marXian

This is a little picky, but--"religious studies" is not what requires a lot of language preparation. That implies that everyone in an RS program must learn multiple languages when, in fact, some in RS programs will be required to learn zero languages and others will have to learn many, both ancient and modern. RS contains myriad subfields across just about every culture and time period. So folks who are studying texts, text reception, etc. in the ancient world, for example, are going to need to know the languages relevant to their region(s). I have colleagues in my program in the "American Religions" track who don't have to do any languages. That is a relatively new trend among humanities PhD programs; namely, that language requirements are decided by adviser and advisee. My adviser wants me to have reading ability in French and fluency in German (I study theology). Getting a lot of languages under your belt before applying to PhD programs is really only necessary if you're doing text work in an ancient or medieval context. People who will be working with texts in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, etc. who have no experience with those languages previously stand very little chance of getting in anywhere. But most people interested in those periods will definitely have extensive preparation in those languages (since they're the most basic). It's then the other languages (Aramaic, Ugaritic, Syriac, whatever is relevant to your work, etc.) that will set you apart as an applicant. It's not quite the same with the modern languages. I had one semester of college German four years before applying for programs and no French. The only disadvantage I had because of that was that I had to take language courses during my first year and first summer. Then I took the reading proficiency exams during my second year. People coming in with a language or two are usually able to get the exams out of the way in their first term. It was extra work for me, but it wasn't impossible. If you're applying to M* programs, the only programs where you might have to worry about having better language prep would be non-seminary RS programs or something like Yale Div's MARc (again assuming you want to study texts). Otherwise, seminaries do not expect any language prep usually.

It depends on the MA, but especially for large div schools and seminaries, committees are not looking for an incredibly specific SOP. For smaller departments or probably something like Yale Div's MARc, something more focused is necessary, but still not at the level of focus or sophistication at which a PhD SOP would need to be. Committees realize that most undergrads applying to their first MA program are probably not going to have incredibly focused research interests yet (nor should they, in my opinion). Of course you don't want to be so broad that it sounds like you either don't care what you study or you have absolutely no clue what you're interested in. If you're interested in going on to a PhD, you should be able to at least identify an area of interest (e.g. theology, texts, etc.) and maybe something more specific (a figure or a time period) but anything more specific beyond that is probably icing on the cake. No one is going to hold you to these interests once you're in.

I agree with theophany that you want to put the best possible "you" forward that you can, so if you really don't feel ready, don't apply. I also agree that reapplication very much depends on the school. I just want to add, though, that sometimes, you just need to apply even if you don't feel 100% ready--because maybe you really are ready. In other words, despite actually needing to be ready when you step foot on campus, as theophany says, for some it's really really hard to feel like you are even if by all accounts you really are. Academics, especially applicants and new PhD students, suffer from this sort of self doubt all the time. This situation may not be everyone's, but it was mine as I was trying to figure out when I should apply to PhD programs. When I was finishing my first MA (in English), I remember my thesis chair asked to meet with me when she found out I was going to apply to more M* programs instead of PhD programs. I had lots of reasons (i.e. wanting to change disciplines, become more interdisciplinary) but something she said really stood out to me. She asked me if I was scared to go on to a PhD. I thought that was ridiculous. She warned me though that she had seen other students of hers go down the road of earning M* after M* degree and never go on to a PhD. I just ignored her and went on to my second MA (which was definitely necessary for the PhD program I'm currently in). I was finishing my seminary degree (my second MA) during my PhD app season, and a prof who was helping me hammer out the SOP suggested to me that I think about applying to a couple local (to Los Angeles) MA in philosophy programs just as a back up. I had also thought about the possibility of staying at the seminary for a ThM. That I felt some sense of comfort at her suggestion made me realize I was nervous that my prep wasn't strong enough. My MA in theology was the only formal training I'd had in religion at all. The thought of going on to yet another M* program seemed really comforting, and I felt pretty confident I could get into either the ThM at my seminary or one of the local philosophy departments whom I knew had taken students from my seminary before. It was at that point that I also realized I maybe was a little scared to apply because I didn't want to get rejected. I also realized that even though I had thought getting a third MA would give me more time to narrow in on a topic for my PhD apps, I just wasn't going to advance in my intellectual development if I didn't go on to a PhD program. The third MA would not have helped me write a better application to RS and theology programs I don't think. I resigned myself to apply only to PhD programs despite my self doubt, and like you, planned on giving myself two or three rounds to make it happen. I feel very lucky that I received offers on my first attempt. Your situation is obviously a little different, Marcian, but I say all this just as a reminder that it's a good idea to think very seriously about whether the potential holes in your application are actually holes or if they're self doubt. You've mentioned some concrete issues which may be unavoidable, but I would caution against running headlong into a second or third M* degree when you actually might have a legitimate shot at a PhD program (where they may force you to earn another MA anyway if it's RS.)

