Texts & Technology PhD at UCF?

[RoughlyHewn]

Looking a the curriculum, this program aligns with my interests and past studies perfectly. However, I can't find much about its reputation online and according to its website only "Approximately 30% of students in the program receive some type of financial assistance from the university, such as fellowships, scholarships or graduate assistantships." which are both red flags for me. I've been looking at fully-funded interdisciplinary media studies programs that have reputations outside of their websites until this point.

Does anyone have any information about this program or programs similar to it? 

Edited February 25, 2020 by RoughlyHewn
forgot to add tags to topic

[Pierre de Olivi]

I'm not in media studies, but to your first concern I was able to find the placement record of PhD graduates on the department's website. While this isn't exactly a measure of the regard of the program, placement records are definitely a sign of the ability of the program to get jobs and, by extension, how seriously universities and other hirerers take the program.

I didn't have time to read the record systematically, but I am immediately noticing a few things.

1. The formatting of this list suggests to me that it may not be showcasing all PhD alumni, but only those who got jobs or even what the department deems "interesting" or "prestegious" jobs. Note, also, that the years in which people received their PhDs are not given -- this isn't a red flag per se and can easily be cross-checked, but it does make the page less valuable, as the job market is generally perceived as getting worse over time (such that a hire in 2006 doesn't mean the same thing as a hire in 2018).
2. While there is placement into academic and alt-academic jobs here (you can decide for yourself if the latter is a good thing or a bad thing), many of these jobs are hires at UCF itself. I worry that this may stifle the research and diversity of the department in the long term and, in the shorter term, be a sign that its PhD may not be as widely regarded as the overall placement rate would imply.
3. There is some TT placement at non-UCF schools and some placement into other jobs, but neither strikes me as frequent enough to justify doing the PhD here specifically. However, this point is somewhat subjective -- what are your goals of doing this kind of PhD, both in terms of your career and in terms of your research interests?

Much more troubling to me is the low rate of funding, and that even the phrasing of that does not specify whether those students receive full or partial funding. I think you are more than warranted contacting the DGS and respectfully but firmly asking some hardball questions about funding before you apply. If anything in that conversation seems off (including the DGS getting defensive, deflecting, or talk about competitive "external funding"), I would recommend not applying to this program at all.