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toasterazzi

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Everything posted by toasterazzi

  1. Looking forward to seeing whichever ones of you are coming to see us at OSU on Monday . My advice?: Take it easy. Have fun. Ask questions. There'll be a bunch of us around to answer the questions (Also to eat free food. But **mostly** to answer the questions haha).
  2. I don't post very often anymore (#gradschoollife lol), but I did want to come through to say congrats to everybody accepted/waitlisted at OSU! If you have any OSU/Columbus-related questions, feel free to send them my way
  3. My department accepts ASL to meet the requirement, but I know some folks in other departments here who've had to fight to get their department to accept it for their requirement.
  4. At Indiana State, where I got my MA, we taught two classes per semester starting with the first semester. It was possible to subsequently opt out after that first semester and be a tutor instead, which is an option that some people took. For me, as someone who got a BA in English Education and who was coming off teaching middle school, I didn't find the adjustment particularly difficult, but some folks in my cohort did. My advice if you're nervous? Make good use of the resources. There are hella pedagogical resources both online and in books. Beyond that, to me, it's just a matter of practice. Here at OSU, we do one class per semester (unless you're on fellowship, have an equivalent assistantship, etc). In every class I've taught at the college level, I've been the instructor of record except one. And though it requires more work, I much prefer to be the instructor of record. Being a discussion section leader was a very strange experience imo. Fun (?) fact: I got paid less to teach two classes than I do to teach one class ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  5. Just now seeing this. Welcome! We're glad to have you
  6. Very glad to hear that you all enjoyed the visit. We certainly enjoyed having you here
  7. Looking forward to seeing you all soon! As I said on the acceptances thread, feel free to send any of your OSU/Columbus questions my way as well. Particularly, my wheelhouse is the pop culture/media studies/digital media corner of the department, so if you're into that stuff, hit me up FWIW I live in the Old North area, which is between campus & Clintonville, pretty accessible via the bus, and decently affordable in most instances.
  8. Hey everyone! Just wanted to slide in with a hearty congrats/(possible) welcome to everyone who got in at OSU. It's been a while since I've posted, so for a refresher, I'm a 3rd year PhD Candidate (I just finished exam a couple of months ago). I primarily study television, film, and pop culture. If you have any questions about the program, the department, the university, funding, Columbus, etc, feel free to send them my way. And I look forward to meeting you all at the visit day!
  9. So my undergrad degree is English Education & my MA is in English & American Literature. But my actual areas of interest are TV, Film, & Pop Culture. Now there are a lot of different programs in which a person can do such work, including a lot of English programs. Because of my background, I applied to mostly English programs. And part of why I picked Ohio State is because it is such a huge program that values of variety of fields, including TV/Film/Pop Culture. Though I do love reading, I have found myself pretty adverse to the canon over the years, so I feel you there. I did have to take some lit classes for my MA, many of which were in British literature (which is about as far away from my reading interests as you can get), and some of those classes were enjoyable while others were...er...they were classes that I took haha. I didn't have to really take much in the way of required lit classes for my PhD because all of my reqs were met by my MA. But back to the test. OSU does not require the subject test. In fact, I didn't apply to any schools that did require the subject test. Some of them said you could send the score optionally, and I just opted right on out of that. It's true that a fair amount of the higher ranked schools do require the subject test, but rank wasn't ever one of my top priorities. I focused more on finding schools that aligned with my interests, and I got lucky enough that I apply to six of those without having to take an extra test. Everything I've heard about the subject test makes it sound like a pricey hassle, so if it can be avoided, I'd do so. That being said, from what I've read on the board here over the years, there seems to be a lot of variety in terms of whether people think the test score really helped or hindered them. So I guess if you find that you do have to take it, do what you have to do, but maybe try not to dwell on it too much?
  10. I didn't take the subject test at all because the schools I applied to either didn't require it or didn't ask for it (one even explicitly said DO NOT SEND IT TO US lol). It didn't seem make a major difference one way or another.
  11. It's a great conference! There's so many interesting panels & people are very welcoming and open in my experience. Plus, it's pretty chill (as far as conferences go). I've never been to Seattle, so I'm hoping to get some exploring in as well. Last year, the conference was in New Orleans, and that was a fabulous experience.
  12. I'll be there too! Third year in a row. I love this conference The college that houses my department offers small grants for travel/research, so I applied and got one of those to help when I exhausted the departmental funding. I'm sure it varies from university to university, but I know on my campus at least that there are various random departments, organizations, and offices that also have additional funding available, but you have to search for it because all of that info isn't compiled in a central location.
  13. So I did my MA from 2012-2014, and I started my PhD program in the fall of 2014. 1. When did you start preparing for the GRE Literature Subject Score? Did you study with a friend or professor? I didn't take it. Like everything I read about that test made me pretty sure that I wanted nothing to do with it. And most of the programs I was interested in didn't require it, so I skipped that one. 2. If you needed to retake the GRE to make your scores competitive, did you prep during the summer? I didn't take the GRE to apply to my MA program (wasn't required), so I attacked it for the first time when I was preparing for PhD apps. I gathered as many free resources as I could and did some intermittent studying here and there. But I would say most of my "serious" prep happened in the week leading up to the test. 3. How did you manage to work on your applications (i.e. writing samples and SOP) during a busy schedule? Or did you submit your applications after finishing your MA? I'm honestly not really sure how I made this work. I was taking three classes and teaching two classes that semester, so there was definitely a lot going on. I imagine a fair amount of whiskey was involved lol. I did keep an excel sheet with all of the important info (due dates, program reqs, etc.) and I tried to get things going as early as possible. I also made sure to give my profs as much time as possible to get the letters in. 4. Is it okay to ask a professor you work closely with to look at your writing samples, maybe even do a mock interview? I didn't do this, but I imagine it'd be totally fine.
