anxious_aspirant
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Posts posted by anxious_aspirant
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Really? My sister recommended this too. I'll have to check it out.
I just re-watched Star Trek: First Contact for the first time a while. It is awesome. This and Star Trek II (and IV) is da best ones. Also, I am drinking right now. Yay!
Star Trek in the canon FTW.
Serious.
'Specially TNG.
I might be about to get really unpopular with the nerdier folks.
But.
It's all about Deep Space Nine. I mean yeah, TNG is classic, and who doesn't love Captain Picard? The man made bald beautiful. BUT. Deep Space Nine is where shit gets real. No more Gene Roddenberry (sad, don't get me wrong) also means no more Star Trek utopian naivete.
I've been making it through this application process by rewatching this show.
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I too felt like a burden on my references after two (and really three, as some of them wrote for my MA applications too) rounds of this stuff. However, I never, ever received any help on my Statement of Purpose or Writing Sample. I mean, they never even looked at it!
My advice is to show it to someone younger - a recently graduated PhD, a recently admitted PhD; someone that has been through this process recently. This made a huge difference to me, I think.
I wish there was a way to just read statements of purpose...I mean, to get a sampling of how people approach them. Ideally, I'd imagine the best proofreader would be someone who has been / is on admit committees, because he/she has seen it all. It's true my professors haven't done this for a while. Even a recently graduated/admitted PhD only has his/her own SoP in mind, right?
I really just hate the SoP. It's amazing how many different writing demands I've been able to meet with success in life, and this one just baffles me. Probably because I'm never too comfortable expressing something about myself (especially when the stakes are high). I just want the SoP secret! I am even so deluded to think there IS a secret! Boo.
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Is anyone wary of putting their infinitely busy former professors through the deadlines, 20 more drafts of your SoP, etc. for another round? I always have this fear that I'm annoying them to no end and they'd just never say so or something. Also awkward that I got into the MA program at my alma mater, and I'm probably going to have to turn down the offer for financial reasons (actually would be my second MA there, so probably looks even worse because of that...) I keep asking myself, Can I really expect these people to keep vouching for me?
(In addition to, Am I paranoid? Answer is yes.)
Rejection dejection; boo hoo. Pretty much sums me up right about now.
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I think if this wait-list ever turns into an acceptance, I'm going to immediately transport myself to Amherst for the sole purpose of giving Stephen Clingman a bear hug. Maybe Wanda, too. One big, group bear hug. Because I'll love them that much, and then they'll rescind their offer because - well, who wants an applicant who has such a disregard for boundaries.
I've also envisioned the phone call, where I respond with, "Yes, yes! A thousand times yes!"
Hope you have enjoyed this journey into the recesses of anxious_aspirant's imagination.
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Has anyone else re-contacted their school(s) for wait list updates? My initial correspondence with the program director was really helpful, and he told me to check back in a few weeks if I wanted to (CLEARLY I would want to...) and he'd give me a clearer picture if he had one. It's now a few weeks later. I have this (perhaps irrational) fear that I will annoy the hell out of these people to the point where they'll say to themselves, "Do we want to deal with this insane individual for 5+ more years? Send on that rejection!" The other (cue: irrational) hope is that I'll annoy them so much that they'll just let me in to get me off their backs.
Perhaps this is all neither here nor there, since this would make a grand total of 2 inquiries (hardly too many?). I mean, he wouldn't have offered if he wasn't willing, right? Or...should I save this second inquiry for another week, by which time I'll be truly batshit insane and more in need of some consolation? Who knows.
The question, without my neuroses, is: how much contact have you maintained with your wait list institutions, and how receptive have they been about it? (I have a really hard time with social cues and etiquette, so I like to survey people about them; pathetic but true.)
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It seems like maybe they have really small cohorts? Only 2 acceptances on the board both last year and this year. I guess I'd assumed that a large school and dept. like UConn would admit more per year...though you know what they say about assumptions. I was looking back to their website and they don't specify numbers as some schools do (like "we admit 10-15 new students...").
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Here's a tip: I think my status on the website was available and I never noticed! The status at the top never changed from "APPL" - the "admissions decision" was at the very bottom, and only visible if I scrolled down. It said "available as of 3/1" on mine, meaning when I checked yesterday, I just didn't see it.
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Yup. No go.
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I spy a Northeastern acceptance.
Wish I could say it's mine. Looking at the dates/results from the past, it seems like they're all over the place with acceptance/rejection/waitlist notifications.
Any feedback? Anyone else heard from them, even just about the timeline?
Here's to hoping.
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So, how are you other waitlisted people dealing with the wait?
Poorly. Very poorly. As in shirking my teaching responsibilities to watch copious amounts of Star Trek.
I, too, have decided to learn everything there is to know about Amherst, MA. Not too hard because I live close by, but they made the anticipation all the sweeter because I had to visit for an interview.
