toasterazzi

I've seen people saying they're applying to like 25-30. I can't begin to wrap my head around that. But I do see the benefit in going beyond just applying to a few. Many of these programs might only be taking a handful (or less even) of people and the numbers do factor in at some point, even if you are a stellar applicant. Right now, my list is sitting at 12 schools and I feel pretty good about that number. It still might fluctuate slightly one way or the other, but I honestly think I'm fairly set where I am. It's going to cost so much money, but hopefully it'll pay off .

I don't know if there's a right way to go about it. I didn't even know about these conferences at all until I was almost done with my undergrad program, but from what I've seen online, some people do attend as undergraduates. I went to a conference for English educators in my last year of undergrad, but I didn't present or anything like that. Now that I've finished my first year of my Master's program and I've done a bit of research, I think I'm ready to at least try my hand at presenting. Plus, I'm applying to PhD programs this fall, so I wanted to get some experience under my belt.

Haha nice. That one rejected me . I got accepted to Comparative Media: Social Mobility, Media, and the Development of Networked Social Spheres though.

We're gonna have to be conference buddies at this rate lol Television

Just found out yesterday that I also got a paper accepted for the MPCAACA conference in October. Anybody else going to that one?

I end emails with thanks if I'm actually thanking someone for something. But beyond that, I just have my standard informational signature for emails. Best, regards, and such never feel quite right to me.

I've always been fairly academically inclined, and I figured I would go on to a Master's degree at some point. But I wasn't quite motivated to do so when I finished undergrad in 2010. I had gotten my degree in English Education, and I was eager to get into the classroom and teach. However, I found it utterly impossible to land a teaching job that first year. As a result, I worked in technical support for a year. I did land a teaching job the following year, but it probably wasn't one I should've taken in retrospect. Middle schoolers really aren't who I'm the best with in a classroom setting. I tend to work better with either really young kids or older ones. By mid-year, I knew I probably wouldn't be continuing there. At that point, I began to revisit my thoughts about grad school. There were some extenuating circumstances that drew me to a particular school, and I ended up getting accepted. About halfway through my first year of my Master's program, I found myself loving teaching college students and really thriving in the classroom. That was pretty much when I decided that I had to this PhD thing. I'll be applying to schools this fall. Obviously, I can't regret the decision just yet, but I don't think I will. It's a big deal for me though because I'm getting married next year and trying to drag my fiancee off somewhere for a good 5 or 6 years of my life (and at some point in that time, we plan to acquire small humans). He's pretty chill about it though

Hehe, I decided to take the month off of academic stuff when the semester ended a few weeks ago, but I'm gonna get cracking next week. That includes studying for the GRE, starting the SOP, figuring out possible writing samples, narrowing down schools, etc. I'm also working at the campus bookstore all summer, trying to plan a wedding for next summer, and trying to figure out what my thesis is going to be about lol.

The spare money will definitely be a factor in whether I end up taking it. I'll have limited funds and most of it will be going toward actual application fees, sending the transcripts, sending the GRE scores, etc. I've only come across a couple programs that interest me/seem like decent fits that require the test, but I've got like 15 that don't require it. I'm still leaning toward taking it possibly, but it just might not happen.

I'm going to do some review of story summaries, terminology, etc., but I'm not studying heavily for this test. For one thing, most of the schools I'm considering applying to don't require the scores and one flat out said that we should not send the scores lol. Additionally, it doesn't seem like the schools that do require the scores for the subject test are expecting people to do exceptionally well.

Yeah I was hoping for an earlier date because I want to get it out of the way hehe. Plus, earlier in the semester is less hectic for me, so there's that as well.

They finally updated: http://www.ets.org/gre/subject/register/centers_dates/. I think I'm gonna shoot for the September date...*sigh*...

I don't know anything about that, but it doesn't sound like a huge deal to me. This fall is my last full semester of classes for my Master's, but I'll probably take one class in the spring while I'm working on my thesis.

Haha my fiancee desperately wants me to take him with me, but I'm not super keen about us spending the money. We'll see.

Exactly! It's pretty annoying. Hopefully, they'll get it sorted out pretty soon.

I wish. I emailed them a month or so ago to try to find out, and they said they wouldn't have a new schedule until after the scores for the last test came out or something like that.

It was actually more about the sequel than the original, but telling people I wrote about Boy Meets World sounds better lol.

I actually just submitted a proposal yesterday to the MIdwest PCA/ACA for a paper I wrote about Boy Meets World .

Haha there was a thread on here at some point about blogging like last year I think, so maybe you got it there?

Yay for video game papers! They picked my television and social media paper and rejected my crime studies and television paper. I suppose I'll never know how they felt about my princess culture paper since I had to take myself out of the running for that one when I got accepted to the first one.

As such, if somebody is interested in splitting a room there, please feel free to PM me. I'm probably going to go ahead and reserve a room soon. I had a friend lined up but she had to back out, and splitting costs saves lives so...yeah...lol.

I have a blog: http://dreamsofequality.wordpress.com/. I haven't updated in a few months because the end of the semester got hectic, but I'll get back to it soon. If you look in my sidebar, I have the blogs I follow on there linked. Not all of them are grad students, but some of them are. Beyond that, I also check Grad Hacker on occasion. I'm semi-anonymous on my blog. Like there are some distinguishing factors, but I don't use my name or anybody's full names on there. My blog isn't strictly academic and I try to keep most of the things that come up with my name in Google searches fairly academic-ish lol.

By my count, that's at least 5 Grad Cafe folks presenting at PAMLA! This is awesome

Indiana State. Not well known at all, but there's a lot of great profs here and the Master's is paid for if you get the assistantship/scholarship (which I did). In a lot of ways, having an education background has actually been very useful for me because I have far more practical teaching experience than most of my cohort and it was easier for me to transition into teaching two classes and having to grade all the papers and whatnot than it was for a lot of other people in my group.

Excellent! GradCafe shenanigans will have to ensue