Lyrus

To echo Sparky, an unfunded degree can also make you a much harder sell on the job market. No teaching experience? No fellowship? These kinds of things, which fund you, are markers of being vetted by at least one institution. I can't imagine a job search committee overlooking a lack of both.

neverstop, I realize that nothing I say will dissuade you. Please respect that that is not my intention in this post. I am talking to other people considering unfunded offers.

1. neverstop's picture of the future is RIDICULOUSLY optimistic. "until you get that TT job?" "by the time I finish my degree"? Less than 50% of people who begin humanities PhDs ever finish. Don't assume that just because you want this OH SO BAD (and I get it, I really do), you will finish. Most of the dropouts also wanted the degree OH SO BAD at the beginning. Things happen. Life happens. Family disasters. Health problems. Multiple B+s in your classes mean you are asked to leave the university with a terminal master's. Then let's consider the number of people who *do* finish who ultimately get tenure--a number that is sure to decline as retiring professors' tenure positions are eliminated rather than refilled with a new hire.

2. "(and interdisciplinary degrees can be confusing to some employers)." No. Not confusing. Unacceptable. Outside of a very, very small handful of interdisciplinary programs that have a proven track record of job placement--and "proven" in the last five years, not over the past several decades-- an interdisciplinary PhD makes it all but impossible to get an academic job. It can also make you a tougher sell on the high school job market.

3. Student loan debt is not like other debt.

4. ETA: neverstop is painting a picture of zirself as somehow more deserving of both a spot in a PhD program and of an academic job because of willingness to commit to an insane unfunded PhD. The real world does not care about such romantic notions or false senses of nobility. This is a literature forum--Great Literature abounds will tales of how very very much delight Fortune gets in systematically destroying romantic notions and delusional wannabe-nobles, often in the cruelest ways imaginable. Don't fall into this trap.

Don't do it. I know you want a Ph.D. right now, but do not pay for your Ph.D. Absolutely not. I paid partially for my MA and regret it, even though that is much more common. Reapply until you get a funded position. Worst-case scenario: you get admitted to a Ph.D. program who wants you to pay the first year and then you get funded (Indiana and UWashington, as far as I'm aware, do this). Even that is questionable, but do not pay for a Ph.D.

This is untrue. A majority of the top seventy five programs provide funding to admitted students.

5-7 years of loans for tuition and and living expenses will add up frighteningly fast. If I were in your shoes, I would wait, spend the next year working on my SOP and writing sample and researching fit like crazy, and then I would reapply. You can save up money during the next year, and Purdue will remember you and likely offer you money with an acceptance the next go-around.

Take a very serious look at the numbers before making this kind of a decision.

If tards is not a part of your every day vocabulary, you need to get with the program!

"tards" -- really? Are we in the middle school lunch room or are we applying to graduate school? Ohhh, right.

Here's exactly what you do.

Bust in on the admit committee unannounced, preferably with a secretary trying to hold you back. Grab the grad director by the lapels and say "Listen, you pencil-pushing apparatchik. I'm the greatest scholar in the history of the English language. I want admission, I want funding, I want a research grant on top of that, and I want them now. I'll take my own office and free parking, to boot!"

I'm told that works.

Alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.



(Strangely, this "celebration" plan is remarkably similar to the "abject despair" plan I've been operating under for going on 8 weeks now. My liver hurts.)

I'd also like to add that the $50k a year thing is bogus. I don't care if the school thinks the educational opportunity provided by an admission is theoretically worth 25k a year in and of itself, because it flatly is not. If it were, they'd charge the price and people would pay. The only things actually attached to that nebulous dollar sign from the perspective of a school are the time of the professors that teach graduate classes and advise dissertation writers--and considering their salaries it sure as hell doesn't add up to $25k a year per student (to say nothing of the professors themselves, who may or may not feel like they personally and/or professionally derive some benefit from the work they do with graduate students, or of other things tied to their jobs and thus their salaries, such as the research work they do, or the teaching of undergraduate classes)--and possibly some amount related to the money sunk into libraries and the like. As it stands, they pay us instead because they realize two things:

1. Graduate students actually have to eat food or they die.

2. Some combination of producing a PhD holder and producing the research accomplished by a PhD holder is of economic value to the University.

The "tuition remission" thing is a joke. What are they remitting if no one ever actually pays?

I would be excited and honored to be accepted by and attend a school, and to work toward a PhD, but I'm not going to starry-eyes it and relinquish all self-worth to bow before the institution or the profession. For the prevalence of marx and marx derived thinking in the humanities, you'd think I wouldn't be alone in this.

If you thought through the process, put some effort into researching programs, paid the application fees, jumped through all the hoops, know the minuses, and still want to go to grad school--you drank the Kool-Aid.

Assistantship/fellowship-holding PhD students are a TINY minority of the graduate student population. Even within the humanities, there are *vastly* more M* students than PhD students, and just think about how frantically people are looking around for funded MA programs right now.

But let's face it--(nearly) everyone on TGC is either in grad school or desperate to be thus. We drank the Kool-Aid. Willingly. We are not exactly the target audience for anything that even *questions* the value of grad school.

I was very, very torn about pursuing a Ph.D. for several years. It wasn't something I envisioned myself doing when I started college, but I found I really enjoyed the work. I ultimately decided to go for it because I knew if I didn't try, I would always wonder "what if?"

That being, I had some very strict parameters for myself when I did apply. The first and more important of which was that I did not want to accrue any debt AT ALL. I would not attend a program unless it was fully funded. The second of which was that I had to honestly ask myself what I would do with the degree since TT jobs are so far and few between. And honestly, if I end up applying my degree towards a different ends, I decided I would be fine with that. In the end though, like Rainy said, I want the degree for the degree's sake. If it helps me get my dream job, that would be an awesome bonus!

Of course, my family thinks I'm crazy for all this.

I just got a second rejection e-mail from BU, and they're sending a letter in the mail. What... why... what is the rationale behind that? To demoralize you by rubbing it in your face and to fill you with false hope by sending you emails with non-descript subject lines? God, if I were 0-fer and clinging for hope, an unopened email like that would tell me: "WE MADE A MISTAKE! WE MEANT TO ACCEPT YOU!"

Jerks.

I don't want to sound horrible, but you're probably anticipating incoming freshman to whatever university being MUCH more competent writers than they actually are.


You've probably written 1000000 papers with a similar weight and structure as any paper for English Lit. These are little baby eggs that still need to learn to hold a pencil (an exaggeration, but you know.) I think you'll be fine, or just as fine as everyone else in your program.

I definitely sounded like a baboon on the phone. The DGS was like, "We're really impressed with your work and excited to work with you." I completely shit the bed and my response was something like, " It feels really good to hear you say that ." I couldn't come up with, "Thanks, that means a lot." Nope. Feels good to hear you say that.

And maybe we'll both be in the Boston area! Would love to get to know some you folks on here.

Just got my official e-mail and it cleared up some things. Very thorough and pleasant -- I was impressed! Also, it looks like they upped the teaching stipend this year. Neat-o! Well, cool. Nice to know it's official. 18 acceptances out of 180 applicants.