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Do you plan on crossing the border that often? It's quite expensive... I don't think it's worth it unless you go at least once a month.

Well, I think the vitriol I was referring to was mostly coming from Strong Flat White. But anyway... Assuming you entered the academic world later in life, I would think that they would be able to visually surmise your age. But the last part of what you said is what I'm referring to as a problem: many people aren't prepared for what they're getting into. I agree with the first bit of what you said. I don't have any problem with following your dreams. I think rather that many people are saying "follow your dreams" without any real consideration of not being able to pay rent under tens of thousands of dollars of debt or wasting a decade scraping by on a stipend and not saving for retirement. These are real problems that we'll all have to face, which many (though not all) "follow your dreamers" think will conveniently solve themselves as they sit in the stacks inhaling old book smell.

I think I kind of understand all the vitriol being directed at swagato (the original post did seem have a undercurrent of "pity the old folk," intentional or not) but I think it's also a legitimate concern. No, the interviewers won't ask for your birth date. But they can take one look at your undergraduate dates and know how old you are. Easy as that. I think age discrimination does and will exist on hiring committees, unfortunately enough, and that's why I'm riddling with anxiety about finishing my Ph.D at 35-36. In a perfect world, the 58 year old hiree would be seen exactly the same way as the 28 year old but I really don't think that's the case. Either way, I think it should be something that older candidates should be prepared to face. The responses I've seen so far have ranged from willfully ignorant ("Who do they think they are? They can't judge me!") to naive at best ("I am a scholar and nothing else in the world matters!") I was reading through and most responses bordered on "follow your dreams" pixie dust fluff. I mean, a certain level of passion is certainly required but I think a few years of crushingly awful teaching for a few bucks will quickly resolve that. I don't see the need to be so overly rosy about a situation that will clearly be extremely, extremely difficult, and as swagato rightly points out, probably much more so with age.

I was just talking to my friend who is doing her Ph.D at York U in Toronto and she said that she intends to draw it out to 7 even though she could probably be done in 6 so that she can take all the funding that they'll be giving her. I guess that includes family benefits as well (her and her husband intend to have a kid soon). I don't know, I guess if one puts it that way, 7 years in a Ph.D doesn't seem so bad. But all things considered, I definitely only want to be spending 5.5 too.

Ok clearly I have a lot of research to do! I guess I could start a family plan with my partner... if it's just based on same address. If they need us to be married on the other hand.... well, that case is currently still in court. Isn't it? I know that a lot of people opt for low data plans to save money and then just use up free wifi wherever they go. I don't know if I could do that though since I love to be connected when I'm commuting. And just recently I tried surviving on Starbucks wifi alone and it was so unreliable and spotty that I nearly threw my phone in the trash!

^ Out of upvotes so to express my feelings about your post: Amazing! And so true. I feel a lot better especially because I took the same path as you after undergrad and will be done my MA at 30 and will be starting a Ph.D then and I know I'm going to be grumpy too. Maybe a little less grumpy now.

I'm in Toronto and going to be in LA so... once a year, minimum. When that will be remains a mystery... but I sure don't want it to be December or March. I'm going to LA to escape Canadian winters!

I feel like this questions is asked a lot but searching for 30 minutes turned up nothing. I know that it's highly variable and what not depending on personal work habits, but what's an average for English folks? I had a mild heart attack when I read, in passing, someone said 9 years is the average for an English Ph.D at Berkeley. I can't begin to fathom taking that long on a Ph.D but obviously I don't have details on what the general path is. Anyone care to enlighten me?

This is helpful yet depressing news. Thanks! I may have a lot of tax questions for you later, as a fellow Canuck in California. I didn't get a tuition waiver so $18k of that fellowship is going towards tuition! At least they can't tax that... See it's hard to say. The official title is a Teaching Fellowship but basically I'm teaching a freshman course for pay, so I guess that's an assistantship?

Good to hear! I'm moving to LA too so I'm definitely going to look up Boost. Thanks.

For the MA application, I had success having a solid direction and stating specific interests that I hope to pursue in terms of research in my SOP. I think that adcomms want to see this from all their candidates at the MA level. That being said, you shouldn't appear so sure that you are going to write your thesis on so-and-so because, as I've heard, adcomms and departments still want to have a hand in "shaping you". It's no fun working with a candidate who is all set in their ways. As for the topic you're talking about, is this a final paper you're writing for your undergraduate work? I'm confused. If you're talking about the thesis that you'd like to write for your MA, I don't think you should be so narrow in focus at this point in time. Or at least you shouldn't say so in your SOP. 1) Define relevant. If you're talking about it being "cutting edge," there's a whole discussion of that topic that you may have seen I think a short answer would be no, that topic is not 'relevant' because Marxist readings of Victorian literature is as old as the day is long. But check out the thread that I linked because that may not necessarily be a kiss of death for your interests. 1a) Are you sure your school doesn't have access to scholarly journals? That's disconcerting to me. A school in Shanghai especially should have subscriptions to online journal databases like Jstor at the very least. Go talk to your librarian and see! 2) Try pushing your adviser for a little more constructive feedback. Unfortunately, some folks aren't so interested in being 'relevant' once they reach tenure and they may not be the best people to ask when it comes to the latest literary trends, etc. Good luck!

