Loimographia

There's actually a good thread in the History forum addressing some of the risks of getting your PhD in the UK with hopes of teaching in the US (it's also addressed in the "2012 Applicant Chit Chat" thread, but you'd have to wade through 40+ pages of discussion. If you want to look for it, I think it's somewhere around pg. 34. . . ). To summarize some of the concerns discussed, the biggest issue can be that UK PhDs rarely require or encourage teaching experience among their grad students because academia in Europe is much more focused on publishing books than teaching, whereas teaching experience is much more common among US grads (it's mentioned that Princeton no longer requires that its students teach, but many volunteer to do so anyway). This means you might face an uphill battle of convincing potential employers that you have the necessary experience to teach in the U.S. There's also the question of networking, a crucial aspect of academia: attending a UK school will mean your professors will help you network -- with UK/Europe academics. Making the transition back to the U.S. may mean that you'll have to work doubly hard to build new connections with academics "across the pond." With jobs in academia as scarce as they are these days, it's risky to deliberately cripple yourself in this way. "Stellar research experience and publications" won't help compensate for teaching, because it's to be assumed that the U.S. PhDs will have the same. Mind you, most of the people discussing the issue are those in History departments, so your mileage may vary, but I still think some of it is applicable across disciplines. All this is not to say that you're doomed if you go to school in the UK, but you should definitely be aware of the differences between US and UK degrees.

Based on the "already grads" forum posts I've seen, I think this might vary from program to program: some have very strong support systems and social ties, but others sometimes sound like they look for social ties outside the program, and it can help to be prepared for that. SVN, if you get accepted, it might behoove you to contact current students and ask about social interaction in the program, and be sure to read into it carefully, since people may be unwilling to speak badly about their program: if they say "oh, well, I guess it's not too bad, we do happy hour every once in a while, no one hates each other" it probably means they're not that close; if they gush about how everyone's bestest buddies ever, you're in luck. Then, don't be afraid to let this inform whether you decide to go.

Every professor I know passionately hates ratemyprofessor.com. The stuff on there can be truly malicious. I think if the reviews were bad across the board, they might take it seriously (I do know that for one university in the UC system -- and I think this is crazy -- that they sometimes use it when debating salary increases.) But one bad review? I think any decent addcom ought to know better than to take that seriously.

I should never have created an academia.edu profile. Now I'm obsessing that only one person has searched for me, and that my profile seems so utterly blank, like an awful summary of my accomplishments of the last 4+ years of my life.

Oh trust me, I know how you feel. I had about a week where I felt physically ill if I spent more than 5 minutes thinking about my applications. Which meant I just felt ill all the time. It's beginning to wear off as I hit the slump between finished app's and getting results, but it comes and goes. I've found participating in some of the more lighthearted discussions on the board here makes me feel better. Speaking of puppies, of course, mine has been my emotional rock these past few weeks. Who needs the approval of adcoms when you can just cuddle up with a ball of fluff and fur who will love you even if you don't have the perfect GPA, GRE, SOP, LORs and every other acronym in the book.

So nervous! I'm finding that I'm looking at whether I get an interview with Notre Dame as the litmus test for how the rest of my applications will be perceived: If I get an interview, then I'm going to believe that the rest of my applications were 'good enough' and that any rejection will have to do with fit, departmental politics, etc. If I can't even get an interview, I'll probably end up feeling doomed until April rolls around. It looks, though, like they send all the invitations out at once, which is a little reassuring: at least I won't be wondering for the next 2-3 weeks whether I've got an interview or not.

I know Notre Dame holds interviews, but I'd be interested to know any other programs that do as well.

