Texsox

I was a little surprised when several of my classmates brought gifts to the professor at the final class session. In one case the student was graduating, the others will still be around. Is this expected, welcomed, or frowned upon?

Thank you. We were both sitting here reading, so it just kind of made sense to post with the account we had rather than log out, register, and start a thread. Sorry for the confusion.

I was also wondering what someone would do who earned their undergrad 15 or 20 years ago.

I am actually asking this for my son who didn't take my advice and log any office time with professors. Now he has been gone from his undergrad for a year and needs letters. He doesn't have any professor he feels comfortable asking for a letter. He was a good student, earned a 3.6 gpa, the problem is he feels anonymous in the classes and thinks professors hate doing these.

Lone Star and Oedipus Rex

I am in a MA program now and the language requirement for a PhD has been the monster in the closet. I've been avoiding opening the door to discover I will never make it. I worked in Mexco for a couple years and my coworkers begged me to stop trying to speak Spanish. It took me two years to earn one year of credits for h.s. French. If only sign language was an option.

In my MA program about half the students are coming from full time jobs, so it's business dress for many. However, since 90 degrees between March and October would be a major cooling off day, business casual is the norm. Not necessarily to defend the amusement parks, but to help offer a perspective. No business wants to be in the position of deciding which tattoos should be covered and which ones do not need to be covered. So it is far simpler to have them all covered, from the sweet unicorn to the "fill in the blank, worst one you could imagine". I however would want to sit on that committee and see all the cool ink :-)

Thank you for the response. I am still exploring and have not really found a focus yet. Part of this exploration includes analyzing if it is really feasible to earn a PhD in my 50s.

Hmm, do I bump a three year old thread, or start a new one? This is post one for me here, and I do not know the preferences of this board. I am taking the risk and hope y'all will indulge my bump because I see the original poster, intextrovert, seems to be at Michigan, a place intextrovert swooned for. Perhaps intextrovert will still be receiving notices of new posts, or will see this and offer their current perspective. For anyone else, I am presently in a terminal M.A. program and thinking about the next step. I'm not 100% certain advancing beyond my M.A. is feasible at my age (currently 51). If I do, ecocriticism would probably be the emphasis I would pursue. I am interested in current thoughts as to top programs, although ranking may be well down my list of factors when I make the decision. Thank you.