Your Interests Change

[smellie]

So I got into a nice school with a good advisor. But since I applied to schools, my academic interest shifted a little bit. I'm still in the general area, but the gap between my current interest and the past, not to mention the prof's area has widened.

what do you do in this case?

I have a phone conversation arranged for tomorrow with my potential advisor, and I'm not sure how to go about telling this. Any suggestions?

P.S. I'm in MA program in Humanities, not Ph.D.

[bgk]

Discuss your 'old interests' on the call and also mention you're interested in the 'new interests' topic too. However, don't be too forceful because you might put the advisor off. If he/she seems interested then you can push a little more. If not, when you arrive you can perhaps look at doing some work with another advisor.

Of course, another approach is to say outright, "I don't want to work on X anymore ... " but if the institution that admitted you has no expertise in X, it might not be a good idea.

[silencio1982]

Most MA programs would be pretty flexible on the subject, I would think- as long as your new interests are within the bounds of what the department as a whole/at least some faculty members are studying. I would mention your new interests on the phone in the context of expanding your old interests (if they are at all related, which you do seem to imply). Then when you are choosing your coursework you can just go with more classes that fit your new interests. You can always get a new advisor. Advisors at the MA level (at least in my MA program in a different field) are really just there to help you make sure you have the requirements to graduate and also to point you in the right direction as far as your interests go. I think it's expected that most people's interests will change somewhat in an MA program.

[smellie]

Thanks everyone! I just talked to the prof this morning, and she was actually very nice - I tried to introduce my new interests using my old interest as a framework, and she seemed interested

[bgk]

Thanks everyone! I just talked to the prof this morning, and she was actually very nice - I tried to introduce my new interests using my old interest as a framework, and she seemed interested

Sounds great. Good luck!

[Gethsemane]

I have a similar problem. I will be studying communication and rhetoric at UPitt (*ahem*, in the PhD program, I omitted that information before this edit) in the fall, and I wrote in my SOP that I was most interested in focusing on the critical study of media and culture (in the critical theory, cultural studies, race, gender, class sort of way). The writing sample that I submitted also had to do with this type of thing. However, after this last semester of my undergrad (during which time I took a gender and media studies course that really turned me off to the whole deal, and not just in a superficial way), I have, for very good reason, become disenchanted with that entire research paradigm. I would like to focus instead on logic and rhetorical analysis, which I also have a strong background in from my undergrad (in fact, it is more substantial than my background in critical media studies), and which is also emphasized by the department at Pitt. However, I hesitate to tell my adviser (who is only my adviser temporarily, until I pick a permanent one) because I feel like it is inappropriate- especially given the fact that I was probably admitted based on the strong interest that I indicated in my SOP. In our correspondences, he has insinuated as much by making little side comments about which advisers (including himself) that I would probably want to work with full-time "given my interests", and has recommended that I take a certain course in that area of study, and so on.

So I feel like I will be somewhat of a disappointment when (and if) I tell him about this, which will have to happen, at the very latest, when I go to get my courses approved by him for registration and make a plan of study. I will have to tell him that I want to take "contemporary theories of rhetoric" instead of "media theory", and explain why I have changed my mind. Is this feeling warranted, do you think, given my specific situation? Or am I blowing this way out of proportion? In one sense, I think that it would be perfectly fine to switch my area of emphasis because it is still very much in line with the program, and the first year curriculum looks fairly lenient and exploratory. But I can't seem to get over the feeling that I have been deceptive, and that they might not have accepted me in the first place had my interests not been what they were in my SOP and writing sample.

I would like to apologize (and thank) in advance anyone who actually takes the time to read this rather long-winded sob story.

[rising_star]

Gethsamane,

you're blowing it way out of proportion. faculty know that people's interests change.

[Quarex]

I imagine a large number of people have their interests change, at least subtly, as a result of the very applications process where they try to perfectly explain them. I certainly added a few buzzwords to my research interests (and took a few others out) since this whole mess started, both because some areas seemed more important and others seemed less important the more I thought and wrote about them.

Now, changing completely might make things a little trickier at the very beginning, but as Rising_Star put it, this is hardly an unusual scenario.

[bookwrm]

I'd tend to agree with the two previous posters.

Also, it seems like you're stressing out because you think he'll be disappointed or he'll think you were disingenuous when you applied. However, if I read the following line correctly, it appears to me that he's trying to be helpful and guide you through a possibility confusing maze of courses based on what you've indicated an interest in, rather than insinuate that you were only admitted to fulfill some sort of quota in that subfield.

In our correspondences, he has insinuated as much by making little side comments about which advisers (including himself) that I would probably want to work with full-time "given my interests", and has recommended that I take a certain course in that area of study, and so on.

[Gethsemane]

Thanks for replying! You are all correct, I was just being paranoid about the situation. I emailed my adviser and asked him about changing interest areas and he seemed totally supportive, almost like it didn't even matter. There is something about this whole grad school process that has, over the last six months or so, turned me into a hyper-sensitive monster.

[purplepepper]

I had a friend who was admitted into a phd program to study Pre-Columbian art. She went 2 years into the program, decided she didn't want to do it anymore, pulled like a 180, started her language training again from scratch, and is now studying 17th century French art in the same art history department. (and doing great!) Yes, people's interests change, sometimes dramatically, and life goes on.