It seems depressing that schools require higher standards of MA students, but I think it's not only logical, but very desirable, for both MA and BA students. MA students have 2 extra years to develop their academic skills, 2 extra years to publish, go to conferences, and develop their ideas. If BA students were held to the same standards as MAs, no BA-only student would ever be accepted directly into graduate school. Then, every BA student would have to go to a terminal MA program. For BA students, this would be frustrating because of the limited availability of funded MAs: students who previously would be qualified for direct admission to PhD programs would (probably) have to pay for an extra two years of schooling. For MA students, this would still be a disadvantage, because their extra schooling would no longer balance out the reasons they didn't go directly into a PhD program. i.e.Consider: right now, your humanities MA compensates for how you lack a humanities BA, and somewhat erases it (not that you should be ashamed of it, but this also applies to people who, say, did rather poorly as a BA, but then zoomed ahead in their MA). If everyone has an MA, then the BA actually becomes more important as a basis for comparison between applicants. Right now, the standards for MAs are higher, but that's only because they're essentially only competing among MA applicants. Require that everyone has an MA, and suddenly you're doubling your competition, and making it stiffer by drawing more attention to the differences in earlier education. So all in all, while it feels unfair to be held to higher standards, I think it's a little necessary, if saddening. My two cents only, of course.

I'm a little confused about why this will be a big week. . . As far as I can tell, all of my programs start sending out acceptances in mid-Feb, at the earliest. I didn't see a single one send out acceptances in January. The only one I know to send out earlier, is a school that does interviews (which does, indeed, seem to send out interview requests on the 28th. . . but then doesn't hold the interviews until late Feb). Is the big week only in reference to Yale applicants? I wasn't planning to start freaking out (well, okay, freaking out MORE) until Valentine's day.

I think I just figured out how I'm going to reward myself if I get into graduate school. Barronness, here I come! Also, I now know what I'm going to buy everyone else for birthdays/christmas/bat mitzvah/any gift-giving occasion, for all of eternity. Fun fact: I'll have to think one up when I'm feeling more clever

I'd love to hear some Plan Bs for humanities people. I've taken a year off (unemployed and living at home while taking language classes to prepare for graduate study) and I feel completely unqualified for anything besides academia (and even then . . . ) . The deadline for teaching with Fullbright has long since passed, as have those of most English abroad programs that I'd love to do to grow my own linguistic skills. I'm debating applying for Teach for America, but feel guilty that, while I consider the improvement of education in poorer schools a really admirable goal in others, it's not really one of my primary goals in life. As others have noticed, humanities don't really have the option of research assistantships. Does anyone have any good ideas for a mere history B.A.?

In addition to what sandyvanb mentions, as I understand it there is much more one-on-one work in the UK. And the courses are much shorter in length in terms of lectures (I had two visiting professors from UK schools mention that they didn't know what to do with themselves for the extra 4+ weeks) with longer breaks that are intended for independent study. I am jealous of not having to take courses outside one's major. In my last semester of undergrad I was forced to drop a course in Latin to make room for a world music course that was an absolute waste of my time (not that world music is a waste of time, but that particular course was), just to fulfil gen. ed. reqs.

I'm sure you're thinking of horrible reasons (the program closed! they're rejecting me out of hand and pity me so much they're refunding the app fee!) but at least one benign answer could be that you clicked the "pay fee" button twice and it accidentally charged you. And the easiest way to figure out if this is true is probably to call the department or similarly appropriate number, and find out why. I totally understand the freak-out response though. I'd be doing the same. Just reassure yourself that there are harmless answers too, and make the call.

Quick, someone reassure me that I shouldn't feel like a horrible person for not applying to Oxbridge MAs. I'm feeling horrible because I was so focused on applying to my US schools that I missed the deadline for international scholarships, but justified it by saying my chances of getting funding were practically nonexistent anyway, and claimed I would apply anyways to the unfunded MAs. . . And now I've missed those too. The truth is, I don't really want to go through the stress of figuring out international funding, visas, the research proposal instead of SOP, etc etc. all just to have to do it again next year, since I don't want a UK PhD (for reasons, look at the thread about teaching in the US with a UK degree). But my father, an ultra-brilliant guy who doesn't seem to understand why I won't be automatically accepted to every school I apply to (after all, HE got in everywhere he applied!) has been pressuring me to apply for months. Now I feel horribly guilty. But the thought of doing even more applications just made me feel physically ill. Someone tell me I made the right choice, or at the very least, that it's not the end of the world that I didn't.

