ProfLorax

... I didn't frame my personal experience as advice. In fact, my advice was this: "Do what works with your application and the narrative you're putting forth in your SoP." I stand by that advice. I didn't speak to the research I did on potential advisors and programs once I had been accepted. That's a whole 'nother thread.

I struggled with this too. I'm feeling generous, so here's my 500-word SoP. I used it when applying to University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2012. I was accepted in the PhD in Writing Studies program and ultimately declined the offer. Hope it's helpful. Throughout my academic and teaching career, I have come to realize that teaching and research are not isolated, contradictory fields. Rather, they are interconnected, and I strive for the teacher-scholar identity, a fusion of theory and practice. At University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I will begin a lifelong career devoted to teaching at the university-level, while pursuing research on feminist disability studies, new media, and writing pedagogy within the framework of writing studies. I was introduced to feminist disability studies as a first-year MA student; I was immediately transfixed by a field that destabilizes society’s concept of bodily normalcy. I wrote a paper analyzing how disability shapes Audre Lorde’s and Eli Clare’s relationship to writing in their autobiographical works; I argued that by complicating the prominent feminist discourse about writing and the body, Lorde and Clare form a new model for revolutionary writing that embodies contradictions and resistance within the intersections of queerness, disability, and gender identity. In 2011, I presented this paper at the MLA Convention in Los Angeles. As I continued with my graduate education, I decided that my research should extend past writing papers; I wanted it to help me grow as a future educator. During my last semester as a student, I enrolled in a seminar titled Teaching Writing in the Digital Age, which prompted me to consider how new media embodies the qualities and objectives of a feminist pedagogy. After I graduated, I was able to apply theory directly to my own college classroom. In my first-year writing courses, students conclude the semester by creating an awareness project; they are tasked to bring the research they conduct for their final essay to the public in an informative, entertaining, and multimedia format. I have found that creating a public awareness project prompts students to think deeply about audience and rhetoric, while initiating a larger conversation within their local community. Teaching has helped my research interests evolve. Outside of the classroom, I have presented papers at HERA’s and NCTE’s annual conferences, earned a certificate in postsecondary reading and learning, and managed my campus’ College Success website. I hope to continue experimenting with how composing in public can help students develop as writers. My academic work and teaching experience have prompted me to grapple with how gender, race, and ability shape the body’s relationship to both writing and technology; I’d also like to investigate how those physical and cultural identities influence the student experience in the writing classroom. At University of Illinois, I will be able to grow as a teacher-scholar with the guidance of professors who share my interest in writing pedagogy, disability studies, and gender, such as Professors A, B, and C. Additionally, I will have the opportunity to develop my teaching practice by teaching writing courses while benefiting from orientations, seminars, and formal mentorship. Within the Writing Studies program, I will grow as a teacher-scholar while devoting my enthusiasm, passion, and creativity to the institution as both an educator and a scholar.

Funded MA's are great and should be your top choice. That said, verjus, are you in California and a California resident? I ask because you mention California, and CSU tuitions are pretty low for in-state residents. Plus, Cal Grants can cut the cost in half. I think I paid for less than $5,000 for my MA; I did take out loans, but only to subsidize living in San Francisco.

With the exception of the professors I spoke with over email or the phone, I did not read anyone's research that I mentioned in my SoP. Really, if a professor reads your SoP and denies you because you mentioned him in an outdated context ("The audacity of this applicant: I haven't published about Milton in 20 years!"), that professor probably isn't great advisor material. Think of it this way: naming professors is one method of showing fit, and within that method, there are different approaches. Unless you commit a grievous error, I can't see naming a professor as being the criteria that keeps you out or gets you in. Do what works with your application and the narrative you're putting forth in your SoP.

My MA is from San Francisco State University, and now I'm a PhD student at the University of Maryland, College Park. Lots of my SFSU classmates went onto good PhD programs (Northwestern, Brandeis, Pitt, etc). Definitely possible!

I just want to add that your interests may completely change while in a program, so it's equally important to find faculty who engage with methodologies that appeal to you. For example, my advisor is a feminist rhetorical historiography scholar, and my dissertation is on disability activist rhetoric. But our partnership works because my work employs a feminist methodology, and I'm interested in feminist archival and recovery methods.

