jasper.milvain

Pick a random number, find the corresponding bus route, and see where it takes you.
Write a journal about the last year, the transition, your choice, and why you want to be in grad school. You can re-read it when you can't remember what the hell you're doing there any more.
Find the library, figure out if they have any incredibly beautiful rare books in special collections that you can at least tangentially connect to your research, and spend a blissful afternoon in a reading room.
If you already have a student card, check out the pool/gym while the lines are still short.
Google "Historical Walking Tour of [your city]" and see if there are any online maps/booklets.
Call family and old friends. Send long e-mails to someone you've been meaning to get back in touch with.
Check out all of the grocery stores near you, then once you've found the cheapest/best, make yourself the most satisfying meal you can afford.
Scroll through the local radio dial and find a good station.

See, I can be all whimsical when it comes to suggestions for other people, but I know that my time between moving and school starting will look more like:
Play Rock Band.
Entertain the cats.
Think about painting.
More Rock Band.

Do: Prove that you know what scholarly research in your area looks like, and prove your ability to complete similar work.
Don't: Try to substitute generic excitement for a broad area of interest for a somewhat focused research plan.

Do: Use active, assured language. "My research will do X."
Don't: Hedge your goals in qualifiers. "At the moment, I feel that I may be able to partially do X."

And the top ten ways to cut your SOP down to size without sacrificing content:

1. Eliminate as many modifiers as possible, especially those that are redundant to a specialized audience (ie: modernist author James Joyce).

2. Look for long verb phrases and replace them with simple, direct language.

3. Don't waste time talking about anything that goes without saying. You are passionate about the material? You want to be a part of academia? Join the club.

4. Don't waste time mentioning anything that is already covered in your CV, letters of reference, or any other part of the app package.

5. Be confident enough in your grasp of the field to make claims about the direction of research generally without feeling the need to back them up meticulously. This isn't a research paper.

6. Write as though you are already a researcher. After all, you are (albeit a junior one). This will make you sound confident AND cut down your word count. Compare "At the end of my course work, I hope to be able to better articulate the connections between postcolonial theory and Jamaican literature, and move towards a potential dissertation dealing with one or more aspects of these connections" with "I intend to continue my work on Jamaican literature using postcolonial theory."

7. Show, don't tell. This is an old piece of writing advice, but an excellent one. Instead of telling them that you're an ideal candidate ("I am an ideal candidate because of my experience, my passion for research, and my dedication to the field"), SHOW them those characteristics through your writing. Include a few sentences about your experience, and let your passion and dedication shine through the whole statement. Ad coms are made up of smart people. No need to connect the dots for them.

8. Get right to the point. Remember that your audience is a group of highly trained people who have been reading dozens and dozens of these damn things in their 'free' time, who are likely cranky and tired. Make your writing as crisp and tight as possible to keep their attention. Try having a friend read your statement on a noisy bus with a five minute time limit after a long day. Does it still make sense?

9. Get editing help from the most ruthless source possible. Take all suggestions that involve cutting content, and only the best suggestions about what to expand.

10. Give yourself several weeks of time to revise the statement in order to get emotional distance from your writing. What seemed utterly central and impossible to cut the day you wrote it may reveal itself as somewhat flabby prose a week or so later. Give yourself breaks from the editing process. They will clear your eyes.

Pick a random number, find the corresponding bus route, and see where it takes you.
Write a journal about the last year, the transition, your choice, and why you want to be in grad school. You can re-read it when you can't remember what the hell you're doing there any more.
Find the library, figure out if they have any incredibly beautiful rare books in special collections that you can at least tangentially connect to your research, and spend a blissful afternoon in a reading room.
If you already have a student card, check out the pool/gym while the lines are still short.
Google "Historical Walking Tour of [your city]" and see if there are any online maps/booklets.
Call family and old friends. Send long e-mails to someone you've been meaning to get back in touch with.
Check out all of the grocery stores near you, then once you've found the cheapest/best, make yourself the most satisfying meal you can afford.
Scroll through the local radio dial and find a good station.

See, I can be all whimsical when it comes to suggestions for other people, but I know that my time between moving and school starting will look more like:
Play Rock Band.
Entertain the cats.
Think about painting.
More Rock Band.

Do: Prove that you know what scholarly research in your area looks like, and prove your ability to complete similar work.
Don't: Try to substitute generic excitement for a broad area of interest for a somewhat focused research plan.

Do: Use active, assured language. "My research will do X."
Don't: Hedge your goals in qualifiers. "At the moment, I feel that I may be able to partially do X."

