Bleep_Bloop

To reiterate: that example was intended to illustrate the divide on an administrative level (outside of the graduate school), not bemoan the undergrads. Most of the undergrads that I've interacted with have been great! Like I said, academically speaking Princeton has amazing resources for its grad students, but I've noticed in cases like the one I describe above that the administration certainly doesn't offer equal treatment to the undergrads and grad students (hence don't expect legacy status for your kids).

I'll only mention one example. The housing department has been notorious for ignoring the concerns of grad students with the whole Lakeside fiasco. When I applied for housing this time last year, it was said that Lakeside would be opening over summer 2014 and I was assigned an apartment there. Not long before moving, I was told that Lakeside was being delayed by 2 months and that I would have to live in a temporary apartment. For the inconvenience they offered a compensation that seemed reasonable. Since then they've been pushing Lakeside back every couple of months. First it was October, then the end of the semester, then March, and now they're telling us (tentatively) June. The temporary apartments are falling apart and our maintenance requests are being ignored. For example, I've had rodents getting into my garbage on the regular for weeks and have made 3 calls to the housing department about it, to no avail. In the meantime, they haven't adjusted the compensation package for an additional 6-7 months of delay, and I've been paying the equivalent of Lakeside rent for an old, rodent-infested, unmaintained apartment. There was a lot of noise about this at the beginning of the year, and some lame attempts at getting attention in the school newspaper went (largely) ignored. http://dailyprincetonian.com/news/2014/10/delay-of-lakeside-project-creates-tension-between-housing-and-graduate-students/ In this one, there are some pretty nasty comments that show the divide between undergrad and grad culture here. A highlight: "Honestly, do you think grad students deserve equal treatment? This place exists for the undergrads and not a penny more than necessary will be spent on the graduate program. None of the trustees are grad alums. The extent anyone cares about the grad program is what the TA quality is." http://dailyprincetonian.com/opinion/2014/09/a-call-for-greater-transparency-in-the-lakeside-graduate-housing-project/

This makes sense considering the huge divide between the grad school and the rest of the university. I can't speak to whether this divide is greater than at other universities because I did my undergrad at a liberal arts college and we didn't have grad students. We have a lot of academic resources here, but the fact is that the university is designed for undergrads. Keep in mind that there are significantly more undergrads at Princeton than there are grad students, which is unusual for an ivy/major research university. Grad students get very little consideration from the administration outside the graduate school, but from my understanding that's sort of the mentality behind grad school in general. Undergrads are doted on because they're being provided a service (a very expensive one, at that), while we're here to do work. You'll never lack academic resources, but don't expect many benefits or any special treatment that the undergrads get (like legacy consideration in the future) because, well, we're not undergrads.

I was able to get an apartment in my first year without a problem, as was everyone else in my cohort that applied for one. You don't have too many options for the type of apartment (you probably won't get a studio or 1 BR in your first year unless you're married, and you have very slim chances of getting a pet-friendly unit), but as long as you're flexible and willing to live with a roommate then you should be able to get something. From my experience it's not that difficult to get an apartment in your first year, I don't know why this thread makes it sound impossible.

Yes, at least for the first 3 or so years. After that your chances are lower because priority in the housing draw is for students who are in the earlier stages of their programs. Almost all my friends moved to Philly or New York in the fourth year since they finished coursework, passed generals and started writing the dissertation, hence they don't need to be on campus every day.

NB, according to this link only unfurnished townhouses and ground-level apartments at Lakeside will be pet-friendly. Basically, a unit is pet-friendly if it has its own entrance outside. Lawrence is not pet-friendly at all, so your chances are going to be slim because they're demolishing Butler and Stanworth (all of which are pet-friendly). If you have to bring your pet with you, there are options off campus but they typically consist of rooms that people rent out and also won't be pet-friendly. I have heard of more advanced grad students renting out a house in Princeton, but that's definitely not the norm because the market is horrible and they're crazy expensive. You'll also need a car if off-campus. A car isn't a necessity for a campus apartment, but it's definitely helpful. There's a car share service that charges $10 an hour, which will be cheaper than maintaining a car if you only drive to get groceries. To answer the question above about vegan/vegetarian options: it's quite bad, unfortunately. The food in Princeton is terrible. The majority of restaurants priced for students are hamburger joints or serve greasy bar food. There is one decent Indian place, one decent sushi place, not a single good Mexican restaurant, etc. You'll get very tired of going out to the same restaurants. We were all excited for a falafel place to open up in the fall (seriously, there was a line going out the door...this should tell you something about the size and food options of Princeton) yet when my vegetarian friend and I ate there we both got sick. I was pretty disheartened to see how unhealthy most of the food options are compared to the west coast. I don't live in the Graduate College so I don't have to eat in a cafeteria regularly, but the one time I did it was just ok. Standard dorm food that brought me straight back to undergrad, very industrial. I'm sure it's great compared to other universities, but it's still dorm food. I was pretty impressed by the variety of their salad bar, but as far as vegan/vegetarian entrees, what they were offering had clearly been sitting under a heat lamp for quite some time.. .All told, you'll mostly have to cook your own food if you're in an apartment and vegan/vegetarian.