This looks like a great list, Mariannem! Really, any rhet/comp program will have writing pedagogy coursework, and any strong program will have faculty doing work in multimodal composition. Go through each program's faculty and make sure you can find a few professors you would want to work with. They don't have to match your interests exactly (like, if you're interested in how teen girls write fandom in social media, you may find faculty interested in women's writing, fandom/popular culture, and digital writing), but this will help you narrow your list considerably. I had UT Austin on my list for forever, only to realize they didn't have any faculty doing the work I wanted to do, so I sadly had to cut the school off my list. On whether or not you'll be competitive? That's hard to know. Rhet/comp values real life experience, so you have that going for you. Your GRE score isn't the greatest. I also got a 157 my first try. I retook it and boosted my score to 161, and was accepted to University of Maryland, Illinois, U of Arizona*, Miami, and UMass, and I was wait listed at Ohio (and not because of my GRE). So while I don't think you need a 164 or higher, it may be worth retaking the test for your own peace of mind. I think it's most important to have interesting questions you want to investigate while in grad school, at least for your PhD apps. Lots of folks are doing work on digital/multimodal composing, so what about digital writing that excites you? Answering that question will be key in your apps. Also, play up your teaching. Again, rhet/comp really celebrates teaching and writing outside of the university, so these are assets. I taught at a community college for three years before going back to school, and I think that strengthened my application, especially since I framed that experience as cultivating my investment in composition studies. *Check out the University of Arizona's RCTE program!

First off, are you me? Ha. My anxiety has been through the roof this month as I prepare for exams, teach two different classes, and mother a beautiful ten month old daughter. The stress is so much that my milk supply as been affected, which stresses me out more: I can't pump enough milk to feed my daughter when I'm on campus! I was awake for two hours last night, staring at the ceiling. We are not lazy, useless, or stupid. This shit is HARD, and the timeline is built for very specific bodies and minds. Hell, I'm a fast worker and pretty damn confident usually, and I'm feeling so overwhelmed. It's okay to take a break. In fact, your brain will probably thank you for doing so. Take a break and work on a totally different project or work on nothing academic at all. Do whatever centers you: yoga, cook, veg on Netflix, write some poetry, talk to a therapist, burn stuff, road trip somewhere pretty, I don't know. Maybe your break will help you realize that academia is not for you, or maybe your break will help you approach your project with fresh eyes and make brilliant insights. Either way, it's worth it to be kind to yourself and put your work on the backburner for a while. And know you're in good company. I imagine your colleagues are feeling the same way. I'm a straight up baller, and I feel like I'm crumbling under the weight of balancing my work and my family life. We are not weak! We are human. And we need to care for our whole selves, not just our academic selves.

Teaching the yutes! Our teaching load looks like this: Y1: no teaching Y2: 1-1 Y3: 2-1 Y4: 2-1 Y5: 1-1 There are a bunch of RA and GAships that can take the place of teaching as well, as well as a handful of fellowship opportunities. Next year, I'll be working in the Academic Writing Program office as an assistant director, which will eat up one course each semester. Your first year, you take English 611 in the Fall or Spring. WT is in that course right now; I took it a few years ago. It's basically an intro to rhet/comp as a field, with an eye toward how to use those theories to teach English 101, our first year writing course. English 101 is very rhetoric-based (a holdover from Jeanne Fahnestock's days). The first time you teach it, you're asked to stay pretty close to the standard syllabus. You can change a due date here and there and drop a reading, but overall, you'll stick to the schedule. Also, the first time you teach 101, you'll have weekly mentorship meetings. As someone who taught for three years before returning to school, I actually found the mentorship program to be helpful instead of a waste of time. After you have taught 101 once, you have a lot more freedom. I like the basic structure, so I didn't change much this semester, other than the order of the assignments and added a theme for the course. Most students will teach 101 at least a few times, but we'll also teach discussion sections as TA's and 200-level courses as the instructor of record. We have a ton of freedom over our 200-level courses! I'm teaching one right now that's in my field (Writing in the Wireless World), and I'm having a blast. I created the syllabus myself, after looking at several other syllabuses for the class. I am also in the process of creating a new class from scratch! It's a lot of work, but I've had a ton of support. Right now, I'm ushering it through committees to get GedEd approval (basically, for enrollment purposes, I need the class to count for some GE's, and the university is looking over the materials I created and deciding if my course actually fulfills the GE's I claim it does). Fingers crossed, it looks like I'll teach the class next Fall! And when I'm on the job market, I'll be able to say that I created a course from scratch. A handful of students have done this before me: one created a service learning writing course, and another creating a course on science and literature. Oh hells yes. I love Franklins! Let's rise up, not throw away our shot, and eat all the onion rings.

This is me, btw! Ah I wish I could help. There are so many faculty here, and I really only know a handful of the literature professors. I can't tell you anything about him, but I'll ask my Renaissance friends if they have any experiences!

Any more questions from potential UMD applicants? This is more fun than grading!

