histarthopeful

Thanks for the advice! My ultimate goal is to be a professor. I have always wanted to teach and have a desire/love for writing and research that I know only a PhD would fulfill. One of my undergrad advisers told me this: "Only go for a doctoral degree if you would have a hole in your heart if you weren't able to get that level of research done." And at that moment I knew that I had to get a higher degree. At this point, I'm just worried about how to get that accomplished and which route to get there is the best. I personally don't really want to take a year off because I'm one of those people who can't get enough of school, and even though I'm well aware graduate school is a whole different ball game than undergrad, I feel ready and excited for the challenge. I'm worried that doctoral programs would be wary to accept me without some kind of real world experience in the art world. Yet, I'm going to try nonetheless. Do you think it is worth sending out apps without such experience if my SOP and writing samples make up for it and really explain why I'm dedicated and devoted to continued study in art history?

zeemore21, thank you for that. it's much appreciated and i will definitely ask my questions differently from now on.

fullofpink, THANK YOU! Not only was your advice incredibly helpful but your defense of my earlier post is much appreciated. In regards to the Marxist ideologies, thank you for the advice. I know I'll definitely need to delve into why and how each of these theorists have shaped my critical outlook on art history, but I was just trying to list them out now for basic reference. I'm actually excited to do so in my SOP--good sign, right? In terms of the internships, no I haven't done any art-related, which is why I have been more heavily considering Master's Programs where I could intern and study at the same time. I applied to a major museum for an internship for this summer but since the curator only had one spot and already had an intern working with him the whole year, I was asked to wait till summer 2012. I never really knew how important a museum related internship could be until it was much too late to apply and since I will be graduating in may 2012, my options were limited. With that said, do you recommend looking towards master's programs to beef up my application before applying to doctoral programs? Or take a year off for a museum internship? I have been told from professors at my university to take a year off and intern or study abroad...yet, I'm worried that in this economy work for a histart/english major is slim. But could I be off base? Also, for the GRE, I appreciate your advice. I feel really good about the writing, so hopefully my scores will match my intuition. Lastly, I have every intention of making my SOP make up for lost ground and hopefully it will work out for the best! Thank you again for your kindness and great advice.

@zeemore21, could you try to edit my previous post out of your response? There's an edit button at the bottom of each response. I was able to delete mine and I would really appreciate a second chance..a clean slate. Please? Perhaps, I went about this form the wrong way, BUT BY NO MEANS is it supposed to be self-aggrandizement. And for that, apology accepted. And no, that is not what I'm looking for...not even admissions odds. The problem is that I have been reading and hearing so much different information about getting into a doctoral program from this forum and from other sources that seem to be at odds with each other. With giving my stats up front, I was trying to really gage the GRE question and avoid having to answer multiple times. It was all for efficiency. Realizing that didn't go over too well, I'm sorry.

@zeemore21, please remove where you quoted me.