Deferring an offer means that you accept but will wait a determined period of time (typically a year) before beginning the program. By deferring you are committing to the program, just not starting immediately. Although you're not necessarily legally or contractually bound, if you back out after deferring it will look very, very bad. Typically you defer an offer to find funding, for extreme family/personal circumstances, or to take advantage of another short-term offer or fellowship in the meantime. Deferring is not guaranteed and typically needs to be approved by both the chair of the department and the dean of your graduate school.

I've also had my share of age-shaming. It's not really all that prevalent, but it happens. Sometimes older students like to remind you of the fact that you're younger than them, and I mostly see this as being driven by a sense of insecurity. Despite your difference in age, you're colleagues and the professors will treat you as such. For someone who was previously working in the private sector for a while that would be a strange transition, suddenly they're competing with people much younger than they are. It's true that older students come in with experience that you don't have, but don't let that intimidate you because that experience doesn't necessarily translate into being a better scholar. There will be some older students who treat grad school like a job: show up, do your work, go home to the family. And that's fine. But recognize that younger students are important because they bring life and energy into a department. They interact more with the undergrads and can relate to them better. Furthermore, a lot of ideas come from talking about your work over drinks outside the seminar room, or other social events that usually just attract the younger crowd. An older student once told me that he wished he had gone my route and started grad school straight out of undergrad because he feels he lacks the energy we have to work so much. Time is certainly in your favor, so don't sweat it. First, when you finish your PhD you'll probably still be younger or at least the same age as your older colleagues were when they started. This means you have the upper hand later in the game, and will likely have a more productive academic career. Second, you have more time to dedicate to your work while you're in the program because you're (most likely) not married, don't have kids or a house, etc. Do the work and be yourself (but don't be so immature that you get drunk and make out with someone at the department's holiday party), and don't let yourself be age-shamed or intimidated by older students.

This. For whatever reason, staring at a blank word document provokes anxiety and chokes me up. Not being able to get my thoughts down because of this makes me even more anxious and worsens the writer's block. So I'll at least start writing my paper by hand and then switch to typing once I have some material, or just write the entire first draft by hand. I thought this was just a personal quirk until I saw this thread!

In my opinion, ultimately what will get you a job is your work; overwhelmingly this means your research (even at SLACs you'll be giving a job talk), but includes recommendations and such. Your work will do more for you than the name on your degree, yet coming from an ivy privileges you because you have more opportunities to produce research (teaching just enough to make you competitive on the market, but not so much as to distract you from writing), and have fantastic opportunities to network. I would not advise someone to avoid an ivy because they think it would hurt them on the job market, which is what it sounded like people were saying earlier in the thread, and what it sounds like your professor did. [EDIT: it looks like you clarified this point as I was writing this, mikers!] Looking at the students who have graduated from my program or are currently on the market, the opposite is true. To my knowledge no one from my program has been totally shut out of the job market in recent memory. They might not all have gotten their dream job, but those who wanted to work in academia are doing so (with the vast majority of them on the tenure track). Many of them are not working at elite universities, and some are. I'm definitely not saying all ivy grads get jobs, just that they tend to fare well on the job market, from what I've seen. What surprises me about your professor's story is that typically the opposite is true. Most people talk about downward mobility in academia, at least in your first hire out of grad school. But this is just what I've seen and heard, perhaps someone else on the forum has personal experience that suggests otherwise.

It really varies from department to department. Many (I'm really not sure, so I don't want to say most) do interview, but two programs that I applied to did not interview at all.