This is the reality for many of us. I'm not in an ancient language-base field, but I also have two master's degrees, one from a standard state school program in English, and the other in theology from a seminary. That latter took three years to finish. My PhD will probably take 5-7 years, making for 10-12 years total of grad school. The important thing to remember is that after the second year of you PhD (usually), school isn't at all like it was during your master's programs and first years of the PhD because you're probably not going to be taking courses. After your exam year, there's all sorts of grants to apply for to go study places and work on your dissertation. Following that year, you're basically really starting to enter into the realm of professional academia. So I wouldn't really think of it as 10 years of the same kind of graduate work. Did your friend go to a university outside of the US? You can go do a research degree at a UK university (following an MA for our field usually) and all you'll have to do is write your dissertation since that's how the programs there work. But there are lots of reasons why that can make it more difficult to find a job (e.g. those programs are easier to get into because US students pay a lot of money for them, there's no exams to demonstrate competencies in your field, etc.)

Here are a couple thoughts. Religious Studies is arguably the most interdisciplinary of the humanities disciplines, especially at an institution that really values interdisciplinary work overall. That said, I'd recommend starting to think about narrowing down your list of authors of interest to at least one continent and eventually down to probably one or two primary people--the exception being that MTL at Stanford and History of Consciousness are pretty open to just about anything as long as it seems like an interesting, highly interdisciplinary project. That doesn't mean, however, that you won't be able to read and study other people--just that dissertations are super narrow and any adviser no matter where you land would probably tell you covering 6+ figures in one dissertation is far too many. For example, I have an interdisciplinary background (BA, MA English, MA Theology), so I have a great interest in French philosophy and Kurt Vonnegut. I suspect I'll probably be able to utilize those someday in my work, but for right now, I'm focused on German theology/philosophy, and the early 20th century in particular. So there are lots of things I'm expected to know about the history of theology, broadly speaking, the thought of particular German figures from Kant to Tillich, but I'm focused in particular on two figures at the turn of the 20th century when I talk to anyone about my dissertation. NU, btw, has been a fantastic place to be to study German philosophy/theology and critical theory. My adviser has been extremely supportive of everything I've wanted to explore, the papers I've wanted to propose, etc. All the programs you list would be really great for interdisciplinary work, I think. It's just a matter of articulating the right project at a good level of specificity (don't think of it as the thesis statement of you dissertation or anything like that.) If you PM me I can give you some more specifics on NU.

IU (Indiana), Washington, Florida State, and Missouri all offer a terminal MA in RS whose students tend to do relatively well during application season (UDub's degree is in comp. religion and is housed in the int'l relations dept.--so a little different.) The thing with many public school programs is that they are quite often mostly focused on ethnography, sociology, etc., sometimes with some text people, and almost never theology. UVA is a major exception in this regard.

AverroesMD, it's worth noting that there are very very few terminal MA programs in religious studies in the US. I agree with sacklunch that doing a funded MA at non-seminary/div school is preferable for the reasons listed. I too have an MA from a state school (in English) and an MAT from a seminary. I had personal attention, tuition remission, and stipend for the English MA and none of that for the MAT. Of course, the English MA only indirectly helped me in my prep for my PhD and wasn't part of a strategy to gain entrance into an RS PhD program. That said, it's worth noting that our field is really different from the majority of academic fields. Seminaries/div schools are the grad school exception, not the rule, i.e. people in other humanities/social sciences fields don't have dedicated institutions in their field which admit about 50% of applicants. All of those people have to compete at programs in their field for 1 of 10-20 spots. Entrance to an RS program really depends a lot on one's specific field much more than in other humanities fields. For example, a prospective philosophy applicant could be interested in metaphysics and another in ethics, but both need a degree in philosophy (ignoring, of course, all of the Leiter politics with philosophy programs.) In any given RS department, there may be people who study Buddhism, bioethics, Islam, Christian theology, American religions, Hinduism, Talmud, Hebrew Bible, New Testament... you get the idea. These all have their own unique preparations, the paths through which vary widely. People coming into RS programs have a wide range of degrees, which may or may not be in RS specifically. All of that to say: It's really, really hard to narrow in on what gives one the best chances of getting into a PhD program in RS.