Do you guys also have this day-to-day fluctuation between optimism/pessimism? Like yesterday I was all, "It'll happen!" And today I'm all, "Ugh, I'm doomed!"
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try www.mediabistro.com
not sure where you're located, but: http://bbboston.org/ (Boston is the main location for textbook publishing.)
Also, be sure check out the websites of individual publishing companies! That's probably the best bet.
Woo! I live in the Boston area.
What luck. -
To throw my two cents in here about finding jobs with an English MA, from personal experience in the pharma industry, while you may get people who literally will say to you, "why do you want to study English? Don't you know how to speak it?", I think that corporations do value people who know how to speak and write well. It's a matter of marketing yourself as having advanced skillsets, and even if it is a humanities degree, I think that just having an advanced degree at all will get your resume a second look and pique employers' interest. I've been looking into editorial positions at educational publishers, as well as even editorial assistant positions, and a lot of them prefer candidates to have master's degrees. Good luck!
I've always been interested in editorial positions and/or publishing, but have never been affiliated with the industry. How/where does one come across such opportunities? I know all the websites and postings for teaching jobs, as it's my current field - is there something similar for editorial jobs?
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I didn't read this thread, but to answer your question:
(kidding! Don't kill me)
Ahhh! This is one of my favorite videos! Partially because deep down, I think I just like the song "Hot Drinks." Thinking of putting it on my iPod for when I'm in my car and no one else can hear my tragically tone-deaf Wendy's singalong.
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I hear you, Fiona - I live down the street from my undergrad, but my teaching schedule has made it hard to make the courses there. Unfortunately, they accepted me to their MA, which I don't think I'll be able to afford (tuition remission but no TAships available to former students - which no one told me & is not specified anywhere)...and turning that down means they might not be too keen on me mooching some more...Who knows.
Sorry if I sound bitter. It's just that the news kind of stung
. Thought I had a funded MA option. -
I think your work sounds interesting, and I think English departments are largely very open to interdisciplinarity and a braod understanding of "the text." More than your interests, I would think your background would be the "weakness" per say. Maybe you could take a graduate class or two this semester, to strengthen your English chops. And next time around you might want to add some funded MAs to your search.
Yes, this is my fear, too, though my undergrad coursework is only 3 credits shy of a major. I did my MA in English ed. and have taught HS English for 3 years. Unfortunately, I teach some upper-level and just time-wise demanding courses, so my attempts to fit grad classes into my school year haven't been too successful. I might try to do it this summer instead.
I do have one funded MA in my application arsenal (no word yet), but I'm wary of it - I wouldn't be able to teach public school again, most likely, if I had a second MA. (I know my current school shies away from even interviewing people with two).
Thanks to both of you - I'll look into UCR next time.
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Though the application season isn't quite over, I'm a worrywart and tend to think a bit too far ahead for my own sanity. However, assuming I will be applying for a second round next fall, I was wondering if I could draw on the depth/breadth of wisdom available in this forum - especially since I didn't stumble across it until well after submitting those apps this year.
I've already isolated some things I'll change in my approach, and I think geographic diversity should be one of them. I only applied to schools within a few hours from home (luckily, as a New Englander, there are a lot of them). This was mostly due to feeling responsible for family, but I accept that I might need to give that up for round 2.
My other problem (asset?) is that my background is in visual arts (and English) and I want to study intersections between art history & English, using the literature as my primary source, the visual stuff as secondary - especially literature that portrays artists and their relationships with their work, re: the contemporary art world and re: visual portrayals of gendered bodies. The ultimate point being to dissect authors' analogies between the painter and the writer, as well as how both interact with their subjects. (The detail of a statement of purpose makes this a bit clearer, trust me. Or hopefully).
The ever-elusive "fit" might be more of an issue for me, then. It's a given that some schools won't see this as a "concentration" that fits with their typical way of categorizing applicants/students/literature. On the other hand, other schools are all about interdisciplinary research.
Since many of you are applying from other areas of the country and are familiar with other regions - or are already attending and know your own grad depts. well - what schools would you suggest I research as possibilities for next year? Given the discussions that have shown many of us to have diverse/atypical backgrounds, hopefully this info will be helpful to the rest of you, too.
Thanks, folks!
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Dealing with crushing rejection is like brushing my teeth at this point.
I suppose this could be a good justification for the application process being so soul-crushing. Gives one a taste early on. Though, like you, Phil, I hope the love of the pursuit will overshadow the dejection, ultimately.
Anyone else have parents/family/friends who try to talk you out of it? The bigger debate, as elucidated by The Guardian, reaches home a bit too personally for my liking. I have the kind of parents who aren't academic at all, so they don't really get the "love of subject" part, and also think that at 24, I should have a significant retirement fund already in the works. I like that they've made me responsible and forward-thinking, but there has to be a point at which one thinks too forwardly...right?