It's on my list of things to do, I swear! And now that I'm done with applications (unless I decide to throw in some UK schools, though the thought makes me feel ill) it's probably my next goal. I really do like Chaucer (sadly, though I find the Divine Comedy a beautiful piece of writing, I find Dante rather unlikeable, mostly thanks to his La Vita Nuova. So whiny! And now let unleash the Danteists!). And, of course, I will read it in the original. But the beautiful cynicism about authorship, and the subsequent irony of Chaucer's literary canonization, makes House of Fame one of my favorite works. (Oh god, have I gone and misused irony in a lit forum? quick, someone tell me if this counts!) I got about halfway through Ulysses, though my motivations for reading it were mostly egotistical. I gave up when I realized I was trying so hard to like it, just to say that I liked it. I'm going to take the comment on my concentration as a compliment, I hope XD The numeric paleography is just a little pet interest of mine, so it's a little weird, I guess.

Man, I keep seeing all these posts about "oh they e-mailed me saying I should apply for a fellowship!" or "POI contacted me!" I feel so very jealous I've just gotten complete dead silence. Meanwhile, if I spend too long thinking about my applications, I begin to feel ill. . .

My parents have a Freud action figure. Apparently you can buy them at the Freud Museum in London. Which, yes, exists. I would totally want an Innocent III action figure though. My friend got me one of the patron saint of hangovers, hopefully I'll put that to good use if I get in. I haven't thought much about how I'll reward myself if I get in. . . I like the idea of getting a leather messenger bag. I would feel so fancy. Otherwise, hmmm. . .

Gah, you are correct. I read almost all the Bronte works in high school, and all the sisters kinda blend together in my memory. Most of what I remember is that The Professor and Villette have essentially the same plot (and are semi-autobiographic), but the former was written while she was still smitten, so she included a 30+ plus summary of "and they lived happily ever after" and the latter was written after she'd gotten over him, so she kills the guy at the very very end in the span of two paragraphs (if you're going to swoop in and tell me I'm completely wrong about these summaries, feel free to do so, I am prone to misremembering book endings. I spent 10 years thinking Oliver Twist got run over and killed by a cow half-way through the book!) I could totally publish and teach oodles on Chaucer! Just not the Canterbury Tales. Thankfully, however, my primary focus is on Italian and Mediterranean merchants and numeric paleography, so I probably won't be called on to publish on Chaucer.

Well when you say that your gap is female writers, you're not just referring to "those female novelists from 1800 to 1930." those are two entirely different things. So yeah, people are going to take offense. And "they're not my cup of tea" is hardly equivalent to "they're just so awful." I'm glad you like female writers and hey, if you don't like the style/subject addressed by that era of women, I'm not going to blame you (I for one have read Emily Bronte's other works beyond Jane Eyre, and while I love the latter, found the rest insufferable). But you're stating two different arguments. As for myself, as a medievalist, I'm always I little saddened that I haven't gotten around to reading all the Canterbury Tales. I've read just about everything else by Chaucer (and took two courses on his work as an undergrad) but not his main opus. To anyone who doesn't really like Chaucer though, I offer them House of Fame.

I'm swooping into the Lit forums as well, because this thread is a lovely idea! (And heck, as an undergrad I took nearly as many english/comp lit courses as I did courses in my major, so I'm practically one of you guys!) I think Gellert is a fantastic candidate for a PhD program because he/she/it has posted that he/she/it is currently co-authoring a paper with a professor (I'm jealous!) which will be a feather in his/her/its cap on top of a very impressive four years of research in an impressive nine different labs, including, apparently, working abroad. The sheer time commitment you've made to your research is already impressive, I think it'll show enough dedication to wow any committee! Meanwhile, I'm going to assert that I'm a good candidate because I think my writing sample paper is a quite clever piece that blends paleography and history with literary analysis and takes a unique approach overall, and because I had the nerve to argue that previous scholarship made a mistake, which takes guts (though I am still, to this day, terrified that the only guy who actually knows anything about the primary source I worked with will find out and hunt me down), and I think it ought to impress addcoms.