I'm hoping for a non-contract, pay-as-you-go. I think in general, the telecoms aren't as bad as they are in Canada (here we have insanely high costs compared to the rest of the world and unprecedented strangeholds on the market by about 3 different companies). I saw that Virgin has some decent "Beyond Talk" plans that are super cheap and have unlimited data and texting, which seems suspicious to me. There has to be a catch. I'll have an iPhone 4 so a plan with decent data and texting would be good, but obviously no real need for minutes or the like.

The issue of taxing fellowships/scholarships is new to me. The IRS website says that fellowships and scholarships usually aren't taxed based on two conditions: I'm receiving a Teaching Fellowship from my school in return for teaching a freshman course. This is listed as a fellowship, not an assistantship so the amount should be tax-free, no? Do schools generally quote you the untaxed amount or do they factor in the taxes and quote you the net income? Anyone have experience with this?

Totally off-topic (I will be moving to LA, but not USC unfortunately... hopefully someday!): The issue of taxing fellowships/scholarships is new to me. The IRS website says that fellowships and scholarships usually aren't taxed based on two conditions: I'm receiving a Teaching Fellowship from my school in return for teaching a freshman course. This is listed as a fellowship, not an assistantship so the amount should be tax-free, no? Anyone have experience with this?

I really like this one (aside from the somewhat clumsy inclusion of literature quotations)! Not super depressing or hyperbolic like other articles and actually refreshingly agnostic, which tends to be my copout ideology when it comes to heavily debated topics like God and grad school.

Thanks all! And yeah, now that I think of it, I don't know why I was thinking of giving them gift cards... preparing for grad school does weird things to the mind. I love writing thank you cards, though! Very little effort and very meaningful.

Ah, perfect place to post this. How kosher is it to send thank you gifts (like a Starbucks gift card) to the grad chair at the school that you will be attending in the Fall? In all honesty, this isn't toadying, but I do sincerely want to thank her for being so supportive and helpful throughout the process of my application, all my questions, etc. I do want to send one to the admin assistant as well and I think it might look weird if she was the only one at the department to get one. Any thoughts? --------- Additional question! How kosher is it to send thank you cards to departments that you decided NOT to attend? They were also very kind and helpful to me and this is a sincere wish to thank them as well. Related: for MA programs, is there even a need to inform departments that you won't be attending? The reason I ask is because it seemed like I had to jump through a couple more hoops before enrollment and if I don't jump through those hoops, then I'm sure they'll just assume? Or is it considered super rude to not inform them? As you can see my mind is just about everywhere right now...

Definitely good ideas! Ha! Now if there's some workaround to disabling VLC player so I can't constantly be watching Parks and Rec or something... Jeez, I sound like a terrible scholar. Do most people have their "reading chair", or wherever you happen to read, in a separate room/area from where their computer is? I think I might have to resort to this.

I was going to put this in the Lobby but I don't think anyone actually goes (or stays) in there... Anyway, has anyone here successfully cured themselves of computer addiction? I find myself wasting so much time on random sites that I can't do the readings that I need to in order to prepare for my MA. It's really hard to tear myself away... and short of tossing my laptop out the window, I'm not sure what to do. Help!

This is also causing me considerable angst. I've been trying to go on a "bag diet" for the longest time but the damn thing always ends up weighing 10 lbs no matter what I do. Having an iPad (mini) certainly has helped but I can't seem to part with my binder that has notes and papers from all my courses. Whenever I separate courses, I always end up leaving one at home the day I need it. Bah!

Can you elaborate on this? I will be living with my partner. Since they ask about housing during the interview, I'll have to say that. But I don't want to to tell them if it's going to be problematic...

I officially committed to a funded MA at Loyola Marymount U! See y'all LAers.... (pssst... let's meet up! Show me around town!)

Wow! Thanks for all the really helpful feedback. From what I gather, I won't be living too, too close to campus so it might be hard to be going back and forth like you did. I definitely will wait until second semester to see how my schedule is... but I still really can't wait!

Thanks! I totally didn't think about the previous condition stuff for private insurers. I'm definitely going to go with the school group policy, especially considering their maximums are $250,000. From what I can tell, even that's not going to do much in the US. Also a good idea! I think I read something about supplementing student healthcare with extra plans. Now to see how much it's going to cost...

Do you find as a grad student, you have to offload a lot of the care of your pets to your partner (if applicable)? I really, really, really want to adopt a dog once I start school but I don't want to be irresponsible and negligent because I'm not sure how busy I'll be.