Significant Gap from Undergrad, Significant Gap in Interests

[SexandtheHaecceity]

Hey all, first post as I start gearing up to apply this year. 

 

Some necessary background: I am five years removed from undergrad. I graduated Magna with a double major in philosophy and political science at a state school, with good but not phenomenal grades in my phil department. I initially planned on going to law school, scored well enough on the LSAT for Top 6 programs, but spurned them because a life in law sounded miserable. Since then, I've been teaching the LSAT professionally, but I've decided it's time to go back to school. My initial plan is to apply for PhD as well as terminal M.A. programs, using the latter to build up my application to the former if my options aren't good enough. My first obstacles:

 

1. Letters of Rec - I have one former professor who is gracious enough to have offered to write me a letter unprompted. I'm confident this one will be strong, as we have had past conversations about my reentering academia, and I took the most classes with him. After that, I fear my gap will make it hard, if not impossible to get the letters of rec I would require. And even if they did, I sincerely doubt their opinions, positive or negative, would be indicative of my philosophical acumen I've acquired in self-study I've done over the past five years. I worry I couldn't even get a "professional" letter. I work for a company, but my teaching is done away from immediate supervision and I see my bosses like once per year. My performance as a teacher is excellent, and I have internal data to back that up, but I wouldn't expect any of my bosses to actually say anything substantive beyond "he's a good teacher". Does anyone have advice on how to address this? 

 

2. Change in interest - my undergraduate institution was very, very analytic. I took a diverse body of classes and I can count the number of readings I ever did in the department on a continental figure on one hand with life-altering amputations. And though I've retained a certain analytic sensibility, my passion is almost exclusively figures of, and downstream from, continental philosophers. Not that I'm looking to rigidly wall myself off from analytic and gap-bridging philosophers, but the catalyst for me posting here today was picking up Anti-Oedipus by Deleuze and Guattari three years ago, which is a far cry from my undergrad curriculum.  My worry is that it doesn't make sense for me to submit a paper from my undergrad career, given that I'm a much better reader with a very different focus than I had in undergrad. For those that have reentered a philosophy program after a gap or did so with a significant departure in interest, how did you deal with a sample paper?

 

I'm certain that I can clearly explain why I'm a good candidate, produce good work, and stick with the program. But I am looking to resolve these issues so I can do so with minimal hiccups along the way. 

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I would appreciate any advice you may have for me. 

[hector549]

10 hours ago, SexandtheHaecceity said:

Hey all, first post as I start gearing up to apply this year. 

 

Some necessary background: I am five years removed from undergrad. I graduated Magna with a double major in philosophy and political science at a state school, with good but not phenomenal grades in my phil department. I initially planned on going to law school, scored well enough on the LSAT for Top 6 programs, but spurned them because a life in law sounded miserable. Since then, I've been teaching the LSAT professionally, but I've decided it's time to go back to school. My initial plan is to apply for PhD as well as terminal M.A. programs, using the latter to build up my application to the former if my options aren't good enough. My first obstacles:

 

1. Letters of Rec - I have one former professor who is gracious enough to have offered to write me a letter unprompted. I'm confident this one will be strong, as we have had past conversations about my reentering academia, and I took the most classes with him. After that, I fear my gap will make it hard, if not impossible to get the letters of rec I would require. And even if they did, I sincerely doubt their opinions, positive or negative, would be indicative of my philosophical acumen I've acquired in self-study I've done over the past five years. I worry I couldn't even get a "professional" letter. I work for a company, but my teaching is done away from immediate supervision and I see my bosses like once per year. My performance as a teacher is excellent, and I have internal data to back that up, but I wouldn't expect any of my bosses to actually say anything substantive beyond "he's a good teacher". Does anyone have advice on how to address this? 

 

2. Change in interest - my undergraduate institution was very, very analytic. I took a diverse body of classes and I can count the number of readings I ever did in the department on a continental figure on one hand with life-altering amputations. And though I've retained a certain analytic sensibility, my passion is almost exclusively figures of, and downstream from, continental philosophers. Not that I'm looking to rigidly wall myself off from analytic and gap-bridging philosophers, but the catalyst for me posting here today was picking up Anti-Oedipus by Deleuze and Guattari three years ago, which is a far cry from my undergrad curriculum.  My worry is that it doesn't make sense for me to submit a paper from my undergrad career, given that I'm a much better reader with a very different focus than I had in undergrad. For those that have reentered a philosophy program after a gap or did so with a significant departure in interest, how did you deal with a sample paper?

