A space to grieve (don't read if taking mental health break from COVID-19 news)

[killerbunny]

This recent Reddit post by a philosophy professor who is also an interim DGS predicts a brutal cycle next year and urges current applicants to take funded offers now rather than try again next cycle for a more desirable spot.

 

[Lycidas]

1 hour ago, killerbunny said:

This recent Reddit post by a philosophy professor who is also an interim DGS predicts a brutal cycle next year and urges current applicants to take funded offers now rather than try again next cycle for a more desirable spot.

 

 

I'd add to this that the crisis has essentially annihilated the (already very grim) academic job market for 2020-2021 (not just TT jobs but also a large percentage of postdocs), which means programs will face a lot of pressure to find ways to support students in their final years who will be left with very, very few options for continued funding. Finding money to extend funding packages an extra year will very likely cut into the available funding for new cohorts of PhD students and thus the number of available spots. 

[Faith786]

On 4/3/2020 at 10:23 AM, killerbunny said:

This recent Reddit post by a philosophy professor who is also an interim DGS predicts a brutal cycle next year and urges current applicants to take funded offers now rather than try again next cycle for a more desirable spot.

 

I was given the same advice, if I received an offer, I was told to take the offer, and after a few years, if one really wanted to change their mind, at least there would be experience under the belt!!!

[senorbrightside]

Being shut out this year makes me incredibly sad about my future in academia

[killerbunny]

23 hours ago, senorbrightside said:

Being shut out this year makes me incredibly sad about my future in academia

Well, all of us—including those accepted into a program this round as well as those already attending—have a very uncertain future in academia. This might be my cruel optimism talking, but aside from how the job market will look five years from now, if you decide to reapply, you'll have a leg up because you have learned so much from having already applied. You know better than new applicants all the practical challenges of applying, and this year's experience gives you a rare insight into how to put together an even better application. If you are dead set on getting into a program, I bet your odds of getting in next round are better than many. We all have to be prepared, though, for the likelihood that there won't be teaching positions for us later on. 

[sutures]

I go to a large public university. First honors student in my family (and the third to receive anything more than a GED), had my research conferences either moved to an online platform or canned altogether, was essentially displaced/kicked out of my sorority house, and a scholarship I was awarded was cancelled rather than deferred, so it's definitely been a difficult semester to end things on. Finances prevented me from applying to graduate school straight out of undergrad this year, and I was wondering what the aid situation would look like in the coming years. I'm pretty glad I found this thread-- it's confirmed basically what I thought would happen with the whole Corona crisis. Guess I'll focus on studying for the GRE (whenever that'll be held) and getting some work experience for the next few years!

[Boolakanaka]

On 3/16/2020 at 12:57 PM, The Hoosier Oxonian said:

I'm trying not to wallow in how sad I am right now, but I wanted to take this opportunity to offer a forum for those watching major milestones crumble before them thanks to the pandemic to offer mutual support. My own circumstance is that as a graduating senior, I've had the remainder of my face-to-face classes cancelled for the semester (we're going online), so I'll never have another proper class at my university. The university has also cancelled all non-class events, so several ceremonies at which I was to receive quite significant honors (including being recognized at the Chancellor's Scholar for the School of Liberal Arts, an award given to the most outstanding student from each of the university's academic units) will not be held. My commencement has not yet been officially cancelled, but we've been forewarned that this is likely. I was also supposed to present at two conferences (my first ever) this spring. One, a small, low stakes, but still exciting graduate conference, has been cancelled. The other, a once-in-a-career opportunity at a significant international conference in the UK that I'd been planning for for almost a year, hasn't yet been cancelled (though I'll be shocked if it isn't), but with the chaos currently reigning in airports and new travel restrictions being handed down almost daily, I can't possibly attend and present even if said conference is not cancelled.

I know these are very much first-world problems and that others are far more injured than I by this global catastrophe, and I understand and support the need to take drastic measures to protect the most vulnerable in our society, but I still feel it's appropriate to express grief at having all the major events and opportunities I was looking forward to for the next several months taken away. I hope this doesn't come off as whining - my aim is to create a safe, supportive space for those of us experiencing pandemic-related heartbreak right now to let it out. Anyone else want to share?

I would say, place it in appropriate context. When my pops was your age, he was a young man of color, living in Jim Crow, and then did several gruesome tours of Vietnam. His life was never the same, he returned to social unrest, not just from a generation and cultural basis, but also the color of his skin. You have much to be thankful for....

[punctilious]

Husband is grieving the loss of library access while writing his final papers for his classes. There have been multiple rare books that we’ve had to go through rather odd processes to try to get scans of or information on (including finding initial quotes or references in online literary magazines, blog posts, or other books available on Google Books, then messaging users on Bookogs who may own the books and even messaging the authors themselves in order to get an accurate citation...). As a self-proclaimed expert at Googling, I’ve gotten to help out a lot with his research, which has been a fun challenge for me as someone who is VERY MUCH not a student of literature.