workinginnyc

I faced a similar fate last year, and this year I was accepted to a few very good programs (1 in the top ten) so there is hope. I am not sure what exactly I did that helped my prospects but I will share and maybe it will help. Among a few things, I took a few courses from a local continuing studies program, one of which was a high level philosophy course. I worked a somewhat prestigious internship, and I completely rewrote all the writing I submitted. I also retook the GRE, but I got a worse score!, but perhaps it was showing the effort that helped. I did not get a masters, however. Only do that if you think you need it to understand the trends in the field and write an advanced paper for a writing sample, or to get recs. Just keep at it and try to apply with as advanced and thoughful of a paper as you can for a writing sample. My suggestion is to really stretch. Spend half of it on very solid readings and research to prove you have the skills and then attempt to branch out from there with ideas you haven't seen before to prove you have ideas. Don't be absurdly speculative, but don't be afraid to reach for things you might not be entirely confident of either. They can teach you research skills, but they can't teach you how to think, you have to bring that yourself. I think the biggest mistake I made on my intitial attempt was being to safe in that way. Course if you have great ideas you can explain and back up 100% with skilled writing and research, even better. Also, don't be afraid of theory, but don't feel like its neccisary either.

Maybe the issue is not what we study but how we study it. When I visited programs, I had many conversations with other prospective feeling uncomfortable for this reason. what we witnessed and question was an endless parade of historicism, representations of X and Y in such and such school of literature. While this work is not really bad work, there was something disheartening about its dominance in the thoughts of grad students, as it seemed a sign of a profound lack of confidence of the prospects of the profession. It is safe to follow in Foucault's (or Greenblatt's) footsteps because, well, good rigorous historicism is hard to find a problem with. People can always respond with that is an interesting viewpoint and it can come from any number of new subjective/political positions, like the Simpsons, its an endless well of commentary, its accessible, and its only about skin deep (most of the time). Many prospectives I had spoken with were modernists or postmodernists obsessed and driven by formal and philosophical questions, looking for the shape of literature and ethics (or anti-ethics) in the coming age. So some of those questions where as old as the 60's if not older, but it was certainly a different orientation, from the impressions gathered at some programs of the work being done. Is this a case of careerism? The suggestion I got on attending Grad School was to go because that is where you wanted to be for the next few years, I can think of nothing better to do with my time than study these things in a small intense intellectually community, (one school I visited did seem to offer this), for the sake of literature itself, and my own interest in the possibility of ethics under postmodern/poststructuralist conditions. I have no stance here, and am fascinated by the question. Will this give me a career in the academe, I hope so. But thats up to the winds of intellectual/economic fashion. Maybe the problem here is fear? But what's to be afraid of? Get a good PhD. and if that doesn't get you a job, find something else to pay the bills. I have a few skills to fall back on. Perhaps I am able to be blithe about this because I have no responsibilities except an undergraduate loan payment, but aren't we all driven to devote our lives to this stuff because of a passionate interest in the material under consideration? Or is it just another job? Maybe I have unreal expectations, so be it.

this is really refreshing that so many people have serious interests in Sci-Fi, not that its completely out of the blue, but its still good to hear.... I did some stuff with time travel in Pynchon in my thesis, though it was more of an excursion for another point than a focus... has anyone read Jameson's book on sci-fi? every time I go to Saint Marks (a great book store in nyc with tons of theory and poetry and other stuff that B & N doesn't carry) I stare at it and almost buy it.

I thought about that before I applied, those companies seem suspicious.

Since I am anxious as all of you, lets be anxious together. Also since I have no idea what I am up against maybe I can find out, I'm only half joking. Well I applied to a bucket of programs without a clear trajectory, beyond 20th century/contemporary american, postmodern/poststructuralist politics and ethics. And ideology critique. At least thats what I have worked on so far. The list is long, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, Cornell, U Chicago, UCLA, UC Irvine, Princeton, UPenn, WUSTL, UIC, and Rutgers. And I am glad to be done with those apps. I am working an internship for the time being so that should help pass the time. I am excited to be in a good program, because my mind has trouble functioning well in much of the rest of the world. Well we will see if I get in. Mostly its a difficult list, but the advice i was getting was lesser programs aren't worth it because you will not end up where you want to without the right grad advisors. This makes sense, and I could always work for a few years if I don't have luck this time. What are other people's thoughts about not getting in? Not to cast a bad light here, but imagining the worst helps cope with the waiting.