OnceAndFutureGrad

Honestly? I'm interested in museum studies, I live in New Jersey and went to school in Connecticut, and I've never heard of it. Sorry. A MS sounds cool, though. Is there conservation training involved?

I fully agree. At first I was all, "well let's just see what programs are in my area...typetypetype...Temple, eh? I have three good friends going there, I may as well give them a chance." I e-mailed the department admissions person and she recommended several POIs for me. I went just for a casual visit and I was blown away. I sat in on a presentation by a POI and one of her students and it was clear that scholarship is top notch. Everyone was extremely kind and welcoming too, which is more than I got from several other schools. The art history department itself is uncomfortably shoehorned into the fine arts building, but the facilities are gorgeous even on a pissing-rain day and it's obvious that the whole of Tyler is up-and-coming. I still have to get funding details and to hear back from another school, but I'm really proud of my admission and only a serious discrepancy in funding would keep me away. Thanks for all of your kind words! I hope everyone else is experiencing success. If not, PM me. I can console you.

What's that? That - that envelope with the return address from Tyler School of Art. Oh, it's so small. Oh, it's so early. It must be some kind of request for more information. It could be a rejection. This early? Really? Let's park the car before I open it. Tear, tear, tear - three folded sheets - nice paper - what does it say? "On behalf of the Dean...blah blah blah...and with the approval of the Admissions Committee...blah blah blah....you have been admitted to the PhD curriculum...." Wait, I'm misreading this. "you have been admitted" What is this phrase?! I'm unfamiliar with it! All I ever get is platitudes about how many qualified applicants there were! "you have been admitted" Sweet burning Brigit! I've finally gotten in!!!!! WHY AM I CRYING Ahhh! I'm still in a car! Where's my cell phone? How does a phone number work? What are "Contacts"? What is this sorcery!? Turn off the car first. Ahhhh!!! - My mental state one hour ago

As a Freshman English instructor I only graded papers, and most of them came to me as rough drafts first. So the initial grading was more, "how do I instruct them to construct a better argument?" while the second grading was, "how successfully did they improve upon their earlier work?" I only gave quizzes when I suspected that students weren't reading, and then the wrong answers were pretty darn hilarious. First week of results come and gone and nothing for me! I do hope to get notifications soon. Hold tight. "Ugh, the weekend already?"

Yes. Ohhh yes. Steamy, passionate love. The older, the hotter. What can I say, I'm an... early riser...

Edit: Wait! I figured it out - I was NOT seeing things, I just exchanged Yale for Princeton. Who got the PRINCETON admit?

Congrats to the Yale acceptance! Anyone gonna step forward and claim it?

Art Whostory! The domain is unused. We'll wield Sonic Slideclickers and defeat the Daleks with dazzling aesthetics. Edit: Are you sure that Pollock is a fake? "Trust me, I'm the Doctor!" Also: Of COURSE our enemy is the Master..."He dropped out before taking comps!"

I second that. The banner can be the TARDIS hidden in various works of art throughout time.

Thank you. I was on tenterhooks all yesterday afternoon hoping that I hadn't brought you down! There are just so many people on GradCafe who, it seems, exist only for that acceptance and cannot imagine life outside (or alongside) the typical PhD-postdoc-tenure avenue. Having a year outside the "system" made me sure that I really do want to be a part of that system, but with the wisdom that only exile can provide. It also made me realize how sure I am that I love my boyfriend (now fiancé), and spending time with my friends' children re-affirmed that I want to become a parent sooner rather than later. The initial idea of "get a PhD, get a job, get married, have a kid, in that order" has given way to the happier concept that life does not happen in sequence. Finally, becoming an EMT and learning about anatomy, injury, illness, and what to do when sh*t hits the fan filled gaps in my psyche, abating worries that I was "intrinsically useless". I see now that I was depressed - or at least performance-affectingly despondent - as a student of theoretical history and that I will always need a pragmatic base as motivation. I know for certain that I would have burnt out long before finishing an enormous dissertation on, say, Irish influence in Icelandic literature (my undergraduate senior thesis). Now that I have things going on in my life outside of translating Old Norse, or the iconological interpretation of Anglo-Saxon crosses, I can stay focused on the task at hand for as long as I need to. Writing myself into a corner, or realizing that I have constructed a circular argument, is merely a setback in my work instead of failure at life in general. I hope that you, jilly, and any other graduate student can find external strength and motivation if your work falters or is poorly received. TL;DR: PhD work is maddening, have other things in your life to keep you sane.

Rabbit! And happy Imbolc/Oimelc/Candlemas for those who celebrate.

The only Yale thing that happened today was in astronomy...

