The Typical "What Should I Do" Post

[NyarkoSan]

Hello All,

I'm currently about to enter my Junior year at my undergraduate, with a double major in religion and middle eastern studies. Within these next two years, I'm looking to do all I can to get admitted to a fully-funded Phd for Islamic Studies. 

I've written several papers and was just awarded a grant to conduct a long-term study on sustainability discourse in Islam, but up until this point all of my work has been in a variety of fields within Islam. This worries me, as I've heard a ton about needing to "fit" in with the faculty at the program you're applying to, and thus I've held off on submitting my papers because I don't want to seem like I'm all over the place (I've ended up with papers on Islamic art history, Fiqh, Sufism, and postmodern/postcolonial stuff). I ultimately want to do stuff with structuralist approaches to Islam, but it's a field that seems so heavily rooted in the mastery of multiple languages I don't really know how to indicate my interests at my current level.

My next issue is much more generally related to just getting into any Phd. I don't think I'll have the funds to go for a Masters first, nor is it really what I would like to do. My grades are decent (3.6) and climbing, as most of my weaker grades came from classes unrelated to my majors freshman year. If all goes well, I am expecting around a 3.75 by the time I apply for grad schools. I'm also currently taking Arabic and am also starting German, and the institution I am currently at is decently ranked by most stardards (top 30). I have no clue about what my prospects for admission are, and I was just wondering if you all would have any tidbits of information that may help me along.

[Pierre de Olivi]

I haven't applied to graduate programs yet (looking at programs this year), but having faced some issues similar to yours I can give a few recommendations.

 

When you talk about submitting papers, do you mean using them as a writing sample, or submitting them to academic journals? If you are considering the latter, but are worried about how they will "look" on your CV, you may want to discuss these issues with a faculty member at your college. At my school, at least, faculty members very often offer editorial and submission advice when undergrads are considering publication, and are not afraid to tell students that the benefit of their submission would be marginal (or vice versa). They can probably help you see if your publication record (and publications themselves) would look scatter-brained or well developed. Of course, remember that when you publish something, it becomes visible to all of academia. I have heard stories of people publishing things they, in retrospect, did not consider high-caliber scholarship and regretting it when graduate programs gained access to these works. I'm not saying your work is guaranteed to be low quality, but keep these things in mind if you are considering submitting to academic journals.

 

Secondly, if languages are a concern but you want to apply to direct-to-PhD programs (or MA-PhD programs), I recommend finding one or two faculty members at each program whose research interests match yours and e-mailing them, asking if your (perceived) lack of languages would be a problem. I want to go into Syriac studies but attend a college that does not offer Syriac (or Coptic and Classical Arabic, for that matter), so I e-mailed big names in Syriac studies at programs I'm interested in and asked if I would be competitive without having formally studied Syriac/Coptic/Classical Arabic. A good rule of thumb is that the more obscure the language, the less likely the program is to presuppose it from applicants.

 

Finally, you may want to look into funded MA programs. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but there are a fair number of terminal MA programs that offer fairly generous funding - I recently spoke with a professor at Rutgers who told me they actually plan to add new merit-based scholarships in the next year or two. You can also look into state universities within your home state if you live in America, as they may offer the MA at a reduced rate or as a part-time degree, so you can work (and thus make money) concurrently.

Edited June 24, 2018 by Pierre de Olivi

[sacklunch]

On 6/23/2018 at 4:31 PM, NyarkoSan said:

Hello All,

I'm currently about to enter my Junior year at my undergraduate, with a double major in religion and middle eastern studies. Within these next two years, I'm looking to do all I can to get admitted to a fully-funded Phd for Islamic Studies. 

I've written several papers and was just awarded a grant to conduct a long-term study on sustainability discourse in Islam, but up until this point all of my work has been in a variety of fields within Islam. This worries me, as I've heard a ton about needing to "fit" in with the faculty at the program you're applying to, and thus I've held off on submitting my papers because I don't want to seem like I'm all over the place (I've ended up with papers on Islamic art history, Fiqh, Sufism, and postmodern/postcolonial stuff). I ultimately want to do stuff with structuralist approaches to Islam, but it's a field that seems so heavily rooted in the mastery of multiple languages I don't really know how to indicate my interests at my current level.

My next issue is much more generally related to just getting into any Phd. I don't think I'll have the funds to go for a Masters first, nor is it really what I would like to do. My grades are decent (3.6) and climbing, as most of my weaker grades came from classes unrelated to my majors freshman year. If all goes well, I am expecting around a 3.75 by the time I apply for grad schools. I'm also currently taking Arabic and am also starting German, and the institution I am currently at is decently ranked by most stardards (top 30). I have no clue about what my prospects for admission are, and I was just wondering if you all would have any tidbits of information that may help me along.