Ooooh this is a good question. Culturally, PhD students who decide to pursue alt-ac jobs are supported. Of course, this varies by advisor, but overall, the three recent/soon-to-be grads who have chosen to pursue alt-ac jobs have felt like they were encouraged by their colleagues and professors. One of our current grads has an emerging and prestigious freelance career (she actually gets paid to write!). Another is looking for nonprofit work. And the last is teaching high school... the best high school in the nation (Thomas Jefferson). So there are definitely people who pursue alt-ac jobs. Also, the department and the college put on a few alt-ac events a year, at least one a semester. That being said, our program is geared toward academic professionalization. I think this is true of most English PhD programs, if not all. We are encouraged to present at conferences and publish in academic journals. Our dissertation should be scholarly. Our coursework is focused on English studies, theory, critical reading. So while there are resources and events (I'm just now remembering a grant writing workshop for humanities grad students), the program itself is built to produce professors. Again, I think this is just reflective of the larger issues of PhD programs in the Humanities. Programs try to be aware of the job market and support students pursuing alt-ac positions, but there's reluctance to dramatically overhaul the PhD program as its operated historically. tl;dr: while the program itself is geared toward academic professionalization, professors, students, and the college are all supportive and helpful toward PhD students pursuing alt-ac work.

Sup! I'm a third year PhD student at UMD prepping for comps. I'm very happy here (the only time I wish I chose another school is during those humid humid summers). I find the department culture is be incredibly supportive. However, like most programs, your experience will likely vary depending on your advisors. My advisors are fabulous, and I chose them specifically because of their fabulosity. Other advisors are less fabulous. But like I said, I imagine that's the same everywhere! Do you have any specific questions? I'm happy to have this convo in public, and if others have questions about UMD, I'm happy to answer them too! WT can answer questions about the MA program.

::frantically superglues suede patches directly to my elbows:: I JUST WANT TO BE LOVED.

JohnR: it would actually be useful for you to study rhetoric and composition. If you did, you would learn about stasis theory, and understand why making a value/proposal claim before establishing a definition makes for a weak argument. Also, maybe you should worry less about the academic credibility of rhet/comp and worry more about your half-funding. That has nothing to do with rhet/comp but the messed up priorities of your department. PhD students should be fully funded PERIOD, and your department is screwing you over. They are your adversaries, and rhet/comp grad students would likely join you in advocating for more funding and fair labor treatment. Because we're activist-scholar ballers like that.

Here's a thread from last year about online MA programs: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/57570-online-ma-in-englishrhetoric-and-composition-programs/. Perhaps a good starting place?

I want to SO BAD. Are you? I just have to figure out how to swing it.

I think presenting at conferences can help, but not presenting doesn't hurt. Especially with CCCC as an example: it's notoriously competitive, with professors often getting their proposals rejected. But! You should/could take advantage of works-in-progress pre-conference events, like the Research Network Forum at CCCC and Rhetoric Society of America and the Graduate Research Network at Computers and Writing.

Ramus, though, I wonder if DDD's selection from the drop-down menu will be the deciding factor of who reads the application OR if the statement of purpose will be. I'd imagine the latter.

Ooooh conferences! I will be presenting at CCCC in Houston, and I'm waiting to hear back about my RSA (Rhetoric Society of America) proposal. I'm trying to wrangle some folks to submit a panel to Computers and Writing, which will be in a city with an actual airport next year, Rochester, NY. I only attended one conference this year (and presented remotely at two others) due to le baby, so next year will be a big shift!

If the biggest program with your proposal is a typo, you're in a really good place! Good luck tomorrow!

My take is this: experience (work or scholarly or otherwise) outside of English can maybe help an already strong application. I have a colleague in the department who was a nurse before entering our program, and she looks at disability and illness in film. So people definitely make the jump, but they typically need a pretty strong foundation to begin with. I actually think the abysmal English GPA could be a problem. Adcomms, I suspect, are less interested in how you did in constitutional law and more interested in how you performed in English classes. Even with your interesting legal background, adcomms are going to ask the same questions of you as they will ask for all the candidates: do the applicant's grades, statement of purpose, writing sample, and GRE scores demonstrate that the applicant would succeed in our program? An MA program could help balance out those bad grades. You could show that you can do the work of a literary scholar at the graduate level and write a writing sample. I'm super curious: why are you thinking of leaving your (presumably well paid) post at a law firm for grad school in the humanities?

In the context of admissions, I think this question applies more toward science candidates, many of whom are expected to apply for outside funding throughout their careers. The only national fellowships or grants for the humanities I can think of require a firm idea of your project (for example, if you're dissertating or just about to start). I don't think this is criteria that the adcomms consider in English studies.

Rule #1 in Grad Apps: Never point out your own weaknesses! Instead, you could use a template like this: "In my undergrad thesis, I explore X. When conducting research for the project, more questions emerged about Y and Z within the context of X. I hope to pursue those questions as a graduate student."

Fair point. I actually noticed what I was doing and utilized the gender neutral "they" as a singular pronoun, but one "he" slipped through. Thanks for pointing out my problematic assumptions! (Seriously. I appreciate it.) My apologies.