I really feel like we went through this on a different thread a few months ago... But I'll give a general answer. I think the conventional wisdom is that people from the major divinity schools (Harvard, Yale, Duke) or PTS tend to have the best odds of getting into a PhD program. The MAR/MTS/MA tracks in those programs are designed to groom students into more-than-viable PhD candidates. Anytime someone asks me for advice in choosing between programs, and their choices are, for example, Fuller and Duke, I always tell them to go to Duke (if their ultimate goal is a PhD program.) Oregon is obviously a reputable research institution, but it seems to me if you went that route you would still want to do another MA afterward from one of the major Div schools since I seem to remember you saying your Australian graduate degree didn't include languages, and having a M* degree either in RS or from a div school/seminary looks good when applying to those types of schools for the PhD. The other thing to keep in mind, as others I think have already mentioned, is that admission rates to a state program, especially a Classics program when you don't have a degree in Classics, is going to be far more competitive than one of the big name div schools. In your post where you mentioned your programs of interest in bold, you said you didn't know about your odds for YDS, HDS, or DDS. They are much, much better than your odds of getting into Oregon's Classics department. I'd say of the programs you listed, your chances are by far the lowest for Oregon.

Am I wrong, or don't schools like Duke, Yale, Chicago Div, HDS offer M* degrees that would prepare one for NT/EC study without having language training coming in? I'm not a text scholar, so I might be wrong, but I thought that was the case. Those schools have plenty of non-confessional people attending them. I feel like we've had this conversation with you on a different thread, TheResidentAlien.

For such a small program, if three students from one graduating class are now attending Duke, Syracuse, and IU, that's actually an amazing placement rate.

For NT/Early Christianity, you need a M*, maybe two, depending on how many languages you have by the time of application, but it sounds like you (the OP) know that. I don't think a UK degree will be a hindrance especially if you plan on coming to the US after to get another degree before a PhD. There are always places that will better either in reputation, fit, etc. when you're considering any school, but at the M* level, I think that's really splitting hairs, especially because you're talking about a school that's well known. The only thing I would say is that UK degrees, at least at the PhD level, are a little dubious to US departments for two reasons: 1) They have a higher acceptance rate because US students have to pay A LOT to attend, and the schools want that income 2) They don't have any coursework or comp exams. The first reason might apply to M* programs over there, but I don't know for sure.

I think going onto the job market with zero teaching experience would be....not a good idea. The job market is already difficult enough. Why would a school consider someone who didn't at least have some TA experience over someone who TA'd some courses and maybe even taught their own course one term as an advanced student? I think the standard funding package at a lot of schools is two years fellowship (i.e. no teaching) and three years TA. Many universities also have teaching centers with programs to help grad students develop good pedagogy as TAs as well as develop their own courses and syllabi. Those are all things that will up your chances of getting a job. My experience has been that TAing doesn't add a whole lot of work because, at least in my program, it counts as units toward my full time status. So this year, my first as a TA in my program, I've taken one fewer course in the two quarters that I've TA'd. It might be a different experience for someone who has never taught before. In my first MA program (English), "TAing" meant I had to actually teach two sections of freshman composition per semester on top of taking three courses. Compared to that, attending lectures given by the prof and holding three discussion sections once a week is a breeze. mdiv2014, some universities (Northwestern, for example) don't allow students with MAs to transfer any units toward their PhD no matter what the program. At NU, it's a Graduate School policy. I imagine that other universities may have similar rules. Now, even if they still have to do the same amount of coursework as everyone else, people coming in with an MA probably have a slightly clearer idea of what their dissertation is going to be, have less reading to do around their topic, etc. Still, it's entirely possible that someone with an MA or two could still take seven years. You just can't anticipate what sorts of roadblocks you'll encounter.

To add to what AbrasaxEos has said, sometimes people come into a program with what they think is a really solid dissertation idea but then that ends up changing. That's not always the case, but it's certainly not rare for people to change their dissertation focus even as late as the prospectus. There are many reasons why that might happen, but it happens. Not that people completely abandon ship on their historical period or subfield or something, just that they have to find a different corner/angle/argument to pursue.

