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Shelley Burian

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  • Gender
    Female
  • Location
    Atlanta, GA
  • Interests
    Bolivian textiles, Colonial Andean art
  • Application Season
    Already Attending
  • Program
    Art History

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  1. I`m in the in between states Ancient American panel which I think (embarassing) is Friday at 3:15.
  2. I am, I'm presenting in one of the Ancient Americas panels
  3. Hmm, difficult question. The general trend of thought seems to be that you should be as specific as possible, but I have seen people be admitted and do well who did not have clear ideas, and I myself have really changed my area of focus since I've been in my program, moving from ancient to modern indigenous textiles. Where I think the advice on specificity comes from is that what admin committees DON'T like is someone who doesn't appear to have thought the idea of graduate school through and who doesn't have much experience to back up their choice of field. I think that what needs to come through is the sense that you might not know exactly what you want but that you are getting there and really thinking through your choices. Being honest is always appreciated and it will save you a lot of trouble if you are admitted since your adviser will know what they are getting up front.
  4. The number of graduate programs for me was limited to the number of applications I had the energy to fill out, it's more tiring than you think! My area of study is not Early Christian but South American textiles so I don't know how much help I would be but I'll give it a go. Firstly, don't undervalue yourself regarding the PhD.I've seen several students get into good PhD programs straight from undergrad and most in art history come with full funding at the better schools. Funding brings me to my second point of advise which I'm sure you've already gotten but it bears repeating, watch out for debt. Masters programs can be very expensive and with the uncertain job market it can become a serious burden. All of the programs you have listed have good general reputations so I think they would all be decent programs. I have heard good things about Williams especially. It's worthwhile to contact the professors you are interested in working with to see what their interest in you would be and also to verify if they are accepting new students, that way you don't waste your application money on someone who is retiring.
  5. Unfortunately Emory choose to discontinue the PhD program of the ILA so they are no longer accepting new applicants
  6. Emory University has (as far as I can tell, I barely survived my Greek art seminar here last fall) an excellent Classical program, although the professor, Bonna Wescoat is more an architectural historian. She runs the excavations on the island of Samothrace. We also have a large focus on Baroque/Renaissance Italy, especially Rome.
  7. I would be less worried for an MA program, in fact many people who don't have strong backgrounds in art history but wish to continue do a terminal masters program before moving on to a PhD or use to see if further study is right for them. From what I've seen it would perhaps be more of an issue if you were applying to track PhD programs since those programs tend to have more applicants and are a bit more leery of applicants with minimal experience in art history.
  8. One of the biggest issues I have with this discussion (in a general sense, not specific to this article or forum) is that this problem of devoting years of your life and in some cases significant financial resources to train for a career and then have trouble finding permanent employment is not unique to PhDs but is much more widespread. So is the advice problem, who to encourage and who to discourage and how do we make those calls when we are asked to give advice. I keep waiting for someone to compare success in a traditional academic environment to success as a professional ballerina or any other aspect of the fine or performing arts because I think that this comparison might actually help people unfamiliar with the academy understand the dynamics of success (everyone knows how many good singers get rejected from American Idol.)Having talent for research doesn't guarantee you success, and being a good college student and liking the academic environment doesn't mean that you will enjoy being a professional academic in the same way that not everyone who has talent for music and enjoys performing it becomes a profitable professional musician. So many fields are over-saturated with candidates that I think it might be more useful to focus on preparing fall-back plans and thinking beyond finding the dream job (something everyone should do,not just graduate students) than bemoaning the fact that our career field is over-saturated.
  9. I would try to see how many students they have had who haven't finished and dropped out, because that is the biggest warning sign. From what I've seen, having a bad fit with an adviser often means a delayed graduation or even not finishing so I would go with the second person unless they are a complete unknown and the funding is substancially lower.
  10. There seems to be kind of a mixed attitude towards students who come from a studio program and it varies from institution to institution. Very few schools in the US require that you have a previous degree in art history (BA or MA)and as long as you have taken the required number of courses in art history you are eligible for admission. However, as I have responded to the other post about a specific institution's reaction to studio training, some schools whose programs are more theoretical and based on philosophy, rather than on object centered research, don't tend to favor people with this background. This is far from being universal and most schools welcome people with studio backgrounds and see them as having a special perspective on art history because they have been practicing artists. A good way to see how MFAs are viewed at a particular school is to look at their current students and alumni. Do any of them have MFAs? I think, but am not sure, that Ivies tend to prefer a stronger academic background. A good writing sample will probably be key in convincing them (or any school) that your training has been adequate for PhD studies. I don't know what subject matter would be the best choice, especially not knowing your area of interest.
  11. This sounds to me like something you should discuss with your supervisor, as every institution regardless of country does things slightly differently. In my program for example we are basically told grades don't mean anything anymore and are often only given actual letter grades on the final paper and for the class in general. For courses within our subfield(I'm in art history which has many different branches of study much like regular history) we are expected to perform at the A level but B+s and even Bs are perfectly acceptable for courses which are completely unrelated to our specialization.
  12. Don't know about the W affect on your transcript but you might consider investigating how seriously your institution takes academic probation and what the consequences are. At my institution, it happens to a fair amount of students and can be triggered by a professor simply not getting grades in on time giving you too many incompletes. It doesn't affect scholarships or stipends and is very easy in most circumstances to erase the following semester. Since you are borderline in the class its something to consider.
  13. Unfortunately, as a grad of that program (undergraduate, not grad) I have to say that McGill is particularly unfriendly to the studio art track. There is no studio art whatever taught at the university, and undergraduates cannot even count studio courses taken elsewhere towards their art history coursework. Your preparation for graduate work is likely to be more questioned than it would at other schools. I would strongly advise you to contact the professors you are interested in directly concerning your research interests to see how receptive they would be to your proposed work. McGill is HIGHLY theoretical and it sounds like your interests are more.object centered. If you haven't looked at it already, Concordia University is another English-speaking university in Montreal which has a very good art history program and is MUCH more integrated with studio practice with strong BFA and MFA programs. I think they would be much more receptive and a better fit. You could also take graduate courses at McGill with the professors you are interested in as a student at Concordia.
  14. I would say it depends on how closely you need to work with your adviser/ how much control they have over your overall success in the program. For my field, your adviser pretty much governs your graduate life from the year dot to your defense, so if you don't have a good personality fit with that person then it gets very difficult. On the other hand if you only start to work closely with your adviser later in your program and you have to work closely with other faculty and graduate students, then looking at overall atmosphere might be better. I would say that the more prestigious school sounds better in that there are other faculty members it sounds like you could switch to if your relationship with the person you enter with as your adviser starts to slide.
  15. Although I am a McGill grad and love the school, I would suggest that unless there is a particular professor you really want to study with there I would do one of the other schools. It's not a good time to studying at any Quebec university frankly, as the funding situation is so uncertain and there is still a lot of tension over higher education financing. I would not be surprised if McGill is forced to cut future graduate funding. McGill's art history program is also not nearly as well known as Toronto's is in terms of PhD studies down the road. I would also concur that there is less curatorial experience as the program does not have a direct affiliation with either MBAM or MAC, although you certainly can get introduced to people and make those ties yourself, as I did.
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