PhD in Comp Lit (or American Lit) with a BS and Masters in Engineering

[poboy]

Hear me out,

I am a current MSE Masters student who has always been passionate about English. Due to family uh guidance I went on the engineering route but I am dreading graduating and working in the industry for the rest of my life. I figure if I secure a position at a great school for Comp Lit maaaybe I could either convince my family on the idea or maybe work and do school part time. 

I would welcome any opinions on my predicament as well as any predictions on my chances given my profile (below):

B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (3.4 GPA)

A+, A, A in my required humanities classes for undergrad (Literature, Sociology, Theory of Sexuality respectively)

Doing a Masters at Cornell (First term so no GPA)

My research and work have been in engineering, so no dice there but I have wrote and performed at some shows at my school.

As far as letters of rec, I can for sure receive a stellar one from my Literature professor as she was the one who suggested pursuing English, but I would have to get the others from my engineering professors or from writing professors that do not remember me all that well.

I got a 170 for the English section in the GRE and a 161 in the Quant (another hint I should have done English haha)

 

As far as target schools:

Cornell (already going here so maybe it would be easier to transfer?)

Columbia, Harvard (great schools to convince my family)

 

Like I said I realize that this is a looooong shot, but I really want to give it a try. 

Thanks 

Edited October 21, 2018 by poboy

[Warelin]

Small note here:  Programs in the humanities tend to have considerably fewer Graduate spots than programs in STEM at the majority of universities. Programs in the humanities also tend to place less value on test scores than STEM does and place a significantly higher value on your fit within the program. Columbia, Harvard, and Cornell are all great schools but they have very different things they're known for and it would be a very rare applicant that would find a fit at all of them.

Transferring from one program to another is very unlikely at the grad school level. However, you might want to check with your school regarding this. Most programs though will have you apply to their program formally and pool you with all applicants.

Most respected PHD programs will not allow you to do their program part-time. It is expected that you treat them like a priority and like it is a full-time job. This isn't meant to be something that you do because you're "dreading graduating" but rather because there is nothing else you want to do for the rest of your life.

There are some questions I think would be helpful in answering before pursuing this further:

Do you have enough experience to obtain a PHD in English or Comp lit? I think a minimum of 18 credits of English or related credits was something I recall seeing when applying for an English PHD.
What are your interests in English/Comp Lit? What theories interest you? What makes the field you're interested in studying so important?
I'd carefully consider your letters of recommendation. Programs tend to prefer letters from their field or from someone who understands what it's like to obtain a doctorate's degree in the humanities. A weak letter can hurt your chances of admission.
What's your understanding of research in the Humanities? The way we conduct research is very different from the way the sciences does.

https://tableau.cornell.edu/views/5yrAdmissionsFactsandFigures_0/AdmissionsbyCitizenship?:embed=y&:showAppBanner=false&:display_count=no&:showVizHome=no

As can be seen at the link above: Cornell had 255 applicants for English in Fall 2017. They admitted 9 percent of these applicants (which would be about 23 students that were accepted or waitlisted). Often time, top universities do compete for similiar applicants so yield is never quite 100 percent. Of the 23 students accepted, 11 accepted their offer and enrolled. At one point, Cornell advertised their average GPA to be around a 3.85. 

Scores are not everything, but Grad Schools would expect you to have more to show if you have a Master's degree in a subject. I think it has to do with the amount of opportunities you've had to professionalize and understand the field better than someone coming straight out of undergrad. In this case, scoring really high on the Literature Subject test might be advantageous to show that you're incredibly interested in the material. I would ensure that you meet the minimum requirements prior to applying anywhere though.

If you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to help you answer them.

Best of luck!

[poboy]

Thank you for the advice, I reached out to my literature professor that put me on this path to focus my interests and desired fields. I will definitely look into the "fit" as you mentioned. One of the reasons I chose those schools was also because they emphasized that they "welcome applications from students with a wide variety of backgrounds and interests" which I assumed to mean that there wasn't any English degree requirement. (Side note: I never saw the English credit requirement mentioned explicitly anywhere, should I ask the admissions office about that?)