I'm not in English but rather a similar humanities field and figured I'd chime in, for what it's worth. I hear this opinion a lot, and disagree. First of all, the numbers don't add up. Students from ivy and other top programs dominate the job market, at least in my field and I'm assuming English is no different. I was shocked when I went to my first major conference and realized the social capital that being affiliated with an ivy offered me. This is not to brag or look down on other programs, but to give my personal insight into the darker side of academia that people don't really like to discuss: the prestige of your institution and who you know (the two are correlated) go very, very far. Small schools will certainly be on guard when considering applicants from top-tier programs, and they'll try to get a feel for where they stand professionally (whether they will jump ship when given the opportunity) during job interviews. If they have no reason to suspect that a candidate is just using them to buy time until something better comes along, then of course they'll hire them if they're the best applicant, and sometimes (unfortunately) even if they're not. Let's not kid ourselves...academia loves pedigree, especially department heads and deans. I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, and I'm certainly not trying to look down upon programs outside the top 10. Of course you can get a great education at many programs, but you have to be realistic about the job market. It's difficult to compare the resources that a grad student at an ivy has with a grad student at some public universities. Students at ivies are given ideal conditions to work: no need to worry about funding anything, minimal teaching so that you can focus exclusively on researching/publishing/presenting, huge names to collaborate with (even if they can be hard to work with sometimes), incredible archives and special collections in the library, the academic network that the faculty have, etc. All of this means that they can produce amazing job applicants that will have no problem finding employment, and SLACs know that. I myself went to a SLAC and all but one member of the faculty in my department had a degree from an ivy. A PhD from an ivy won't guarantee you a job anywhere, but it will get your foot in the door and give you a really good chance of at least getting a job interview in which to sell yourself, if you've prepared your application thoughtfully. It will not automatically disqualify you from a job search, as the previous post suggests.

Deciding on whether to do a PhD in the US or UK depends largely on where you want to work after. If you want to work in the UK or Europe, a degree from a university in the UK would probably serve you better. However, it's very difficult to get an academic job in the US with a PhD from an institution in the UK. This isn't because we think that the degree is worthless, but because the structure of programs is very different. Depending on the field, the focus of research may also be quite different between the American and British academies (it is in my field, at least). In terms of getting a non-academic job here with, say, a masters from the UK...you'll also have some trouble. Again, this isn't because of a prejudice against the quality of the entire system but rather because people just don't recognize the British institutions apart from Oxbridge and, say, the LSE. Employers would rather hire someone with a degree from an institution with which they're familiar. Whether or not to get a masters in linguistics first or go straight to the PhD depends on your prior preparation in the field and how strong of a PhD application you can prepare right now. Remember that letters of recommendation are a very important part of the PhD application in the US, so it might be a good idea to do a masters even if you feel ready to jump right into a PhD just to secure good letters from well-connected professors.This would help your application a lot.

This is definitely true. I'm in my first semester so I don't have my own research yet, but I certainly think about what I'm reading and writing for class at all hours of the day...when I'm on a walk in the woods, when I'm at the gym, when I'm in the shower, when I'm making dinner, etc. The fact that my intellectual interests make there way into my life outside the classroom/library doesn't bother me at all...that's what attracted me to academia originally. I guess the problem that I'm encountering is when to say "I've read enough" or "I've written enough" and do something for myself that's entirely unrelated to my work.

I'm curious to get feedback from fellow grad students in the humanities and gauge what a typical workload looks like. I'm in a foreign literature program and since the environment is competetive, I don't feel comfortable asking my cohort (and I don't think I'd get honest answers even if I did). It seems like people here take pride in their academic masochism (bragging about how little sleep they get, etc), and what's worse, question the work/dedication of others who don't do the same. It's shitty. I feel like after a month and a half, I've lost touch with reality...what is a normal amount of time to dedicate to grad school in an average week, and how much time can you set aside for yourself without feeling guilty? So in my case, I'm about a month and a half into my program and have been pulling about 80-hour work weeks since I've gotten here. This seems normal for my program, but I don't think this is actually normal, is it? When I say "work," I'm referring to the time I dedicate to grad school, time that I don't have to myself. Since I don't teach this year, that includes class (three graduate seminars, plus an intensive language course), reading (1500-2000 pages a week, though I still don't read it all), writing, presentations. This is exhausting, and I'm pretty sure it's not sustainable in the long run. However, I have to work this much just to stay afloat in my program...I still scramble to get things done on time. Is this fairly common? What has your experience been like? ps. I realize that this is partially me venting/ranting, but I'm generally interested in hearing about other people's experiences.

I can't speak to passing from a MA to PhD in your specific program, although if your professor told you that having more than one B looks bad then there's a good chance that having multiple Bs will affect your application to move onto the PhD. No need to panic, though, since there are many aspects to an application. Current PhD students who were in your position are a good resource for this kind of information, they'll know the specifics of how your program operates. And yes, obviously aiming to not get any more Bs is a good strategy.

Keep in mind that grades are different in graduate school. A 'B' for a grad student isn't the same as a 'B' in undergrad. In a lot of departments, more than one B can jeopardize your status in the program (there are plenty of threads on this on GC, just search for them). Whether or not this is the case in your department, your professor's advice is typical...more than one B in graduate courses raises red flags. I'm not saying you should give up, but don't write those grades off as irrelevant, they constitute feedback from your professors on your research and are meant to be a way of gauging how your work would be received.