Echoing a little of what sacklunch has said, you need to realize that there is a huge difference between "philosophy of religion" in a religious studies program or at a seminary/div school and "philosophy of religion" in an actual philosophy department in terms of your options for later Ph.D work. I would definitely check with people on the philosophy board about whether or not the phil classes you've taken are enough to get into a top tier philosophy M* program. Philosophy programs are far more stringently ranked both according to overall program as well as subfield. So a school that has a top tier phil. of religion faculty may not actually be a school with a highly ranked program overall. Sometimes when applying to Ph.D programs in philosophy, the former matters more than the latter. It just seems like with philosophy having Ph.D ad coms know your M* program, know the quality of work that faculty do there, etc. is even more important than for Ph.D programs in religion. If you pursue a M* degree in a religious studies department or at a seminary/div school, even if you concentrate on philosophy of religion, I'd say your chances of then getting into a philosophy Ph.D program would be very slim given that you don't have a BA in philosophy. That doesn't mean that you wouldn't be able to do philosophy of religion. I have colleagues in my RS department who are technically getting a Ph.D in RS but who do a lot of work in the philosophy dept. and will probably take one of their three comprehensive exams through the philosophy department. Hopefully that doesn't add to you being overwhelmed. But the more you get all of this info out in front of you, the easier it's going to be to start to narrow in on what your best options are going to be.

sacklunch is right. It's usually up to the department to decide what counts as proficiency. Some departments will accept some number of terms of coursework in a language. Some have their own exam and some make you take another university's exam. But any language prep you do can be helpful later on for demonstrating as strongly as possible that you're proficient in the language for the purposes of grant applications--assuming you would want to try and win a grant during your PhD to go study in Germany for a year. To get a Fulbright or a DAAD research grant to go to Germany, you have to demonstrate that you know the language well enough (speaking and reading) to pull off what you're proposing to do. I've heard that just passing your reading proficiency exam is sometimes seen as a little thin. If you have coursework or other credentials to back that up, you have a better chance of winning a year long research grant.

One more update! We're extending the submission deadline to June 1! Now that your spring term is over or ending soon (unless you're on awful quarters like I am), you can write an amazing proposal and submit it!

Okay, but what sort of Ph.D programs? There are tons of "Ph.D programs" in biblical studies. If you get a Ph.D in biblical studies from McMaster or The Master's Seminary or another small, very conservative evangelical institution, that's the world in which you will remain. You may be fine with that, but those are not "top tier" Ph.D programs. They're insular and, to be blunt, somewhat incestuous (meaning a lot of the PhD students are former MA students, and even some of the faculty are former MA and PhD students.) That's a huge red flag if you're seeking TT PhD programs.

Didn't you say you were interested in top tier Ph.D programs? An MA in Christian Studies is likely not going to cut it for TT programs in Old Testament. You need to do an MDiv + ThM or an MA in theology, emphasis biblical studies, etc. "Christian Studies," in my experience, is typically not an "academic" program but a more professional one for non-ordained church staff, people who work for para-church organizations, etc.

Hey guys, current NU student here (religious studies.) This last winter was the coldest winter on record since they started keeping records in the mid-19th century (seriously.) I'm from southern California, so it was definitely brutal--but I survived! The winters aren't usually that bad. We get a few days of heavy snow scattered throughout the winter, a few days of zero degree temperatures (F), but it most stays between 20 and 30F. If any of you have general questions about housing, etc. feel free to PM me.

Hi, I currently attend Northwestern. My wife and I live in Rogers Park. You should easily be able to find a studio for under 1200 even after factoring in utilities. Both Evanston and Chicago are a mix of older apartments (e.g. from the 1920s) and gutted rehabs. The latter is usually where you'll find in-unit washer/dryers, but those are obviously more expensive (sometimes way, way more expensive.) As far as safety goes, if you choose Evanston, the closer you live to NU's campus the safer you are. That doesn't mean that people don't get mugged walking to and from campus late at night. However, if you're walking with your head up, no headphones, not looking at your phone as you walk, or with another person, you'll be fine. The people who get mugged are those who are not paying attention and have their bright little phone screen visible. Many graduate students choose to live in Rogers Park. My wife and I have a HUGE two bedroom apartment (~1200 sq ft.) in Rogers Park and pay $1255 a month for rent. That includes heat, which can be astronomical in the winter if it's not included in your rent (make sure wherever you live that heat is included in the rent.) It is true that there are parts of Rogers Park that are not that safe. A good rule of thumb is to try to find a place close to Loyola University of Chicago. Anywhere south of Greenleaf, and east of N. Clark St. are going to be totally fine. Northwestern has an intercampus shuttle that runs between the downtown campus (the med/law school) and the main campus. There is one stop in Chicago--at the Loyola Red Line stop (i.e. a CTA elevated train stop) in Rogers Park. This is a really convenient way to live in Chicago where it's much cheaper than Evanston and still be able to get to campus quickly. I live about a third of a mile from the shuttle stop, so it takes about 10 minutes to walk there. The shuttle takes anywhere from 15-25 minutes depending on traffic. It also makes multiple stops in Evanston, allowing students to live a little further south of the campus. If you're a bike rider, most safe locations in Rogers Park are 4-5 miles from campus. It takes me 15-20 minutes on a bike. Chicago is largely a commuter city where a lot of people take public transit. The downside, of course, is that public transit takes much longer than just driving your car. Because of this, some students choose to live in Evanston where they can easily walk or bike to campus. Evanston is a really boring city though. So if you care about being able to more conveniently have a social life, then I would choose Rogers Park or Edgewater (the closer to Uptown/Lakeview you get, the more expensive it's going to be.)