You were spot on with your statement on how I should be pursuing this only if there is nothing else I want to do in life. While I can't see anything else to be as fulfilling, at the end of the day, I got debts to pay which is why I didn't mind doing engineering for my undergrad/masters because I figured if nothing else, at least I would be somewhat compensated. I do intend to finish my masters out in engineering, so I would be applying directly for a funded PhD if possible. 

Would the admissions team factor in major when it comes to looking at my GPA? From what I've heard and read online, humanities majors have had a grade inflation over the years that STEM majors haven't experienced to the same extent and thus our GPAs are substantially lower. 

Once again, thanks for the help. Hopefully I can figure this out. 

[Warelin]

What topics in English currently interest you? 

 

40 minutes ago, poboy said:

(Side note: I never saw the English credit requirement mentioned explicitly anywhere, should I ask the admissions office about that?)

Some websites do a great job of listing out requirements. Others leave some things to be fairly opaque. I think it's important to remember that these colleges are making a very heavy investment in you. Some colleges are making hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment of you over 5-6 years. As such, they want to ensure that that person has the potential to succeed and fit in well in their program. One of the easiest ways to do this is to see their commitment to the field if they've earned a Master's degree. Are they aware of current research in the field? Are they aware of what makes their project important and why is it deserving of funding? Have they engaged with others via conferences? Are they a student that we would enjoy spending time with within the field? How close are they to the writing we'd like to see more of? As a result, colleges prefer to make fairly safe bets on who they accept and some colleges will also reject students that they believe would reject them. Safeties are non-existent within the humanities.

 

47 minutes ago, poboy said:

From what I've heard and read online, humanities majors have had a grade inflation over the years that STEM majors haven't experienced to the same extent and thus our GPAs are substantially lower. 

I think this is largely school-dependent. According to this article, more people at Harvard and Johns Hopkins graduated with honors than graduated without honors. While there are schools known for grade inflation, there are some schools that are widely known for grade deflation. I imagine that those on the admissions committee would be familiar if schools fall on either of those two lists. I also think that the English community's smaller size allows committee members to be more acquainted with how certain professors write their endorsements for potential candidates. Endorsements go beyond grades earned in class and may very well include personal growth, research, and office hour discussions/visits.

 

58 minutes ago, poboy said:

welcome applications from students with a wide variety of backgrounds and interests

I think most schools welcome candidates with a variety of interests. Schools with more resources are able to have more professors in different areas but it doesn't mean that they're actively looking to expand each area. Very few schools are really well known for just one field. Notre Dame sticks out for Medieval/Early Modern. I think that about 75-80 percent of their cohort has a specific interest within those time periods. It's not a surprise though considering Notre Dame has put a lot of resources within that concentration. I think your challenge here is that you'll need to convince a panel of professors on why they should admit you over someone who may have more experience within the subject. They need to feel assured that you're devoted to English and that your potential to complete the "marathon" is there. (Besides the dissertation and teaching, you'll also be required to complete comprehensive exams which would test your knowledge on a wide variety of books._

[itslit]

It's not impossible to make the transition you're suggesting, @poboy, but it will require deft maneuvering on your part. As an undergraduate, I had a professor who followed the same path, albeit in South America: they earned a B.S./M.S. in a subfield of Engineering and successfully enrolled in a Spanish Literature & Culture program at a fairly well regarded school in the Northeast. But they also had the benefit of speaking Spanish as a first language and knew enough English to meet the TOEFL requirements their school had in place. It's worth noting, however, that this success story took place in the 90s, in a far different academic environment, and that they were by nature a voracious reader. They were able to pass an entrance exam despite not having completed coursework in literature, and I'm not sure if that's an option at the kinds of schools you're considering in this day and age.

While your GRE scores are certainly remarkable, you ought to heed the advice  @Warelin has offered and carefully consider how you might compete against applicants with 4–6 years of training in literary/cultural criticism and discourse analysis, students who likely know not only the base texts required of those in the field but also the seminal arguments made against them. You would be wise to read the Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism before you make the plunge, as it traces in broad terms the development of literary-critical thought from the Classical Age to the present day. Likewise, I would suggest that you take the GRE Subject Test in English Literature to see how you fare; although few programs require it for admission these days, it might signal to any faculty reviewers your aptitude for and interest in the study of literature. 