Didn't you say a week or two ago that you weren't at all interested in literature and wanted to move to a linguistics department? You say you think you want to do literature (and now art and theater). I'd take some time off and wait until you're positive. You might do well to sit out this application season until you're sure (you might change your mind again in a week). Sorry if that sounds harsh, but you've kind of been all over the place on this (on three separate boards, according to my count). What gives? Have you decided that you must go to graduate school, and now you're trying to pick what interests you? You're doing it backwards, if that's the case.

I suppose this depends on your research interests and background. If you're interested in studying linguistic theory and have the background for it then yes, I'd recommend a linguistics department. But there are also phd programs in applied linguistics, sla, etc. You'll have to ask around on the linguistics board or reach out to students/faculty in the field for more information. But what I will say is that it's not a case of one path being better than the other; like you said, faculty working in this field have degrees from both language and linguistics departments. Get an idea of what you would like to do (phonology, syntax, language acquisition, whatever) then do some research on programs in both fields and narrow them down by faculty and research fit. You can also apply to a mix of both language and linguistics departments.

The ivies don't really focus on linguistics in language departments (although I've been told that Yale, Harvard, Penn, and Cornell have high-ranking linguistics departments, but they would know much more about that in the linguistics forum). There isn't really a stigma against it, but I've yet to meet someone from these circles--student or factulty--that doesn't study cultural production and theory in some form or another. Also keep in mind that a number of the ivies don't have independent french departments (off the top of my head, Harvard, Cornell, and Penn are Romance Studies, Princeton used to have a Romance department but Spanish/Portuguese broke off and French is now grouped with Italian). Dartmouth doesn't have any PhD programs in the humanities that I'm aware of. I'm not working in French but I've interacted with students and professors from some of the Romance Studies departments I mentioned above and like I said, to my knowledge the focus is exclusively on cultural production and theory (Cornell is particularly heavy on theory, Bruno Bosteels is there after all). A quick glance at program descriptions and faculty at Yale, Brown and Columbia confirms that they don't focus on linguistics either. If you really want to forego literature and focus entirely on linguistics, I'd strongly suggest ditching french and romance departments and training as a linguist...especially at this type of university.

I figured I'd chime in since I'm in a literature program, although not in an English or comp lit department. A word of warning to those applying to the more "prestigious" departments, notably the ivies. Be careful how much you emphasize your interest in teaching in the SOP and later in interviews. In fact, for these departments I'd suggest not mentioning it, or mentioning it only in passing. There's a good chance that people will doubt the level of your research (and commitment to a research-oriented department) when they hear that you're pursuing a PhD because you "want to teach." Something that stuck with me was that a fellow student once said, "I don't want to be a professor, I want to be an academic!" I've found the distinction to be pretty important. I'm the product of a SLAC so this was a big culture shock for me, although that's not to say that I necessarily have a problem with this kind of attitude. I'm still really happy I chose my department because of funding/prestige of the degree/research fit, but I do have to be conscious of where I am and keep any interest I might have in eventually teaching on the down low. I was advised to also do this in my applications. It worked out well for me, so I figured I'd pass this advice on and see if anyone else has had a similar experience in such an environment.

I'm aware of people who took out federal loans to study outside the country, you might want to look into that before going straight to a bank.

Since many graduate language programs have a track in linguistics, they obviously need to hire faculty in these areas so no, not every professor studies literature. Granted (and this is field dependent, my background is in Spanish and Latin American Studies), there are more jobs in literature than there are in linguistics and that's largely because every department is going to teach literature and culture, but not all have a linguistics option (furthermore, introductory/intermediate language classes are almost always taught by adjuncts/lecturers or TAs and not TT faculty). Also keep in mind that linguistics PhDs are competing for these jobs as well, not just PhDs in the linguistics track of a language department.

While federal education loans are better than commercial loans from a bank, you should still be wary of unsubsidized loans because, like you mentioned, they'll begin accruing interest immediately and that won't stop even if you're in deferment (unlike subsidized federal loans). If you can, obviously try for a subsidized loan. It's been a while since I've had to deal with applying for educational loans (since my senior year of high school), but I would assume that the earliest you'd be able to get a subsidized loan would be next year, assuming your finances change. And I agree with GeoDude, I personally wouldn't take out loans for grad school in the first place, but if you have to...what you described would be better than taking a loan from a bank, but that's not saying much.

Does anyone know when we receive our first stipend payment? It sounds like it won't be until the end of September, but I was hoping someone on here might corroborate this. Also, do they just add up all of our awards and divide them into 12 monthly payments?