I'm holding you to this! at 12:01A.M. on 2/14/12 I WILL BE RAGING ALL OVER THE PLACE!!!!!!RAAAAWWR!! Well, probably not. And then I will give you all chocolates <3 (It's late and I'm tired, so if I sound a little crazy, I apologize) To get the thread a little more on topic again, I'll add a note of more lessons I'm learning every day: Don't apply to too many places. I'm hitting my ninth application right now, and I'm pretty sure it's my worst because I'm fairly burned out. The stress builds slowly, and after the first one you might think "oh that's not so bad. . . and heck, I'm only applying to six places, lets just tack on a few more names, research a few more schools . . ." But it's a beast. Don't feed it! Another lesson: Just because someone tells you you'll never get in somewhere doesn't mean you shouldn't apply. One of my prof's told me I'll never get into Harvard. He's probably right, my hopes aren't up, and I'm just waiting on the inevitable rejection letter. But automatically denying yourself of something because it's hopeless is a slippery slope to despair. Sometimes you've got to do something just to say that hey, at least you tried.

I agree that toronto's statement of purpose is different than American universities, which I suspect is because, from what I can tell, Canadian universities are a funny blend of the American and UK systems. That is, they take the UK system's separate MA/PhD thing, but give PhD students US-length time (and thus probably focus a little more on teaching than the more research-focused, quicker UK system). So I get the impression they are more like the UK in their SOP styles: research focused, rather than motivation focused. I app'd to their medieval studies department rather than their History dept., largely because it's a terminal MA. I want my PhD in history because I've heard it's generally much more difficult to get a TT job with a medieval studies PhD because departments think you'll be "too focused" to teach a broad selection of classes, but that doesn't hold true for if you have an MST MA. And yeah, the History app requires a statement of purpose but the MST dept instead has this bizarre questionairre that clearly guides you away from the more american style by asking pointed questions: "What course/work have you done in medieval studies? What work/research do you want to do at Toronto?" It basically meant I had to completely rewrite a SOP, rather than tailoring my primary one to the school. Unfortunately, the fact that all my other applications were history departments nearly led me to make the awful mistake of submitting the wrong writing sample. The history department wanted a 3000 word paper (8 pages, ugh!) while MST wanted 10-20 pages. I edited and uploaded a 3k version before realizing it was the wrong one and had to call the department to get them to remove it and let me submit another. By far, Toronto's application has been the worst I've dealt with. And don't get me started on how the letters of reference work! ugh.

Well I start off the answer by saying I plan to continue on to a PhD, so I've got that covered, along with mentioning a desire to both continue research and teach But I agree it's a good idea to address contributions to the field, and possibly flesh out broad long-term research goals. Thanks for the suggestion!

I'm curious what others think: the University of Toronto's medieval department, rather than asking for a statement of purpose, asks you to fill out a questionairre that asks for your plans after you receive your MA. I've answered that my ultimate goal is to work in academia... But that answer seems so obvious and, quite frankly, flimsy (it takes a mere two sentences to explain), that I added an addendum stating that with the current state of employment prospects, I'm willing to admit that I'd also be happy building other marketable skills, such as archival or museum and preservation studies. Do others think it wise to include this, or should I just stick with "I want to be a professor, obviously!"

must not get involved with the futile argument. . . must not get involved. . . must not get involved. . . But really, holdon, what do you hope to gain by provoking people? I understand that you're feeling bitter about your prospects for graduate school, but why on earth would you bother with this argument when it's clear that in a mere two posts you've degraded and diverted the quality of this thread more than the entirety of the diving conversation? Whoops, I got involved Nevertheless, I hope you do well with your applications, and that you can gain a better attitude towards not only others, but towards yourself as well. In the mean time, I would recommend taking a step back from this thread and taking a few deep breadths. It's not worth the conflict, really.