And because it struck me as reductive: I would hesitate to say that "humanities majors have had a grade inflation over the years that STEM majors haven't experienced to the same extent." My training has been arduous. There have been plenty of days I have considered giving up, simply because I found the coursework and expectations too much to bear. My sheer passion for literary study and critical theory have kept me going on my darkest days, and if it weren't for my commitment and work ethic, I likely wouldn't be in the second year of my master's program. The humanities and STEM are both difficult, and I would wager that any professor of the humanities with integrity would just as quickly assign a poor grade for poor performance as any STEM professor. 

As someone in Comparative Literature, I have to ask: what are your languages? Many Comp. Lit. programs require applicants to hold superior proficiency in one to two non-English languages and reading proficiency in a third at the time admission, with the end-goal of mastery over four or more, as the discipline emphasizes reading texts in their original language (whereas English programs read world literatures in translation). 

Lastly, if after all due consideration you do elect to make this sort of shift, I would recommend that you enroll in—or at least audit—as many literature courses as your schedule permits prior to graduation, as @Warelin is correct to say that the majority of programs require 18 or more hours in literature or related fields as a consideration for admission. Because so many funded programs require their students to teach intro-level courses, it is imperative that you demonstrate mastery over the material you may be tasked with teaching. The study of literature is as wonderful as you make it seem, I assure you, but it is not book club. It is a serious, age-old discipline that should be regarded as seriously as any other. I wish you the best with your M.S., @poboy, and I encourage you to reach out should you have any further questions.

[galateaencore]

8 hours ago, poboy said:

I would be applying directly for a funded PhD if possible. 

You won't get in.

Everyone else has already hit on the substantive points why, but I'll put it in more direct language. You don't need 18 credits in English necessarily, but you need substantial upper-level humanities coursework to be considered and to write a decent SOP and WS. 3 gen eds is not enough. You also need specific research interests (specific: Turkish women's poetry in the 20th century) as well as apparent understanding of how they fit into the context of the relevant subfield and why anyone should care about them, which requires knowledge of the field (what was written about Turkish women's poetry in the past? What is being written now? Who are main scholars working on this thematic? What are the theoretical lenses used? What are the questions people are interested in?) as well as of the content. You need to be fluent in the language(s) of your primary sources and proficient or close to proficient in other relevant languages. You need to have grounding in critical theory, ideally demonstrated through advanced theory classes and in your writing sample. Finally, you need a 15-20 pp writing sample on your topic of interest that demonstrates extensive use of primary and secondary sources, and 3 letters from professors who can speak to your potential as a literature scholar (they don't have to be comparative literature professors, but they can't be engineering professors).

All of the above is what you need just to be a viable candidate for admission at any PhD program. Getting admitted to a top program like Yale is another story.

Would the admissions team factor in major when it comes to looking at my GPA? From what I've heard and read online, humanities majors have had a grade inflation over the years that STEM majors haven't experienced to the same extent and thus our GPAs are substantially lower. 

Would it make sense for the admissions team to factor in a metric which has no impact on your likelihood of excelling in their program? Because, irrespectively of any grade inflation, your ability to, say, integrate a function over a 3D plane has no application in humanities scholarship, and contrary to what you are implying, your ability in the former may have little or no relationship to your ability in the latter. So really your irrelevant GPA would tell the admissions committee almost nothing. GPA and GRE also aren't very important.

I think you are misunderstanding what a PhD is: it is helpful to think of it as a job rather than as school. The reason you are funded in a PhD program is because the department expects you to be a professional who is doing a job. And whereas good departments won't saddle you with teaching duties in your first semester, they very much will expect you to hit the ground running: to be able to participate in graduate theory seminars, to immediately start working with primary sources without needing 2 years of language classes, to start producing publishable work soon after comps. Just as an engineering firm wouldn't hire you for an engineering position without an engineering degree, a PhD program wouldn't hire you for a grad student position when you can present no evidence that you know what you're doing.

