grades, SOPs, letters of rec, writing samples, and GREs. They don't have time or inclination to read the tea leaves of the other schools you're applying to and come to some conclusion about you. Why would they need to?

Hey, look at it this way: all "real" grad students feel like impostors, so knowing that you feel like an impostor makes you less of an impostor.

Also: feeling anxious is totally normal and understandable to everyone. But don't forget to feel good about the opportunity you have, which is rare and wonderful. Getting your MA for free will improve your life no matter what your future in the academy might be, so try to keep that in mind when you're feeling some of this anxiety and confusion.

"Am I overthinking this?" Yes. "Is it really that bad to step outside the box for a little bit?" No. "Can pursuing a degree outside of your intended field be considered a good thing?" Sometimes, sure. Is the decision between having an MA degree paid for and paying your own way at a school you consider more prestigious? Because I would urge you as strongly as I possibly can to pursue the former option.

My fellowship is taxed, but it comes out of the check, so I don't have to worry about setting money aside. In any case: your department's financial officer, whatever his or her title, is employed to help you out with this sort of thing, so don't hesitate to email and ask.

Hmmmmm. So I personally took a lot of classes, sometimes against the advice of faculty; I took a semester with four classes a couple times. However, a) I was teaching only one class section, and it was freshman comp, which I've taught many times. Teaching two separate classes is a much higher bar to clear than teaching two sections of the same class. If you're teaching two different courses, my recommendation to you is to only take two classes unless you really feel that you will never have the opportunity to fit in these courses again. Especially because, as this is your first semester, you don't yet have the experience of past semesters to guide you. Then again, if you decided to go through with it, I would understand perfectly.

Dissertating. Two and a half chapters down.

I believe-- and I could be wrong-- that Cindy Selfe is no longer taking on new advisees.

Are the two classes you're teaching two sections of the same course? Same syllabus? If so, my opinion, three is doable.

You might consider looking at the program of last fall's Feminisms and Rhetorics conference for titles of panels and papers that interest you, and then you could research the presenters. http://cwshrc.org/femrhet2013/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/FemRhet-Program-2013-reduced1.pdf If you're interested in writing center work, you could find a lot of great information on the WPA listserv archives. https://lists.asu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=WPA-L