 

I'm certain that I can clearly explain why I'm a good candidate, produce good work, and stick with the program. But I am looking to resolve these issues so I can do so with minimal hiccups along the way. 

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I would appreciate any advice you may have for me. 

Here are my thoughts on your situation:

1. I applied after a gap of about two years. I had, from what I can gauge, only one strong letter from a philosopher. Another letter was also from a philosopher, but I know it was really short and uninformative. The third letter I'm certain was glowing, but was from an English professor, not a philosopher. I got into some programs. My point is, if you can get at least one strong letter, the other two might not matter so much, at least for MA programs. Even a brief letter from a philosopher who taught you five years ago would be better than a letter from a non-academic.

Some further advice: it can be nice to stop by and ask professors in person for letters if you're nearby. That can help to jog memories, especially since it has been five years. Have you saved any of your old work for those other courses? If so, show it to your potential letter-writers. That will also help them remember you and your work.

2. Are you planning on applying to all-continental schools (ie the SPEP institutions)? If you're wanting to study Deleuze, I'm supposing so. My sense is that it's not just the subject matter that differs at these sorts of programs, but also the methodology. So yeah, I'd imagine that a paper with an analytic approach might signal that you're not a great fit. Your options seem to be: a) adapting a paper you've already written, and explain in your SOP that your interests are evolving, or b) write a new project. Option a) might be better if you were applying to pluralistic programs; then they could assess your sample, and understand from your SOP that you might want to work with their continental scholars rather than their analytic people. As for option b), could you work on a new slightly more continental-friendly project? I know it's August, but there's still some time. Do you have anyone who could give you feedback? Your current letter-writers? Friends who are in grad school now? It might be tricky if they're all analytic scholars, though.

The other option is of course to take a few upper-division or grad courses as a non-degree student somewhere, get some letters from people who know your recent work, and generate material for a sample that fits with your current interests.

[SexandtheHaecceity]

5 hours ago, hector549 said:

Here are my thoughts on your situation:

1. I applied after a gap of about two years. I had, from what I can gauge, only one strong letter from a philosopher. Another letter was also from a philosopher, but I know it was really short and uninformative. The third letter I'm certain was glowing, but was from an English professor, not a philosopher. I got into some programs. My point is, if you can get at least one strong letter, the other two might not matter so much, at least for MA programs. Even a brief letter from a philosopher who taught you five years ago would be better than a letter from a non-academic.

Some further advice: it can be nice to stop by and ask professors in person for letters if you're nearby. That can help to jog memories, especially since it has been five years. Have you saved any of your old work for those other courses? If so, show it to your potential letter-writers. That will also help them remember you and your work.

Certainly worth considering. Unfortunately, I live a little over 2000 miles from my undergrad institution, so it's a little bit far for me to just stop by after work. I would certainly consider going by next time I visit home, but I'm not quite certain when that will be. Perhaps I could email some old professors and try to get an honest opinion as to whether they would be willing to write one for me? 

5 hours ago, hector549 said:

2. Are you planning on applying to all-continental schools (ie the SPEP institutions)? If you're wanting to study Deleuze, I'm supposing so. My sense is that it's not just the subject matter that differs at these sorts of programs, but also the methodology. So yeah, I'd imagine that a paper with an analytic approach might signal that you're not a great fit. Your options seem to be: a) adapting a paper you've already written, and explain in your SOP that your interests are evolving, or b) write a new project. Option a) might be better if you were applying to pluralistic programs; then they could assess your sample, and understand from your SOP that you might want to work with their continental scholars rather than their analytic people. As for option b), could you work on a new slightly more continental-friendly project? I know it's August, but there's still some time. Do you have anyone who could give you feedback? Your current letter-writers? Friends who are in grad school now? It might be tricky if they're all analytic scholars, though.

The other option is of course to take a few upper-division or grad courses as a non-degree student somewhere, get some letters from people who know your recent work, and generate material for a sample that fits with your current interests.

Yes. I'm looking to study primarily, but not exclusively, Deleuze and contemporary figures influenced by Deleuze. This makes my application range fairly narrow. I plan on applying pretty much everywhere I could feasibly do that if they have an M.A. or a funded PhD program. My big projects will be to produce a paper about Deleuze and take the GRE over the next few months. I'm a little concerned about not having a professor that would feel comfortable giving me critiques and advice, but I think I can compensate by getting into contact with some people I'm friendly with that know Deleuze a bit better.