I think @itslit is right on with telling you that literary scholarship is not a book club. Lots of people declare a literature major because they enjoy reading and writing and then discover that a) literary scholarship is very unlike the casual reading and writing they like to do, b) therefore they're bad at it. The other reason you shouldn't apply for PhDs right now, besides the fact that you won't get in, is that you really have no idea what literary scholarship entails. Right now you see this as an escape from the grueling coursework that I'm sure you're being put through and the scary job market, but it's also, you know, a bonafide occupation with its bad sides and long days. It seems like you think that because it's not engineering, it won't be hard - and it will be very hard, just in a different way. You really should give this project a lot more thought and work than you have.

That said, if you're still curious about transitioning, I'd try it out - but I'd try a more cautious approach. Especially since you have student debt, I'd finish the MS and get a job, then audit some literature electives at a local college. It's a cheap and efficient way to get introduced to the field, and sometimes, if you do well, the professor may be able to write you a letter of recommendation for your master's application. I don't think this transition is possible for you without a relevant master's. You certainly shouldn't pay for a master's in the humanities, by the way, but if you put in a strong enough application, you may be able to get in fully funded (which will entail TA or RA work). A master's is also a good way to taste the academic life without committing to it. Good luck!

[Glasperlenspieler]

23 minutes ago, galateaencore said:

I don't think this transition is possible for you without a relevant master's. You certainly shouldn't pay for a master's in the humanities, by the way, but if you put in a strong enough application, you may be able to get in fully funded (which will entail TA or RA work). A master's is also a good way to taste the academic life without committing to it. Good luck!

I second this.

[poboy]

@itslit

I hope I didn't come across as condescending towards humanities, I was just trying to find a way to rationalize my far lower GPA to the admissions board. Thank you for the advice and the suggested reading material. 

@itslit and @Warelin, would you mind if I message you privately about my interests, languages, etc? 

I appreciate the help.

 

 

[poboy]

I see, I'll look into pursuing a funded MA or take some classes at a CC first as you have mentioned and then look into a PhD. Thanks!

 

Edited October 21, 2018 by poboy

[Warelin]

16 minutes ago, poboy said:

 

@itslit and @Warelin, would you mind if I message you privately about my interests, languages, etc? 

Feel free to do so!

[itslit]

26 minutes ago, poboy said:

@itslit

I hope I didn't come across as condescending towards humanities, I was just trying to find a way to rationalize my far lower GPA to the admissions board. Thank you for the advice and the suggested reading material. 

@itslit and @Warelin, would you mind if I message you privately about my interests, languages, etc? 

I appreciate the help.

No worries in the slightest—I'm sorry if I came off too brusque. You know how it goes: late-night writing, too much coffee, stress over the application season, etc. I took on a patronizing tone, to be sure, so I apologize if my comment read less like advice and more like a rant. 

By all means, message me! I'm in my second-year of Comp. Lit. study, and I would be more than happy to share what I have learned along the way. I came from two national-literature departments, and the difference has been... palpable.

[frenchphd]

Yours is a classic story: family-pressure led to science degrees. But now you have decided that life would be better spent studying the humanities, so you want to get a PhD in English. Professors have heard this narrative many times. To convince them that your change is serious, you have to get experience. Getting into Harvard or Columbia's English programs is extraordinary difficult even for the best students in the humanities. As others have said, it's going to be a tough sell without having background in literature or the humanities generally. There is just a range of vocabulary you need, a range of thinkers you should have engaged with, capacities you should have (writing very long papers -- not as easy as you think!) If I were you, I'd simply finish the masters degree at Cornell, and rethink this path. There are no academic jobs for English PhDs -- including Yale PhDs; by the end, you might have to come back to engineering, or do something else with your life.

If you are serious, 100% committed, simply apply to MA programs in literature. It's quite easy to get into Columbia or Chicago to get an unfunded MA  -- basically guaranteed admission. Columbia also has this history and literature program in Paris, taught in English. Alternatively, you could look for funded MAs -- maybe at Oregon State or something? I would not recommend the part-time classes and full-time STEM work scenario -- it's a lot harder to handle than one would think! It's important to give your 100% to get into a top program in English.

