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delight

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    2013 Spring

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  1. I agree that TC feels a bit like a factory / diploma mill. There's just so many students, which can be disheartening. But a few advantages of TC include: - If you have multiple different interests, TC is a great way to explore, learn from, and piece together your own body of work utilizing different theoretical and historical traditions. There's a huge number of qualified faculty members doing very different work. I also benefitted from getting a good dose of both theory and practice. - It's New York. This is important both in terms of reputation, building connections, and using as a research site. There's several faculty members in my dept who came from UCLA / USC / U of Wisconsin primarily for this reason. - Possibility of being part of research teams... I'm currently a masters student and I was fortunate enough to be invited into different research projects that are currently paying my tuition. While this won't be the case for everyone, it was mostly a matter of going to office hours, talking about my background and interests, and trying to find some sort of common ground. Each professor has their inner circle of students they cultivate. Just need to be proactive and reach out. - I think each professor has scholarships they're in control of. I pretty much harassed a professor into giving me one upon admission (I also had what I perceived as leverage, since I was accepted to both UPenn and Harvard). I have mixed feelings about TC. And it probably isn't for everyone...just have to figure out in which settings you strive.
  2. I believe the absolute deadline for each department is after spring break, which is next week. From what I hear, some depts have been slow to decide / some are still undecided...
  3. TC did offer a scholarship; it was about enough to cover housing for a year for me. The rest I had to coin together through various other places. A good strategy I would recommend is joining Education or International Affairs academic associations (Phi Delta Kappa is one of them). I had good luck applying for members-only scholarships. International Development doesn't have a lot of external scholarships available, so google searching for foreign language scholarships are really beneficial as well. If you're willing to study critical languages, the US government offers quite a few scholarships. If you work for TC, they offer 12 free credit hours a year. Many doctorate students work at TAs, which probably helps. But yes, TC is notorious for funding. If I decide to pursue the phd route at TC, my goal is to land a job with one of the few foundations in New York that pay for educational expenses.
  4. I should also add that I have everything paid for, including housing and health insurance, and therefore might not be as critical as some students who are taking on a small fortune to attend TC. I think, while Harvard / Stanford / Columbia is great and might give you an ego boost and strange sort of respect from random outsiders (which actually makes me really uncomfortable), it only gives you a slight edge in terms of finding a job and all advantages are erased afterwards. So if you can afford it, you should go for the educational experience itself, rather than trying to extract some pragmatic value of what it can do for your career...
  5. I'm currently in the program for TC and as a disclaimer, have only been a student for a few weeks now, so I believe I'm still in the honeymoon phase. There are various institutional aspects of TC that I'm not too fond of, but they're not major. Also, for how much ado is made of the TC / Columbia affiliation status, I feel fully integrated into Columbia and benefit from all of their resources. I understand there are a few instances in which TC grads are shafted (TA pay for undergrad core classes, etc), but otherwise, I don't see it being too much of a problem. At the moment, I'm completely enchanted with the campus (which is gorgeous), neighborhood, and city and believe I made the right choice. I received my masters from another university before coming here and my primary reason for applying to TC International Ed. was because of the reputation of the professors. Some of them are very well known in the field. The classes so far have been great - very informative, robust discussions, classmates who literally come from everywhere and have done everything and put my own experiences to shame. Also being a larger school, they have opportunities for publication and presentations internally, which rarely happens in smaller programs. The curriculum is geared towards practice and they're flexible in terms of projects; many times, it appears, they want you to start making connections with NGOs, foundations, and other international organizations in New York and tailor your projects so that they're useful and grounded and that you graduate with a large networking pool already in place. They also seem to emphasize hard skills more than other schools that I've visited and I find this to be an asset. I don't want to be another graduate in international-something and remain lost in New York. That being said, the class sizes are large, especially in popular courses, and you don't get nearly as much one-on-one attention as you would in a smaller school. If you're looking for strong mentoring in the masters level, this program is definitely not for you. This was sort of disappointing, but I'm starting to realize that a lot of my connections are going to start coming from my peers, many of them who are accomplished in their own ways. I had initially contacted people in New York who had interesting jobs and they had mostly graduated from this program. But again, it's easy to feel lost. It's a large school. And the advisors are non-existent and usually not very helpful. I think there's been a lot of discussions about HGSE, TC, and even Stanford masters program being degree mills and cash cows, but I think that's mainly looking at it from an administrative perspective. I think the quality of the program, as gauged by the professors and intellectual level of peers, is great. Columbia has the muscles to put on so many different programs - as evidenced by the speakers they're bringing in on a weekly basis - and New York has a lot of resources available. And students come from all around the world. So yeah, I would recommend the program.
  6. delight