And the top ten ways to cut your SOP down to size without sacrificing content:

1. Eliminate as many modifiers as possible, especially those that are redundant to a specialized audience (ie: modernist author James Joyce).

2. Look for long verb phrases and replace them with simple, direct language.

3. Don't waste time talking about anything that goes without saying. You are passionate about the material? You want to be a part of academia? Join the club.

4. Don't waste time mentioning anything that is already covered in your CV, letters of reference, or any other part of the app package.

5. Be confident enough in your grasp of the field to make claims about the direction of research generally without feeling the need to back them up meticulously. This isn't a research paper.

6. Write as though you are already a researcher. After all, you are (albeit a junior one). This will make you sound confident AND cut down your word count. Compare "At the end of my course work, I hope to be able to better articulate the connections between postcolonial theory and Jamaican literature, and move towards a potential dissertation dealing with one or more aspects of these connections" with "I intend to continue my work on Jamaican literature using postcolonial theory."

7. Show, don't tell. This is an old piece of writing advice, but an excellent one. Instead of telling them that you're an ideal candidate ("I am an ideal candidate because of my experience, my passion for research, and my dedication to the field"), SHOW them those characteristics through your writing. Include a few sentences about your experience, and let your passion and dedication shine through the whole statement. Ad coms are made up of smart people. No need to connect the dots for them.

8. Get right to the point. Remember that your audience is a group of highly trained people who have been reading dozens and dozens of these damn things in their 'free' time, who are likely cranky and tired. Make your writing as crisp and tight as possible to keep their attention. Try having a friend read your statement on a noisy bus with a five minute time limit after a long day. Does it still make sense?

9. Get editing help from the most ruthless source possible. Take all suggestions that involve cutting content, and only the best suggestions about what to expand.

10. Give yourself several weeks of time to revise the statement in order to get emotional distance from your writing. What seemed utterly central and impossible to cut the day you wrote it may reveal itself as somewhat flabby prose a week or so later. Give yourself breaks from the editing process. They will clear your eyes.

Do: Prove that you know what scholarly research in your area looks like, and prove your ability to complete similar work.
Don't: Try to substitute generic excitement for a broad area of interest for a somewhat focused research plan.

Do: Use active, assured language. "My research will do X."
Don't: Hedge your goals in qualifiers. "At the moment, I feel that I may be able to partially do X."

And the top ten ways to cut your SOP down to size without sacrificing content:

1. Eliminate as many modifiers as possible, especially those that are redundant to a specialized audience (ie: modernist author James Joyce).

2. Look for long verb phrases and replace them with simple, direct language.

3. Don't waste time talking about anything that goes without saying. You are passionate about the material? You want to be a part of academia? Join the club.

4. Don't waste time mentioning anything that is already covered in your CV, letters of reference, or any other part of the app package.

5. Be confident enough in your grasp of the field to make claims about the direction of research generally without feeling the need to back them up meticulously. This isn't a research paper.

6. Write as though you are already a researcher. After all, you are (albeit a junior one). This will make you sound confident AND cut down your word count. Compare "At the end of my course work, I hope to be able to better articulate the connections between postcolonial theory and Jamaican literature, and move towards a potential dissertation dealing with one or more aspects of these connections" with "I intend to continue my work on Jamaican literature using postcolonial theory."

7. Show, don't tell. This is an old piece of writing advice, but an excellent one. Instead of telling them that you're an ideal candidate ("I am an ideal candidate because of my experience, my passion for research, and my dedication to the field"), SHOW them those characteristics through your writing. Include a few sentences about your experience, and let your passion and dedication shine through the whole statement. Ad coms are made up of smart people. No need to connect the dots for them.

8. Get right to the point. Remember that your audience is a group of highly trained people who have been reading dozens and dozens of these damn things in their 'free' time, who are likely cranky and tired. Make your writing as crisp and tight as possible to keep their attention. Try having a friend read your statement on a noisy bus with a five minute time limit after a long day. Does it still make sense?

9. Get editing help from the most ruthless source possible. Take all suggestions that involve cutting content, and only the best suggestions about what to expand.

10. Give yourself several weeks of time to revise the statement in order to get emotional distance from your writing. What seemed utterly central and impossible to cut the day you wrote it may reveal itself as somewhat flabby prose a week or so later. Give yourself breaks from the editing process. They will clear your eyes.

Do: Prove that you know what scholarly research in your area looks like, and prove your ability to complete similar work.
Don't: Try to substitute generic excitement for a broad area of interest for a somewhat focused research plan.

Do: Use active, assured language. "My research will do X."
Don't: Hedge your goals in qualifiers. "At the moment, I feel that I may be able to partially do X."