I'm in a related field (Jewish Studies), which tends to emphasize certain language skills as a prerequisite more than say history of Christianity. If it's at all related, which from my experience it is, I will say you are unlikely to get into good doctoral programs straight from college. In this country, that move is rare, at least in religion/religious studies/near eastern studies. I suggest that you check into the backgrounds of current doctoral students at schools of interest. This will give you a pretty good indication of what you need to be competitive. If all/most of the students have advanced mastery of (classical) Arabic and you don't, then you will likely need a masters (or two for some). If all/most of the students have one or more masters, then you will likely need to follow a similar path. And so on. There are always exceptions, however. Many interdisciplinary programs will care less about specific skills coming in (e.g. Arabic mastery), but that may put you at a disadvantage, in the sense that such programs may not be a great fit. As for "fit", yes it's important (as everyone always says); most of us didn't know what the hell we wanted to study in college. Most of us figured it out or had some notion of a path while doing a (or several) masters. 

[torontonian27]

On 6/23/2018 at 4:31 PM, NyarkoSan said:

Hello All,

I'm currently about to enter my Junior year at my undergraduate, with a double major in religion and middle eastern studies. Within these next two years, I'm looking to do all I can to get admitted to a fully-funded Phd for Islamic Studies. 

I've written several papers and was just awarded a grant to conduct a long-term study on sustainability discourse in Islam, but up until this point all of my work has been in a variety of fields within Islam. This worries me, as I've heard a ton about needing to "fit" in with the faculty at the program you're applying to, and thus I've held off on submitting my papers because I don't want to seem like I'm all over the place (I've ended up with papers on Islamic art history, Fiqh, Sufism, and postmodern/postcolonial stuff). I ultimately want to do stuff with structuralist approaches to Islam, but it's a field that seems so heavily rooted in the mastery of multiple languages I don't really know how to indicate my interests at my current level.

My next issue is much more generally related to just getting into any Phd. I don't think I'll have the funds to go for a Masters first, nor is it really what I would like to do. My grades are decent (3.6) and climbing, as most of my weaker grades came from classes unrelated to my majors freshman year. If all goes well, I am expecting around a 3.75 by the time I apply for grad schools. I'm also currently taking Arabic and am also starting German, and the institution I am currently at is decently ranked by most stardards (top 30). I have no clue about what my prospects for admission are, and I was just wondering if you all would have any tidbits of information that may help me along.

Hi NyarkoSan,

Here are some thoughts on your post:

1. It's great to see you already think about this as a junior. This means you have more than a year to work on your application material already, and to have it reviewed by faculty you have taken classes with. The grant will separate you from many applicants, so be sure to emphasize that in your applications (and to continue seeking out other funding opportunities).

2. I will echo Pierre's comment above regarding submitting papers-- are these to a journal or to a conference? If the former, my advice would be to not worry about this at all, but to continue reading and refining your essay. If the latter, then there are undergraduate conferences for students in religion (Syracuse had one, and I think maybe Vanderbilt tool, but I am not so certain). Regardless, these happen so I would definitely encourage you to find one accessible to you and to submit a paper. When you apply to graduate school, your conference presentation will speak to your early forays into intellectual conversations rather than be perceived as a 'wide' interest. Once you start graduate school, a lot of your reading and writing will be extremely focused anyways. Where you are currently, you have the opportunity to read widely, so make use of that!

3. Think more about what a 'structuralist' approach to Islam means, and why it appeals to you. Is there particular scholarship you wish to engage with? Particular scholars? Particular archives? Particular departments? This will help with thinking about both why you want to do a PhD and what might be good places to target. 

4. Your languages are great considering you are junior. Are you doing Classical Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic? If possible, continue these throughout the rest of your undergrad because it will save a lot of time and energy in your doctoral program! German is good- is there scholarship in German you would like to converse with? What about French? Or Persian? Are those possible where you are?

5. Do not worry about your institution, graduate schools will look first at your coursework, the rigor of your proposal, and the strengths of your references. These are all areas you can work on over the next year, and you already have a good GPA so keep at it! Can you tailor senior courses to explore different faces of the same topic, a topic you might be interested in pursuing further at the doctoral level? Can you begin to incorporate your knowledge of Arabic to engage primary sources in your essays? Can you begin to speak authoritatively to small areas in your field of study? These would be some guidelines to keep in mind!

[NyarkoSan]

Sorry for the late reply, guys. 

First off, I just have the papers sort of sitting there on my hard drive, and were formatted and geared for submission to journals. As Pierre said, I am already afraid they're rather amateurish, though this might just be that I end up disliking everything I write. 

Torontonian, I'd say that my decision to do German over French is rooted back in my interest in stuff like the Corpus Coranicum project, and it's that and the sort of approach that's being taken by a lot of German scholars that most interests me. It's just a matter of their approaches being out of my reach in regards to learning a bunch of languages that I can't yet show that's my focus. 

Unfortunately, my school only offers modern standard Arabic, though I'm trying to learn some classical on the side by myself. 

[11Q13]

Sounds like you've got a much better head on your shoulders than I did when I was undergrad. One route you might not have though of is to do a Fulbright after you graduate, somewhere in the Middle East. It will help on applications for certain, and is fully funded.