[doctormelody]

On 10/22/2018 at 10:50 PM, frenchphd said:

Yours is a classic story: family-pressure led to science degrees. But now you have decided that life would be better spent studying the humanities, so you want to get a PhD in English. Professors have heard this narrative many times. To convince them that your change is serious, you have to get experience. Getting into Harvard or Columbia's English programs is extraordinary difficult even for the best students in the humanities. As others have said, it's going to be a tough sell without having background in literature or the humanities generally. There is just a range of vocabulary you need, a range of thinkers you should have engaged with, capacities you should have (writing very long papers -- not as easy as you think!) If I were you, I'd simply finish the masters degree at Cornell, and rethink this path. There are no academic jobs for English PhDs -- including Yale PhDs; by the end, you might have to come back to engineering, or do something else with your life.

If you are serious, 100% committed, simply apply to MA programs in literature. It's quite easy to get into Columbia or Chicago to get an unfunded MA  -- basically guaranteed admission. Columbia also has this history and literature program in Paris, taught in English. Alternatively, you could look for funded MAs -- maybe at Oregon State or something? I would not recommend the part-time classes and full-time STEM work scenario -- it's a lot harder to handle than one would think! It's important to give your 100% to get into a top program in English.

I'm curious about where you're getting the idea that it's easy to get into Columbia or Chicago for an unfunded MA? From Columbia's own website:

"Our department has a single M.A. program. There is no separate track or set of courses for Free-Standing M.A. students. No fellowship funding is available for Free-Standing M.A. students. Typically about 13 students enter the program each year. For fall of 2012, the department received 200 Free-Standing M.A. applications and accepted 15%. The average GPA of accepted U.S.-trained M.A. applicants was 3.8; only a very few had a GPA of 3.5 or lower, and then only when other aspects of the record stood out. The average verbal GRE of U.S.-trained students was in the 95th percentile."

15% certainly doesn't seem like "guaranteed admission" to me! Honestly though @poboy,  I feel for you. It's hard to feel like you've chosen the wrong thing to do with your life. I have an undergrad degree in the humanities, but not in any specific field (my program is very hard to explain) and although it certainly makes me feel nice to have attained that distinction, it hasn't been particularly helpful in the job market, and I know that as far as academia goes, it's a non-starter. When I graduated, I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to pursue a degree in English or Philosophy, and I ultimately decided that the deck would just be too stacked against me, even as someone with a background in the humanities. I'd have to take probably at least 6-10 classes at a community college, which I would have to pay for out-of-pocket, and then apply for an unfunded masters degree, and even then I feel like I wouldn't have a great shot because I'd essentially be competing with people who got their undergrad degree in the field but whose GPA wasn't strong enough to apply directly to a PhD program. 

I'm not saying it's a pipe dream - if this is your passion, you should absolutely pursue it. You should just be prepared for a long road with (potentially) a lot of setbacks. I wish you all the best for your future, whatever you decide. 

[frenchphd]

My impression of the easy admission practices to Chicago's MAPH program comes from the results page on thegradcafe, as well as a cursory survey of the posts on the literature forums. Generally, it seems that if someone did not get into the PhD program of their choice, they did get into the MAPH program as a consolation prize. Check it out. Does not seem competitive at all. As to Columbia, I was mainly referring to the history and literature program in Paris, which is a cash-cow program with very generous admission policies. I have not, till date, heard anybody get rejected from this program. English is a much bigger field, with Columbia being the most competitive PhD program, so I'm not surprised that it is "competitive" to get into Columbia's MA program in English. That's how their fund a few of their PhDs ... 

[doctormelody]

On 12/21/2018 at 8:21 AM, frenchphd said:

My impression of the easy admission practices to Chicago's MAPH program comes from the results page on thegradcafe, as well as a cursory survey of the posts on the literature forums. Generally, it seems that if someone did not get into the PhD program of their choice, they did get into the MAPH program as a consolation prize. Check it out. Does not seem competitive at all. As to Columbia, I was mainly referring to the history and literature program in Paris, which is a cash-cow program with very generous admission policies. I have not, till date, heard anybody get rejected from this program. English is a much bigger field, with Columbia being the most competitive PhD program, so I'm not surprised that it is "competitive" to get into Columbia's MA program in English. That's how their fund a few of their PhDs ... 

Gotcha.