An enormous difference. newenglandshawn, I feel like you're equivocating a bit on what you mean by inerrancy. That doesn't seem to me to be a position on which there is any wiggle room. Too much qualification allowed, and you're basically talking about infallibility, which, while still primarily a conservative position, is more "open" in the way that Joseph was describing, especially on matters of history and science. There is a difference between saying "We have an inerrant text to which I only have access through my human, interpretive lens" and "The text is open to interpretation." Inerrancy absolutely rejects the latter, which is, broadly speaking, what the mainline/secular institutions work in.

I have to agree wholeheartedly with Joseph45. Isn't asserting that an approach from inerrancy is just as valid as every other approach because absolute relativism a bit disingenuous since we all know that those taking that approach reject any form of relativism as part of the very definition of what it means for the text to be "inerrant?" Put differently, inerrancy necessarily rejects relativism; therefore, I don't see how an argument for its validity can be made by asserting the relativism of all approaches. Inerrancy is not a "bias." It's a dogmatic conviction. There are plenty of evangelical institutions that completely reject inerrancy, Moses' authorship of the Pentateuch, etc. There are also non-evangelical, faith-based, or "open-to-faith" institutions that reject inerrancy as well. Why assume that evangelical institutions are the only places a practicing Christian could attend? Or that inerrancy is the only position a practicing Christian could hold? There are plenty of Christians outside of the walls of evangelicalism.

Sorry for the shameless bump! The conference now has a website: http://sites.northwestern.edu/religionandnaturalelements/ Also, due to some funding circumstances, we've had to move the dates of the conference back one week to Oct. 31 - Nov. 2. Nothing else has changed though, including the keynotes!

I'll echo Joseph45's point: your dissertation is the first real step of your intellectual career, not the last. The better it is, the easier it can be adapted into a book (which is important to keep in mind) but that doesn't mean that you are making sure it represents your "mature thought." It couldn't possibly. When I was getting my first MA and writing my first thesis, a professor in the program said to me that she could tell the difference between a good thesis that read the text well (it was a degree in English lit.) and an excellent thesis that not only read the text well but "had a lot of reading behind it." What she meant was that an excellent thesis showed implicitly that the student had a really good grasp on the secondary conversations about the text as well as the theoretical literature being utilized. Whether text/concepts/etc. were cited or even footnoted--didn't matter it was clear that a considerable amount of reading had been done (was "behind" the paper.) That has to be balanced though with the reality that you just can't read everything. No one can or has (since maybe John Milton.) There is a lot that you will have to read and be familiar with once you go on to a Ph.D program (assuming it's in the U.S.) but that's still not everything. Don't become overwhelmed before you begin (sorry if I contributed to that with my first post!) Everything you read (whether primary or secondary) is going to reveal rabbit trails to other things with which you're not yet familiar (ad infinitum as Joseph45 has pointed out.) You have to sort out which of those trails are going to be helpful to go down and which you have to abandon. Yes, I think (or I thought) Perique's point was just broadly that Kant is really important for understanding later people. I could be wrong, but I took his comment to avoid the secondary literature as a comment on the First Critique only since the secondary literature on the First Critique would very quickly bog down a new reader in some very specific philosophical debates that are not necessarily helpful to understanding the First Critique as a whole (e.g. the "two-aspect" theory v. "two-object" theory of noumenal objects.) The problem is that the secondary literature dealing with what is at stake in Kant for later thinkers or philosophy of religion more broadly is going to presuppose a certain level of familiarity with Kant. So while I agree that one does absolutely need to know what conversations are taking place in the field re: Kant, many of those conversations become fully "unlocked" once one has a decent grasp on the First (and Second) Critique(s). This is obviously arguably true of any figure in philosophy, but I think it's especially true of Kant in philosophy of religion and theology. He's just that pervasive. In any case, the expectation for the OP should not be that he/she read and try to get a good grasp on Kant prior to beginning the master's program. But I think it's important that he/she know that Kant is absolutely vital for the work that he/she is interested in and eventually taking a seminar or two on Kant, especially one that just works through the First Critique, will be really helpful later on.

This is absolutely true.