Hi jilly11, it took me a while to formulate my response, but I think I'm ready to respond. I attempted to get into the PhD right out of undergrad three years ago, but I failed - and now that I have perspective, I wouldn't have changed that for the world. I'm not going to say that you cannot or should not go into the PhD program right out of undergrad, but I will say that you are against some tough odds. Just getting accepted is one thing, but it sounds like you are aware of the challenges inherent in that. Being a PhD-level graduate student is very difficult. The coursework is more challenging and less structured than in undergrad, and you will probably be held to a higher standard than MA students in your department. If you are the standard age of an American undergraduate senior (22) with a typical education and job history, it is likely you will be alongside people in their mid- to late-twenties and thirties with past careers, spouses, children, and other life experiences that may make you feel immature or unprepared. Also, you will likely be TA'ing students who are around your age and it can be difficult to summon the presence necessary to lead a classroom, assign grades, and so on. PhD-level demands like writing for publication, preparing for oral exams, and taking years to research and write a dissertation require fortitude and determination not often found in people without a history of triumph despite adversity in fields other than education. Assuming that you have been in school since kindergarten, you may have not lived life outside of a school-year schedule, and a year into your PhD coursework is not the time to wonder if you are capable of being an academic forever. All that being said, I do know people who are working on their dissertation without any break in education who are happy as clams about it. It's certainly possible. And I may be barking up the wrong tree if you are an atypical student with more life experience than most. But as I said, as disappointed as I was in 2009, I realize now how much trouble I'd be in if I had started the PhD program then. I hope you don't see this as discouragement, but rather honest and solicited advice.

I agree. Apart from the adcoms, I suppose. That's what gets me most; that despite all our work it comes down to what sort of candidate the adcoms are looking for. Numbers are important but it sure isn't a numbers game. It brings me back to competitive marching band in high school. Technical execution was most important in scoring, but that was closely followed by whether or not the judges actually liked your show. I guess most judged things are like that.

Tyler School of Art gave out its first acceptance last year on February 2nd. I know that the department had my file last week. You better believe I'm tethered to my inbox.

The way I see it, I'd either be driving my non-academic friends crazy in Facebook, or having halfway constructive conversation on here. If I don't give up any personal face-to-face interaction, I think it's okay.

It sounds, flower!, like you are doing your best to patch the art historical gaps in your education, and I'm sure that it'll be worth it. Whatever postbacc courses you're doing, rack 'em up, and consider taking additional art history courses at your local community college as well. I know that the institution where I got my MA required its BFA students to take art history courses, so you've probably been taking art history for a while now. Combining your experience in art history and studio will make you a stronger candidate than a strictly art history student, as long as you've gotten nearly as many courses as a typical art history undergrad education requires (6? 9? 12?). On another note, my adviser became an art historian in graduate school after earning a BFA. It was a long time ago, but clearly her success is a sign that you can do it too. One thing she mentioned was that she found writing at the graduate level difficult because she didn't write many essays as an undergrad, but it sounds like you're working to correct that right now.

I'll find out! My GRE is V690, Q680, A4.5 (ETS estimates V165 Q153 in current scoring). I'm still annoyed by the A-score but reasonably proud of the others. My POIs said they were strong, and they were enough to get me into an MA program. I hope that helps.

This discussion about studio art and its relationship to art history gets me thinking about another field that somewhat overlaps but is also somewhat in opposition: archaeology. I went to a field school last summer when I was exploring other options and I thoroughly enjoyed excavation. Obviously later periods of art have virtually nothing to do with archaeology, but earlier periods such as my own often rely on field discoveries (the Staffordshire hoard being an obvious example). A number of universities combine art history and archaeology, but others divide them on the art/science line. Does anyone have any experience with archaeologist-art historian crossovers?

I was confused too, but I believe Hicks is referring to the Visual Studies program...?

If you feel like you can't handle a LDR, then you can't. If you feel like you can, then you can try. It's as easy as that. My now-fiance and I were an ocean, then over an hour, then several hours apart over the past four years. Now we live together. If I get into grad school, I'll again be several hours from him, but that's the way it is. We make it work because the rest of our lives are more important than "the right now". Not every relationship is marriage material and not every person is looking to make that sort of sacrifice, especially at this age (presuming the typical early-mid-20s grad school applicant age). But if you want to make it happen, you can. The possibility and success of an LDR - heck, any relationship - depends on the people involved, not the circumstances surrounding them.

Good-ish news on this end! I submitted my Tyler application in December, and when I checked up on it the week before it was due, I saw that they didn't have my undergraduate transcript. I e-mailed the grad office and they said that they hadn't received it at all, and I couldn't figure out if I had actually requested it or not (yikes!). So I requested it (maybe again?) from Rutgers, who confirmed its departure three days before the deadline. I was sweating a little but I know that Tyler date stamps their received materials, and even if it were a day or two late it wouldn't be awful. Besides, New Brunswick to Philadelphia shouldn't be that long for a standard piece of mail. Anyway, I still spent two weeks checking up on my application, and every day its status was "Incomplete Items Outstanding". Finally today I caved in and gave the admissions department a call. They confirmed that they were still processing received materials, but told me that my file had gone on to the department anyway! My graduate GPA was high enough to expedite review! Yay! I mean - ahhh!! They're looking at me!!!

I love that. It's the ultimate in zeitgeist. Even if QR codes become obsolete, it'll be a testament to the time when you could do that sort of thing! I have 4 tattoos, all based directly or indirectly on medieval sources. 2 are based on Hiberno-Saxon manuscript design, particularly the Book of Kells; one contains elements from 12th-century Dutch manuscript of Manx heraldry; and one is a conflation of the Snaptun bellows stone and Scandinavian rune stones. Among the 4 tattoos are 3 words of Old Irish and 4 of Old Norse. I have plans for more, including an abbreviation of the Gosford Cross design and elements from the Tara Brooch. I guess you could say medieval studies *puts on sunglasses* has gotten under my skin (YEEAAAHHH)