    New York, NY

    I think the M60 bus takes you directly from Astoria, Queens to Morningside Heights. Supposedly a 45 minute commute. I was considering Astoria until I got housing.
  7. I don't know if I can take this post seriously or not. I hope this is meant to be a humorous jab at personal misfortune (i.e. not having funding).
  8. I can't attest for your profession, but TC is very well regarded in the education field. Your criticisms of both programs being cash cows, diploma factories is applicable to most masters program and is irregardless of the reputation of the school or the quality of the education you'll receive - I really do think it depends on how you utilize it. I'm attending TC next year. I have my reservations of the school, mostly regarding the relatively large class sizes, but it does seem to hook you up with ample amounts of publication / presentation opportunities and professional connections. I'm looking forward to it.
  9. VCU - and this is coming from someone who accepted an offer to TC awhile ago (in a different department). VCU has a decent reputation in art education and their art department in general is pretty stellar. Richmond is known for having a liberal, artistic vibe with lots to do for the size of the city. You won't get paid much to do anything in the art / art ed. field (whether it's teaching, museum, research) so you might as well follow the funding opportunity.
  10. If my university is any indication, masters program for teachers have a largely philosophical / sociological orientation - looking at curriculum trends, racial / class / gender inequality, etc. Assuming that the Gates Foundation defines teacher quality by student testing scores, I have a hard time seeing how the two correlate.
  11. Many higher education masters program, to my knowledge, are funded - most students seem to be admitted with a fellowship to work at the university. You should apply to both, or at least apply to the doctorate with the option of being offered a masters admission if rejected.
  12. I was accepted to Columbia & Upenn and ultimately chose Columbia. I didn't apply, or even consider NYU, so I wouldn't be much of a help in that regards. However, I have taken graduate level International Education courses and the professors at Columbia are very well regarded in the field. Because they're a larger school, they offer a more diverse curriculum, a plethora of classes, and have partnership with other departments at Columbia (Mailman School of Public Health, School of International and Public Affairs, School of Social Work) so that you can find what you're looking for. The criticisms I've heard about both SIPA and TC is that it's largely impersonal. And yes, I couldn't find any short-term study abroad programs. However, NYC has just about everything and seeking an internship is not hard. I want to work with migrants, gender and development, and there aren't a lot of cities that would offer me the opportunity NYC does. Personally, finding a strong mentor (which doesn't really seem to happen until you start a doctorate program anyways) or having a hands on component was not necessary, but if it is, you might want to consider Upenn - the director is chair of UNESCO and every graduate student is guaranteed an internship with them. Plus, it's a smaller program.
  13. Most masters programs are considered a "cash cow" - they fund the more competitive, fully-funded doctorate programs in most universities. Unfortunate side effect of higher education : /
  14. I was accepted to Columbia too; my solution was to desperately seek donations from family / extended family members; this might not help your case. You can also negotiate. I didn't receive funding at first, so I sent a letter to the department detailing my case - how I received generous funding elsewhere and I didn't see how I could make it at Columbia, living in New York City, without funding - and they applied tuition credit to my account. Private schools can be negotiated with better than public ones.
  15. Maybe you should seek advice from people who are less cynical about degrees in humanities! Having an undergraduate degree in art, I know plenty of people who pull out $50,000 a year for their MFA degrees - not abnormal to see people with $200,000 to eventually get a masters. Definitely not a pragmatic approach, considering that your life quality will be severely hampered by your loans after graduation. HOWEVER, if you're considering non-profit work in museums, federal loans have a 10 year forgiveness plan. You can get on an income-sensitive plan, pay for 10 years, and have the rest forgiven
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