University of Oregon Comp Lit

[Butitwaslaundryday]

Hello, I've been accepted to University of Oregon for a PhD in Comp Lit. I know it's a fairly good school, but I also have one other offer so far, which is also tempting. I'm trying to decide between going to a fully funded masters program, or going for a fully funded PhD at Oregon. If one gets a PhD from University of Oregon, are the teaching opportunities good? Anyone who's been accepted or who's attended Oregon in the past, please let me know your opinions. Thanks!

Edited February 26, 2010 by Butitwaslaundryday

[dgauthier]

Hello, I've been accepted to University of Oregon for a PhD in Comp Lit. I know it's a fairly good school, but I also have one other offer so far, which is also tempting. I'm trying to decide between going to a fully funded masters program, or going for a fully funded PhD at Oregon. If one gets a PhD from University of Oregon, are the teaching opportunities good? Anyone who's been accepted or who's attended Oregon in the past, please let me know your opinions. Thanks!

Before I start, let me say that I was recently crushed by rejection letters from two of the three programs to which I applied this year. Not your fault, certainly, but I fear you might bear the brunt of it.

I can't believe you didn't think about this before you applied. Did you just apply to University of Oregon because it was close to you or did you think that this program would be a good fit for you? I jeopardized a really nice job where I was enjoying a small amount of success and happiness in order to apply to the University of Oregon, only to receive a very gentle and humane form letter rejection from them yesterday. If you applied because you liked the program and the professors and felt like your research interests could benefit from their leadership, then there shouldn't be a question about it. Take the PhD, silly. The name of the school on your PhD is way less important than the credentials on your CV.

At the same time, I urge you to try to make your decision in a timely manner. Of course, don't rush yourself to any kind of hasty decision, but please try to remember that this is not only your life and your career hanging in the balance -- there are people on wait lists who are sweating bullets waiting for your decision as well.

Above all, congratulations on the great success of receiving multiple acceptance offers. You have surely worked very hard for the duration of your career in order to become such a fierce competitor and you should be commended for such!

[Butitwaslaundryday]

Before I start, let me say that I was recently crushed by rejection letters from two of the three programs to which I applied this year. Not your fault, certainly, but I fear you might bear the brunt of it.

I can't believe you didn't think about this before you applied. Did you just apply to University of Oregon because it was close to you or did you think that this program would be a good fit for you? I jeopardized a really nice job where I was enjoying a small amount of success and happiness in order to apply to the University of Oregon, only to receive a very gentle and humane form letter rejection from them yesterday. If you applied because you liked the program and the professors and felt like your research interests could benefit from their leadership, then there shouldn't be a question about it. Take the PhD, silly. The name of the school on your PhD is way less important than the credentials on your CV.

At the same time, I urge you to try to make your decision in a timely manner. Of course, don't rush yourself to any kind of hasty decision, but please try to remember that this is not only your life and your career hanging in the balance -- there are people on wait lists who are sweating bullets waiting for your decision as well.

Above all, congratulations on the great success of receiving multiple acceptance offers. You have surely worked very hard for the duration of your career in order to become such a fierce competitor and you should be commended for such!

I thought about it, but to be completely honest, I never thought I would be accepted to any of the places I applied, so I didn't imagine I would be making any decisions at all. I thought I'd be lucky to get into just one school. University of Oregon would be a great fit for me, which is why I chose to apply there, besides it being a great school. However, I can't help but think that the name of the school really does matter, because when I look at Comp Lit professors at Columbia or other good schools, I literally see "PhD from harvard, PhD from Yale..." and on and on, you get the point. I'm not saying that the name of a school is the only important thing--I'm sure that the credentials on my CV are more important. That being said, though, it seems as if it definitely wouldn't hurt to go to a name school. Maybe I feel this way particularly because I just graduated from a no-name state school that I was itching to get out of. Anyway, I'm very sorry you weren't accepted--good luck with the rest of your schools that haven't notified yet! I have not yet seen anything about a Dartmouth or Oregon waitlist, but I do keep that in mind. I'm visiting Oregon this week, so hopefully that will speed up my decision.

P.S. Not sure about the "fierce competitor" part, but thank you all the same. Good luck with your 3rd school.

Edited February 26, 2010 by Butitwaslaundryday

[EAL2010]

I had a professor tell me that generally you can expect to teach at a school that is about the same, or a little less competitive than the one you got your PhD from. I'm certainly not an expert on college rankings or anything (esp. not in comp. lit.), but if you want to teach at Yale, I suppose that is something to think about.

Conversely, I can tell you from personal experience that applying for an MA and then a PhD SUCKS. Just when you finally get settled into your grad. program, you have to turn around and start the frantic application process again. And then you're faced with the horrifying prospect that you might not get in anywhere at all-- and you're that much more invested already.

As far as your MA program goes, do they have a special internal applicant process for PhD? Because with a lot of programs, as long as you're making satisfactory progress towards the MA, you're pretty much guaranteed a slot in their PhD program. If that was the case, I'd probably go Dartmouth. Otherwise, I would probably choose the security of the PhD program.

[Butitwaslaundryday]

I had a professor tell me that generally you can expect to teach at a school that is about the same, or a little less competitive than the one you got your PhD from. I'm certainly not an expert on college rankings or anything (esp. not in comp. lit.), but if you want to teach at Yale, I suppose that is something to think about.

Conversely, I can tell you from personal experience that applying for an MA and then a PhD SUCKS. Just when you finally get settled into your grad. program, you have to turn around and start the frantic application process again. And then you're faced with the horrifying prospect that you might not get in anywhere at all-- and you're that much more invested already.

As far as your MA program goes, do they have a special internal applicant process for PhD? Because with a lot of programs, as long as you're making satisfactory progress towards the MA, you're pretty much guaranteed a slot in their PhD program. If that was the case, I'd probably go Dartmouth. Otherwise, I would probably choose the security of the PhD program.

Hey, thanks so much for your opinion. Actually, Dartmouth doesn't even have a PhD program for Comparative Literature--a MA is as far up as they go. What your professor told you seems to make sense to me, and I've definitely thought about what you said, too--that is, having to apply again for a PhD. I'm hoping that after I get my MA though, I would be more competitive? I mean, how could I be less competitive than I was before I got it? That's my hope, at least, hahaha. I guess I'm just wondering how competitive Oregon is!

[spartaca]

I'm currently working on my PhD in English at the UofO. I don't know much about the Comp Lit program here, but the people I know who are in the program are great!

Generally, it is true that you can expect to get a job at a university that is similarly-ranked to your PhD-granting one. That said, it really matters what kind of work you plan on doing. Ideally, I'd like to get a job a small liberal arts college, so the UofO is perfect for me. There is a heavy focus on teaching and as a CL person, you'll have the opportunity to go through the Composition Program's year-long teacher-training sequence of courses. If teaching is important to you, it's something to consider--you'll leave Oregon with the ability to talk confidently about your teaching philosophy, which is great for the job search. Again, not sure about CL, but I know the English department boasts a pretty decent placement rate.

However, if you're aiming to get a job at a huge research institution or an ivy, then you might consider the Dartmouth MA. It could provide you with the skills you need to get into a PhD program at one of those kinds of universities. (Though I'll second the above poster who mentioned how much it BLOWS to go through apps while working on your MA--my thesis certainly suffered for it.) Is Dartmouth's program 1 or 2 years? I only ask because 1 year programs don't really give you the opportunity to get your feet wet or form strong relationships with profs before it's time to apply to PhD programs, thus it makes it more difficult to get great LoRs.

If you'd like any more info about Oregon, I'd be happy to answer any questions--feel free to PM me. And good luck making your decision!!