dazedandbemused

Ah. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) not a film that I've ever seen.

Erm.. I don't get it. Insurance joke?

Not prying at all! I come from a religion that has an extensive international educational system that makes it very easy to spend your entire academic life, from kindergarten to PhD inside of that system. I think it's only second to the Catholic system in scope (and no, it's not Mormon). My university managed to crack the top 200; not prestigious, but in the grand scheme of America's thousands of colleges/universities it's nothing to to ridicule. It's small, but we do have MA programs in almost every discipline, and even about 20 PhDs.

Eh, I don't know if I was being PC so much as making myself feel better about my chances. My undergraduate degree isn't from a school with a pedigree because of religious considerations, and as someone without an MA who is hoping to go straight to PhD I know that my chances are seriously slim. So while I think that in many ways, you're correct about pedigree, I'm more likely to attribute it to circumstances like what proflorax describes than purely because of the pretty name in the flowery font on your diploma. Maybe it is overly optimistic, but it is what it is. Again, I'm not judging anyone's undergraduate degree; I was speaking specifically to where you get your PhD and how that would affect job prospects. I certainly wasn't trying to rain on beet-nik's choices; I was legitimately curious about her career path. I'm surprised you felt this way; out of all the arguments that I've witnessed/joined on here this season, this one seemed as far from angry as you can get without being high.

Ok, are you responding to me? Because I didn't say any of that and you are reading a whole lot of passive aggressiveness into a statement that I only made matter-of-factly. I don't think asleepawake is saying any of that either... ETA: Didn't see your response. Glad to clear it up.

If you notice, I was referring to beet-nik's choice of graduate institutions; I know nothing about where s/he did her undergraduate degree. When I say pedigree, I don't mean that when you apply to PhD programs, you'd better have an ivy league bachelors degree in your back pocket. Lord knows I sure don't. What I meant is that it's extremely important to have a PhD from a great program for a variety of reasons: Great schools will have better research opportunities and resources, better funding to allow you more time to do consistently superior work, better teaching opportunities (with significant exceptions at some high ranked schools) and faculty connections that could really help your word of mouth appeal on the job market. Basically, I'm not saying that the school itself will make you better, because great work can be found anywhere. However, it's undeniable that better schools will give you a better chance at a TT job. I tend not to put significant value on the Ivy's myself (crucify me if you must) so please don't think I'm hating on small school education; I think I've made it clear in other threads that that is my own pedigree.

Out of curiousity, are you planning to continue on to a PhD after your MA? and if so, do any of the schools you're applying to have info about whether their students are successful at getting into PhDs? Because while I'm more reticent to pronounce your future dismal than DontHate is, s/he right in saying that pedigree matters. I'm sure you've thought about these things, I'm just wondering.

Do you blog? Because I would read your blog. This post is amazing.

I actually took a capstone class that required four 7 page papers. However, rather than being an English capstone class, it was the Honors program capstone and was in fact a philosophy class. I think doing the shorter papers can be extremely useful, but it all depends on the focus of your class. Our class was extremely varied thematically, so it was useful to be able to think about things on a smaller scale on paper that we were thinking about at a grander scale in discussion. Will you be examining a variety of themes and methods or is there a more cohesive tone to the class? In the latter case, I would ask for the longer paper as well because I can't think of any reason why a senior English major would be writing anything shorter than 10 pages in that situation.

It's good to see all of these dreams from other people; I thought I was going crazy. I think I've begun to fixate on UT Austin or something because I had a really vivid dream in which I got accepted, went there, and became best friends with everyone I encountered. Cause you know, I'm just that cool. Of course, waking up and realizing that I'm really just completely psycho didn't help the anxiety knot that I've been carrying around in my chest since I submitted my last app.

I'd love to read it too. I just finished a paper that I'm hoping to spiff up for publication within the next year, but at this point it's barely worth reading by anyone.

Well, it looks like I'm done. It hasn't really hit yet, though. In other news, I'm poor.

You know that's right.

I can't speak specifically to a break year although I would be inclined to think that a single year would be unlikely to raise red flags. I graduated in the spring, but I've been doing post-bac work for this year so I've got something keeping me in academia. However, unless it's been a few years and a few app cycles since you left school, I wouldn't worry. As you say, how much can they really expect out of you in four months? I'm sure there are people who got accepted to conferences and got published in that short span, but I doubt it's a majority. I'm certainly not an expert though, so don't quote me on that!

Eve Sedgwick Jack Halberstam Michel Foucault Stephen Greenblatt

I don't think they have a specific length. If they told you to just make sure to cover the topics they want you to address, I would just aim for 1-3 really good pages.

*bows* I am at thy service, good gentle person. But seriously, there's nothing on tv tonight and my only other option was cleaning my apartment. I think I may be all tapped out for the night though...

I also tend to be cagey about gender on the internet because I like seeing how people engage with me based solely on my performance. Which isn't to say that I'm "pretending" online, just that I think the anonymity makes discussion easier and less "boyz are stupid" and "girls are such sluts" than often happens on your average forum or even comment thread.

Well gee, I wouldn't say EVERYBODY. I think it's just you, econosocio, and DontHate. I won't try to speak for you though, and I'd appreciate the same courtesy.

Well, I think we've just proven that we aren't actually talking about whether one is male or female, but rather whether one is masculine or feminine. Which, as any good gender theorist can tell you, is performed regardless of biology.

Damn! I guess my picture made it pretty obvious...

I will never understand this kind of disciplinary hatred. These kind of wide, sweeping statements about the worth of an entire discipline seem utterly contrary to the investigative nature of a PhD. I've always been of the opinion that every discipline has merit, but maybe that's just because I do pathetic literature stuff.

Don't feel bad; I haven't even gotten a gender guess yet. Maybe it's so obvious that you can just tell. Whatever "it" is.

Thankfully, I don't think I've got any regrets this year. I almost didn't apply to USC, which would have been a huge regret, but I managed to get that one out on time. I think last year was the year of regrets; I made sure to apply to all of them this time around.