THE Honest SOP I can't submit: Emerging from a bad situation

[Analytic tlamatini]

Is it too late for me in philosophy?

Let me unpack this a bit.

I began an MA in philosophy with funding (TA-ship) at a different institution we'll call 'Institution 1' or (I-1). In a manner of speaking, I pulled to the emergency lever and ejected from I-1. A couple years later, I reenter the MA elsewhere at institution 2 (I-2), but unfunded. I reentered graduate studies with preexisting mental health issues which were severe enough to get me a diagnosis on the autism spectrum, and that nearly had professionals advise me toward disability. This poor psychological state manifested itself in my physical health as well, and needless to say it affected my overall performance from I-1 to the beginning of I-2. My new reality of being the only unfunded student in my entire cohort and program did not help. To be fair, I did earn my first two "A" grades of my graduate school career at I-2 in spite of my mental health struggles. The end of 2019-2020.

Fast forward to this past spring, as I sat out Fall, and I am experiencing a surge of sharpness I had not enjoyed since undergrad! I definitely out performed most (if not all) of my funded peers whilst in seminars. To be sure, I am merely engaging the material, not attempting to "out do" anyone. But it's just apparent. Still no funding comes my way, and I'm not sure why. I simply bite the bullet and transfer 9 credits from I-1, which takes my GPA down from a 3.5 to...I haven't looked yet. But I cannot afford to sell another car, under-eat for a whole semester, or rack up more debt to pay for my MA. The department is unaware of my sacrifices, but then, I am not sure they care either. Fine. But now, my GPA is wrecked.

As for my thesis, I think it's pretty good, and I've been told as much by some outside and inside faculty. Yet I have this overwhelming feeling that I may need to look to yet another MA in a different discipline; that I am probably done in Philosophy because of my GPA and lack of recent teaching experience.

I need to know: Is this true?

Edited August 19, 2021 by Analytic tlamatini
Misspelling (missing letter)

[Duns Eith]

First off, I am sorry that you have needed to pay even a cent for an MA in humanities. I would strongly advise against anyone who considers such a route of entering any grad school for humanities, without funding. It makes so little financial sense.

Second, your GPA is definitely wrecked. Most people I know working on an MA in philosophy had about a 3.7 or higher before moving to PhD. Maybe they were not normal. Maybe the programs are not typical (maybe there's grad inflation).

Third, if I am honest, whatever you want to do in philosophy almost certainly can be done without credentials and without all the suffering. There are no jobs, practically speaking, for teaching gigs that pay more than $30k a year. If you are able to do what you want without going the PhD route or get an MA in philosophy, then do that. Be creative. If you just want to be smarter and blog, then move to a city with a good library (or library system) and let philosophy be a hobby more than a jobby. If you want social connections, there are plenty of groups online interested in discussion and many have podcasters or Zoom reading groups. If you want to educate and provide resources to inform students interested in the subject, create a YouTube channel or Twitch and give it a go. The university system is broken.

[Duns Eith]

P.S. you didn't mention anything about what other MA you could do instead. Theology? Literature? Computer science?

P.P.S.  if you're from the UK, you'll definitely get more subscribers than from the US, because everyone thinks a UK accent is intelligent.

[Analytic tlamatini]

45 minutes ago, Duns Eith said:

First off, I am sorry that you have needed to pay even a cent for an MA in humanities. I would strongly advise against anyone who considers such a route of entering any grad school for humanities, without funding. It makes so little financial sense.

Second, your GPA is definitely wrecked. Most people I know working on an MA in philosophy had about a 3.7 or higher before moving to PhD. Maybe they were not normal. Maybe the programs are not typical (maybe there's grad inflation).

Third, if I am honest, whatever you want to do in philosophy almost certainly can be done without credentials and without all the suffering. There are no jobs, practically speaking, for teaching gigs that pay more than $30k a year. If you are able to do what you want without going the PhD route or get an MA in philosophy, then do that. Be creative. If you just want to be smarter and blog, then move to a city with a good library (or library system) and let philosophy be a hobby more than a jobby. If you want social connections, there are plenty of groups online interested in discussion and many have podcasters or Zoom reading groups. If you want to educate and provide resources to inform students interested in the subject, create a YouTube channel or Twitch and give it a go. The university system is broken.

Damn, it seems what you said could be summed up as "stick a fork in it, it's done". I do thank you for taking the time to reply, nevertheless. For the record, I am crazy and would love to do adjunct work! But I hope my GPA won't get in the way of that too. No matter what, I figure I am still breathing, so to speak, so I will submit pieces of my work to important places from top journals (I have one R&R thus far, and it happened to be unrelated to my thesis) to APA conferences. I have received some counsel on my thesis from a philosopher who is a regular APA presenter on the relevant topic. All of what that means, of course, is that I have received top tier observation and advice concerning my research interest, and now it is incumbent on me to apply it adroitly and aptly.