And the top ten ways to cut your SOP down to size without sacrificing content:

1. Eliminate as many modifiers as possible, especially those that are redundant to a specialized audience (ie: modernist author James Joyce).

2. Look for long verb phrases and replace them with simple, direct language.

3. Don't waste time talking about anything that goes without saying. You are passionate about the material? You want to be a part of academia? Join the club.

4. Don't waste time mentioning anything that is already covered in your CV, letters of reference, or any other part of the app package.

5. Be confident enough in your grasp of the field to make claims about the direction of research generally without feeling the need to back them up meticulously. This isn't a research paper.

6. Write as though you are already a researcher. After all, you are (albeit a junior one). This will make you sound confident AND cut down your word count. Compare "At the end of my course work, I hope to be able to better articulate the connections between postcolonial theory and Jamaican literature, and move towards a potential dissertation dealing with one or more aspects of these connections" with "I intend to continue my work on Jamaican literature using postcolonial theory."

7. Show, don't tell. This is an old piece of writing advice, but an excellent one. Instead of telling them that you're an ideal candidate ("I am an ideal candidate because of my experience, my passion for research, and my dedication to the field"), SHOW them those characteristics through your writing. Include a few sentences about your experience, and let your passion and dedication shine through the whole statement. Ad coms are made up of smart people. No need to connect the dots for them.

8. Get right to the point. Remember that your audience is a group of highly trained people who have been reading dozens and dozens of these damn things in their 'free' time, who are likely cranky and tired. Make your writing as crisp and tight as possible to keep their attention. Try having a friend read your statement on a noisy bus with a five minute time limit after a long day. Does it still make sense?

9. Get editing help from the most ruthless source possible. Take all suggestions that involve cutting content, and only the best suggestions about what to expand.

10. Give yourself several weeks of time to revise the statement in order to get emotional distance from your writing. What seemed utterly central and impossible to cut the day you wrote it may reveal itself as somewhat flabby prose a week or so later. Give yourself breaks from the editing process. They will clear your eyes.

The likelihood of having your funding yanked because of a change in your stated or implied career intention is vanishingly small. This is an extremely unhelpful thing to say on the applications board, which is full of people who are very nervous about making a mis-step.



Believe me, as a new English PhD student I am very aware of the limitations of the job market in my field, and the necessity of thinking about other options. It is impossible to miss that message these days. We are not, however, discussing post-PhD transitions or ways to leave academia. We are discussing applications. Given the choice between two students, one with academic ambitions and one with alternate career goals, equal applicants in all other areas, the vast, vast majority of English departments would pick the aspiring professor. Why? Because the department resources for career development and placement are geared towards the academic market, and the student will be a better fit. Because if the student goes on to become one of the lucky group who find tenure track work, they will improve the department's placement rate, helping them attract better students down the line. Because the adcoms are made up of people who have chosen the academic path themselves, and believe strongly in its importance and the possibility of contributing strong work, even in a difficult market. Because students building up an academic CV are hungrier, and more likely to throw themselves in to grant applications, which relieve a financial burden on their department. I'm sure that many of these reasons are out of touch with market realities, some may be objectionable to you for various reasons, and of course there are exceptions to all of them. But this is the game that students are playing to get in. Once they're in, they can work towards whatever non-academic career goal they want. There is absolutely nothing wrong with presenting yourself in the most attractive light possible during the admissions phase.

I also think that your pessimism about the market is valid, but that it would be misplaced in an SOP. Am I going to be a tenure track professor? Likely not, but possibly. I'm going to go into my program and work my ass off to try. (And heck, my program has a 50% TT placement rate, so there's a good chance.) There's no value in giving in to despair before a degree has even started. That's advice that came from my youngest, most flexible and liveliest mentor, not the old boy's club. Why present yourself as already hedging your bets?

The short version: While the purpose of training in the humanities and the future of the job market are important and complicated questions, when it comes down to the simple strategic decision of how to present your ambitions in your SOP, expressing an interest in academia is the best choice.

It absolutely does. You have years and years of experience built up at home... you know the best places to walk, to eat, to hang out... you have a deep affinity for the landscape, the quirky local habits... there's no way that you can instantly replace that with a new place. Seeing a place as 'home' takes a long time. Slowly but surely, you will start building up a similar list of things you love about your new city, things that you can't see right now but that will unfold for you over the months and years. Then your new city will feel like a second home. In the meanwhile, keep busy, do good work, and force yourself to accept every invitation to go out and socialize, whether that means a dept. function or beer with a classmate. Those are the best cures for homesickness I've found.

((MDLee))