koolherc

Hey TripWillis. The first quarter was a tough adjustment psychoemotionally but things are looking up a bit! Glad to hear it's rewarding for you! I told you that I went to the grad center for my MA, yeah?

it's amazing the variety of concepts that people have pulled out from reading Kant because his writing is so bad. They assume there must be some deep insights in there when he's basically saying that we have to construct concepts based on faith and throw reason out of the window.

Wow, I disagree with a lot that's been posted here. Flights to Europe ARE expensive. RV tents are expensive. Couchsurfing (the webpage), and knowing when the best time to buy flights is, knowing about rush tickets, knowing what the FAFSA is, and knowing how to apply to college all requires a type of access that goes beyond dollars and cents and incorporates a privilege that comes from being the dominant culture with access to and power over information. Yes, the grand majority of graduate students are privileged. If your parents were professors, that makes you privileged. Let's not let the shifty nature of the term "middle class" deceive us. Is middle class a family of four on 25k a year or is it a family of two on 100k? Both are considered middle class to many people. In NYC, the Metropolitan Museum of Art charges a suggested donation of $20+ per adult visitor---that is, technically, you only have to pay a quarter to get in. I know plenty of native, inner-city NYers (from the Bronx, Queens, etc.) who've never gone to the Met, even though they could do it for free, and would enjoy it. Even going into Manhattan only requires $2.50 on the train, but there's still a mental privilege and presumption that is required. SeriousSillyPutty also made some good points, though I disagree with some of the language (" "postive" role models").

My semester doesn't start 'til the last week of September. All the more time to tortuously draw out my relationship issues, to freak out about not having an apartment yet and how little money I have with which to move, get said apartment, and buy things like a bed and food once I'm over there. Also, since my classes start at the end of the month, getting a room/apartment sucks 'cause either I'm gonna have to pay the whole month of September or be homeless for about five days until October. Also, all the classes I want to take are offered at exactly the same time slot on the same day!!!! It's like they're already trying to politically sabotage me! *stands by the window with a rifle, ever shifting the curtain ever so slightly in order to peek out*

Choose where you apply based on the scholars who work there and how you think they'd respond to your work. E-mail some of them. I definitely emailed professors and executive offers at programs and asked them straight up "Will my studying X here be well taken?" The pompous responses from some of them vs. the encouraging responses from others helped make the filtering process a lot easier.

I occasionally teach at a non-profit prep program for high schoolers and I get confused for a student all the time. I'm 26.

Henceforce,

I wish I could be a professional student. That would be cool... Nice

Oh, btw, nice avatar xdarthveganx! I've been reading a lot about "Red Emma" recently. I definitely plastered my SOP with all kinds of language that I wanted to be sure that a PhD program would accept me for, anarchism (as per Emma Goldman) included. I was intentionally frenetic, jumping from Shakespeare to Chomsky to Daoism with reckless abandon. Edit: it worked pretty well

You should write about what's important to you. In my SOP, I mentioned some interviews I did of OWSers & bystanders, but only quickly as an exemplar of some larger issue I was trying to describe. I gave it just the amount of attention that I found proportionate to my interest. "Radical political beliefs" aren't tangential if they are actually central to your interests/beliefs/etc. If you're willing to hide your true self in your SOP, what about when you're in the program? Will you be hiding yourself then? If a program won't accept you because of whatever reason, then you probably don't want to work there anyways. And other places that are eager to hear about that kind of stuff will fall over themselves to court you. Be yourself and you won't have to not be.

I'm not religious per se, but I find it helps if we think about and realize how often other faith-based systems (eg. concepts of morality, abstract rights, social norms, science we don't understand the inner-workings of) figure into our own thinking.

Walter Benjamin is another one that trips a lot of people up. A basic knowledge of French helps with most of those other guys though.

linguistically speaking, that's a fascinating phenomenon^. Where is the student from? What kind of English dialect might they speak?

^Super duper excellent post.

Rawwww, I'ma give it to ya! --With no trivia! Raw like cocaine straight from Bolivia My HipHop will rock and shock the nation like the Emancipation Proclamation Weak emcees approach with slang that's dead You might as well run into the wall and bang your head I'm pushin force; my force your doubtin I'm makin' devils cower to the Caucus Mountains...

Despite the inclinations of my personal biases, I don't actually find that Texans are, on average, any more "miserable" than people from other places Concerning "independence," any celebration of the decentralization of hegemony (racist history or not) is a plus in my book.

My Texan SO says Texas is not "southern"; it's Texas.

Annunaki

Some really interesting comments throughout the thread. My condolences to those who have to deal with the materialism or the oppressive aspects of the gender roles that your families tout. My mother grew up in the "3rd world," and while she is concerned about whether or not what I do will allow me to live comfortably, she nonetheless sees doctorate education as impressive (as someone said above, she's from "a region of the world where education is valued because it is a privilege."). And further, when it comes to money as an end in itself, my mother's religiousness wins out---I can say "Ultimately, we know money is not important" and she'll agree. On the other side, my in-laws feature professors themselves, so they're supportive also. I guess I'm lucky. Interesting that the American "middle class" (not sure what that means) would be most critical of doctorate pursuits.

to be clear, by the bolded, I meant "contemporary logic-driven phil"

yeah, wow, sorry about the gender prejudice. pretty gross of me (and others).

I find the BBC Sherlock ennui-inducing. It's also hard to hear

Wow Whoa Wow. That was definitely of my favorite books as a kid. I don't think that it's a full adult-type of book, but for a contemplative teenager it definitely does the job. Also, though, I went to UChicago for ugrad and the protagonist/author is definitely that kind of person... What in the world is female philosophy?? (hoping my utter confusion is not confused for sexism) In regards to contemporary logic-driven philosophy, the book definitely stands in opposition to that tradition (at least by the end). You basically need to know German. Translation is a real issue for it.

This is far from requisite. I definitely do not value knowledge this way. I think it's simply a matter of what one is likely to enjoy doing or not. Of course, one's personal sense of ethics and/or purpose (and the cosmologies around it) will influence one's abilities to be happy/suffer as well.