What I've always been good at and lucky with (to some extent -- external scholarships often ignore me like my applications smell funny) is school.
Same here. If the possibility of career-scholarship is so unrealistic (hypothetically speaking, not saying it is), the whole tradition of 16 years of schooling is pretty cruel! Those of us who are at home there, succeed there, and want to contribute to it as working adults should have some avenue by which to do so. In that case, I have to think of dedication to the PhD-track as somehow noble, financially beneficial or no.
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I have never wanted anything more than for this waitlist to turn into an acceptance!
Same here. I mean, my sheer wishing/willpower will make this spot open up...right...? A lot of my inner monologue lately is getting really childish/tantrumy, "I want, I want!" and such, like I have some underlying belief that whining helps. (Not that I'm going to stop whining or anything, let's be serious).
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Furthermore, who are these supposed employers who will look negatively upon an advanced degree? McDonalds? B/c this certainly isn't true for anyone who wants to teach (I'm looking at this from a Humanities perspective since this is posted in the Rhet/comp thread). There are some [usually public high] schools that do not want to hire MA's or PhD's b/c they have to pay them more, but most states either prefer advanced degrees or require that a teacher get one within a certain # of years after being hired; this is certainly true of private schools, who nearly always prefer those with advanced degrees. And, of course, if you want to teach at any level above high school, you need an advanced degree.
This part is quite true and a huge conflict for me, as a public HS teacher. Got an MA? Great! We'll hire you! Second MA? PhD? Couldn't be bothered. You're too expensive. And outside of a university, most teaching jobs are public. I'm also at a school that consistently horrifies me with its careless hiring practices. No one seems to value advanced experience in one's field.
I apply to PhD programs knowing that I might never be able to return to my current profession. Not saying that's a goal, but one does like to keep doors open...
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Maybe these articles will deter enough scholars (maybe the ones whose hearts aren't in it?) so as to give US more opportunity in the job market.
Then again, my idealistic subject-bias makes me believe that anyone who devotes her/himself to literature will be an infinitely better person...
- marruma and fredngeorge
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Gawd. You now have me worried about this SOP / writing sample thing. I remember this debate in another forum - should we follow professors' advice that you should submit your best writing no matter what, or should we be tailoring it to the SOP (or vice versa)?
The good thing is - you made an impression. Among however many applicants, your content was fresh in mind. Could count that as a plus!
I think your application of poetics makes sense, to the degree that you explain it here. I find Buffalo's feedback a bit odd. Maybe this is just philosophical difference between schools? I remember my undergrad institution had a Mythopoetics seminar, a study in modernism, that paired poetry and novels (Mostly Eliot and Joyce, I think) in order to study of narrative in general - it satisfied the upper-level theory requirement, though. Maybe you would be better situated in theory? Might give you more room to go your own direction?
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I feel that, but your friends probably don't get to read books all day and write what they want.
This. Is. The dream.
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Arthur Danto: "In my own version of the idea of 'what art wants,' the end and fulfillment of the history of art is the philosophical understanding of what art is, an understanding that is achieved in the way that understanding in each of our lives is achieved, namely, from the mistakes we make, the false paths we follow, the false images we have come to abandon until we learn wherein our limits consist, and then how to live within those limits. ”
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Whoa this got personal! Sorry, all. Overshare, I'm sure.
On the contrary, I think it's kind of refreshing. We have the virtue of comfort through anonymity, and though most of the time we're all "ohmigodithinkmySOPsucks" or "ohmigodsomeonepostedanacceptanceimusthavebeenrejected" (too much, I know), there are social issues to either face (if we haven't) or discuss with others who might have similar conflicts.
Also, being someone who's kind of terrified of sharing personal info with, well, anyone, I'm probably more fascinated than most by other people's lives.
How to manage others' reactions to your rejections
in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition
Posted
pelevinfan - Does this mean that you focused more on your personal narrative and not on research interests? (Not that your personal narrative doesn't show those interests - but I spent a good chunk of time explaining my interpretive point of view and the conceptual connection between a variety of the texts I hope to use. More of a half-and-half SoP - beginning: here's who I am, end: here's what I'll do.) I've always been baffled that they say something like "Personal statement approximately three pages in length" on their websites, then list a bunch of topics to cover - as if I'd be able to represent myself fully in three pages? I want to write two statements - one to tell them my background and how awesome it is, one to explain my proposed research interests. That way they both read as neatly packaged little pieces of writing.
I hear you about having a hard time talking about accomplishments. I don't know how to word it quite right, especially for university eyes rather than these boards.
To echo crystalleem, I'd also appreciate anyone (after the madness of the season) who would be willing to provide some feedback, as long as he/she heeds my warnings that I did not in any way know what I was doing (other than pulling out my hair) when I composed it.