  14. Oh yeah! I guess I should mention that my areas of study are Film, TV, and Pop Culture, so if any of y'all are in those areas, fill free to hit me up with questions about that as well
  15. The funny thing about this is that I tried to just say Ohio State University when I introduced myself to people at a national conference last year, and folks kept correcting me haha.
  16. As a current OSU attendee, I want to say three important things: 1. OSU tends to notify early, so I'm not surprised if people are seeing movement now. 2. OSU notifies over a span of time w/ fellowship people getting contacted first. 3. Feel free to send any OSU/Columbus-related questions my way Edit: One more thing. I noticed that my status changed on the Portal approximately 2-3 days before I got the call from the DGS.
  17. Yeah the only time where this is really a factor, from what I've observed, is if the grad school is using the total GRE score for fellowship consideration. However, at least at my university, there are various different types of fellowships with different GRE requirements (as well as various GPA requirements and such). My quant score was in the 18th percentile (seriously lol), and I still had successful apps.
  18. That's basically the distinction here at OSU because we don't have a terminal MA. You're either MFA, MA/PhD, or PhD.
  19. I'm not sure how all the specific funding details go for international students, but here at Ohio State, we have an MA/PhD program and there are international students in it with fellowships and assistantships, so that seems like a viable option.
  20. I would also suggest that there's potential problems with going to a university to work with one specific person. Yes, it might work out, but that person also might go on sabbatical or switch jobs or become ill or simply not be able to take on new students. And I think that sometimes people don't always consider this ahead of time. Also, let's be real. Just because you like someone's research, that doesn't mean you'll be able to get along with them on a personal level. This is part of why I looked for programs that had several people that I could see myself working with based on a broad overview of their areas of interests rather than a deep dive into the work of any particular person. I do think that this ultimately comes down to a matter of preference. I don't think anybody's application necessarily lives or dies on whether they mention specific profs in their SOP (unless the university has that as a specific requirement). I do believe that it's entirely possible to be successful with either method.
  21. Haha yeah I remember that struggle. I had a few different versions of my SOP with varying degrees of successfulness I think. The particular version of my SOP that I described above, which is the one that got me into my current university, is a little under 900 words. If I had to cut it down for a smaller SOP, I would probably trim the area about my dissertation ideas & some of what I said about my prior research. I had 5 paragraphs, so some of it would probably get combined with a little less detail.
  22. I also want to chime in with an "It's possible!" Lol. I got my MA at an unranked state school & I'm now getting my PhD at Ohio State. And in my program, there are students from all sorts of educational backgrounds. I'm sure there are probably programs where the prestige of your previous institution can become a factor, but it seems to me that there are also plenty where that's not a major concern.
  23. I didn't mention any specific professors in my SOP. I did explore their pages on the department website as well as any additional websites and/or CV information if that was readily available. I skimmed some publication titles/abstracts, but I didn't read anything that any of them had published thoroughly. I personally did not find it particularly necessary to link my research ideas that specifically to someone else. What I did do though was make sure that there were multiple profs in the department who I thought could at least provide some degree of guidance for me. I also made sure that the things I'm interested in (TV, Film, Popular Culture) had a significant presence in the information that department provided. My basic structure with the SOP then was something like: State my primary research interest(s) & why that's significantTalk about related research & writing that I'd already done Talk broadly about my vague ideas of what I might want my dissertation to be (btw the idea I mentioned here is totally not what I'm probably going to write about as it turns out haha)Talk about my ideas for teaching, especially as they relate to my research interestsTalk specifically about the department & where I see myself fitting in based on the research areas I found to be present in the departmental information (I also specifically looked at the course listings from the prior year and referred to some of my findings here in terms of how they related to my interests)Concluded with how I felt connected to an aspect of the department's publicized goals (Almost every website I looked at included some sort of statement of what the department is interested in, working toward, etc.)And by doing all of that, I feel like I adequately established how I saw myself in relation to the department without naming any specific people. I'm certainly not saying that you shouldn't name people. I'm just saying I don't think it's absolutely necessary.
  24. Hi. You might want to check out this post in which someone else is also soliciting suggestions about film/media programs: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/69877-filmtv-studies-in-english-lit-program-suggestions/. I commented there about being at OSU, and I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you might have about the program via PM. I'll add though that the Art History program here is one that overlaps with film. I don't know much about that component as that's not really my area, but I do know that they regularly offer classes that fall under the film umbrella. I also know that many of the different language departments here provide film coursework as well. And I did specifically take a Feminist Film Theory class in the Women's and Gender Studies department last year that I'd be happy to talk to you about as well.
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