About the other M.A.s, I could definitely do sociology (I was accepted once before) or perhaps, per my current research, history or anthropology might work. Law is another one I keep close, though I realize the job market is also as bad if not worse.

[lurkingfaculty]

Ask the faculty in your program. The ones who will be writing you letters. Ask for an honest assessment of your chances and for them to tell you how strong your letters will be. Maybe in an email so that they don't have to say it to your face. Also ask them what kind of PhD program, if any, they would expect you to be able to get into. The people on this forum don't have access to what matters the most: your actual work. I don't think your GPA matters if it is a result of transferring in courses from an earlier program, especially with a gap. Your grades in the new program matter, but what matters much more is what the faculty there actually think about your work. Grades in any grad program are not necessarily a good guide to that. (If they are bad they are, but lots of people get good grades despite faculty thinking their work is ok; an A in a grad course doesn't mean much.) If this is the kind of situation where they could have easily given you funding once you had been there for a bit, but haven't done so, that's probably a decent sign that they do not think your work is excellent. But you should ask them, because there may be other explanations for that.

[Analytic tlamatini]

2 hours ago, lurkingfaculty said:

Ask the faculty in your program. The ones who will be writing you letters. Ask for an honest assessment of your chances and for them to tell you how strong your letters will be. Maybe in an email so that they don't have to say it to your face. Also ask them what kind of PhD program, if any, they would expect you to be able to get into. The people on this forum don't have access to what matters the most: your actual work. I don't think your GPA matters if it is a result of transferring in courses from an earlier program, especially with a gap. Your grades in the new program matter, but what matters much more is what the faculty there actually think about your work. Grades in any grad program are not necessarily a good guide to that. (If they are bad they are, but lots of people get good grades despite faculty thinking their work is ok; an A in a grad course doesn't mean much.) If this is the kind of situation where they could have easily given you funding once you had been there for a bit, but haven't done so, that's probably a decent sign that they do not think your work is excellent. But you should ask them, because there may be other explanations for that.

Thanks for this. The latest claim they made was reduced funds from the recent pandemic. The new year has not started, so I don't know if there are any newly funded students coming in or not; Grad Advisor stated it could be '0' this year. We'll see.

[Analytic tlamatini]

3 hours ago, lurkingfaculty said:

Ask the faculty in your program. The ones who will be writing you letters. Ask for an honest assessment of your chances and for them to tell you how strong your letters will be. Maybe in an email so that they don't have to say it to your face. Also ask them what kind of PhD program, if any, they would expect you to be able to get into. The people on this forum don't have access to what matters the most: your actual work. I don't think your GPA matters if it is a result of transferring in courses from an earlier program, especially with a gap. Your grades in the new program matter, but what matters much more is what the faculty there actually think about your work. Grades in any grad program are not necessarily a good guide to that. (If they are bad they are, but lots of people get good grades despite faculty thinking their work is ok; an A in a grad course doesn't mean much.) If this is the kind of situation where they could have easily given you funding once you had been there for a bit, but haven't done so, that's probably a decent sign that they do not think your work is excellent. But you should ask them, because there may be other explanations for that.

One more thing: I don't know how much this means, but one of my professors did (out of the blue) encourage me to pursue the Ph.D. Also, this same professor had an esteemed guest faculty member (phil of religion) who showered much praise on my work for an ethics course, and she took notice.

[musicdegree4me]

What discipline is your undergraduate degree in and what are your grades?

How prestigious is the undergrad and how prestigious is the MA?

[Duns Eith]

On 8/19/2021 at 1:38 PM, Duns Eith said:

Second, your GPA is definitely wrecked. Most people I know working on an MA in philosophy had about a 3.7 or higher before moving to PhD. Maybe they were not normal. Maybe the programs are not typical (maybe there's grad inflation).

I want to take this back. Your GPA may be lower than average, but not wrecked and certainly not an outright defeater for applications. Most schools admit all-things-considered, even if there are some arbitrary "cut offs" (GPA, GRE, etc.) at some schools.

On 8/19/2021 at 1:38 PM, Duns Eith said:

Third, if I am honest, whatever you want to do in philosophy almost certainly can be done without credentials and without all the suffering. There are no jobs, practically speaking, for teaching gigs that pay more than $30k a year.

I want to take this back as well. Sort of.

If you have a PhD in hand and at a good school even while adjuncting, your pay might be very well above $30k. Not tenure-track, not permanent instructor, etc. Just adjunct.

For example, making $4,000 per class, 4 classes per semester, not including one in the summer, you'd make about $32k ($4,000x4x2 = $32,000), and some institutions pay above that and benefits since you're teaching more than 3 per semester.