Art History/Visual Studies PhD from Cornell / UC Santa Cruz (/ Texas) ???

[kanshefle]

Hi All

I really need some help making a decision (by Friday).

I have comparable offers from Cornell, UC Santa Cruz and UT, but I am most interested in the first two schools.

I visited Santa Cruz and loved it there. The faculty program and students are great and I know I'd do well there.

I have not visited Cornell (because I got the offer today,) but it's prestigious and there are several faculty members I could work with. (I study African Diaspora/Latin American art).

I currently attend UT, so I know it's a great school, but being a New Yorker, I can't live in Texas for five more years. . . I just can't.

Any thoughts about these programs?

I know this is a good problem to have, but it's also very stressful.

I appreciate any help.

Best,

kanshefle

[angieray85]

Hi All

I really need some help making a decision (by Friday).

I have comparable offers from Cornell, UC Santa Cruz and UT, but I am most interested in the first two schools.

I visited Santa Cruz and loved it there. The faculty program and students are great and I know I'd do well there.

I have not visited Cornell (because I got the offer today,) but it's prestigious and there are several faculty members I could work with. (I study African Diaspora/Latin American art).

I currently attend UT, so I know it's a great school, but being a New Yorker, I can't live in Texas for five more years. . . I just can't.

Any thoughts about these programs?

I know this is a good problem to have, but it's also very stressful.

I appreciate any help.

Best,

kanshefle

If you study African Diaspora, Cornell is the bomb. Salah Hassan and Cheryl Finley are amazing. Very nurturing faculty. But Ithaca is not my cup of tea, being a city girl myself. Not sure about Santa Cruz's program, but if it too has awesome Diaspora people, I'd go there. Prestige only goes so far. The main things you should be worrying about is $ (which doesn't seem to be an issue for you), faculty, and resources available (resources meaning networking, neighboring institutions, archives, etc).

[gradschoolorbust]

Hi All

I really need some help making a decision (by Friday).

I have comparable offers from Cornell, UC Santa Cruz and UT, but I am most interested in the first two schools.

I visited Santa Cruz and loved it there. The faculty program and students are great and I know I'd do well there.

I have not visited Cornell (because I got the offer today,) but it's prestigious and there are several faculty members I could work with. (I study African Diaspora/Latin American art).

I currently attend UT, so I know it's a great school, but being a New Yorker, I can't live in Texas for five more years. . . I just can't.

Any thoughts about these programs?

I know this is a good problem to have, but it's also very stressful.

I appreciate any help.

Best,

kanshefle

If you’re interested in African art, it seems like Cornell would be a smart choice. Hassan and Finley are tops in the field, as someone already said, but Cornell is also host to Nka, the leading publication for the arts of the African Diaspora. Not to say you would not have that kind of access at Santa Cruz or Texas, but it sort of means something to be right at the source, no? Cornell is also a much larger university that has courses in other humanities departments, including Africana studies.

I would also reiterate that prestige isn’t everything. (Isn’t Cornell actually the example often provided for reputable-school-not-so-reputable-art-history-program?) This is especially true if you feel like you already like the faculty and resources at Santa Cruz. You say that funding is the same – is Santa Cruz immune from the UC funding crisis problems? You might want to think about which program would enable you to find a job more easily post graduation. I don’t know too much about either program’s track records in placement, but I understand that Santa Cruz is still new.

I did my undergrad in upstate, New York, so feel free to PM me about Ithaca. I think you’ll find that it’s less isolating than you think. You won't get to New York every weekend, but it's still only about a four hour trip by bus. It does have harsh winters, though, no doubt a sharp contrast to sunny California.

Edited April 12, 2011 by gradschoolorbust

[angieray85]

If you’re interested in African art, it seems like Cornell would be a smart choice. Hassan and Finley are tops in the field, as someone already said, but Cornell is also host to Nka, the leading publication for the arts of the African Diaspora. Not to say you would not have that kind of access at Santa Cruz or Texas, but it sort of means something to be right at the source, no? Cornell is also a much larger university that has courses in other humanities departments, including Africana studies.

I would also reiterate that prestige isn’t everything. (Isn’t Cornell actually the example often provided for reputable-school-not-so-reputable-art-history-program?) This is especially true if you feel like you already like the faculty and resources at Santa Cruz. You say that funding is the same – is Santa Cruz immune from the UC funding crisis problems? You might want to think about which program would enable you to find a job more easily post graduation. I don’t know too much about either program’s track records in placement, but I understand that Santa Cruz is still new.

I did my undergrad in upstate, New York, so feel free to PM me about Ithaca. I think you’ll find that it’s less isolating than you think. You won't get to New York every weekend, but it's still only about a four hour trip by bus. It does have harsh winters, though, no doubt a sharp contrast to sunny California.

That four hour bus ride to NYC from Cornell is $75 each way. Also, Ithaca is extremely economically depressed, and not very racially diverse! Just sayin.

[jmcnyc]

From what I know about the Visual Studies program at UC Santa Cruz, it's small in a good way which means you'd get a lot of 1on1 attention without having to compete for time with your peers. Also, the new Dean of the Arts has definitely turbo-charged the school's development. More outreach to donors, coming up with smart ways to be sustainable financially, and better connections to the real world (academia, the art industries and the street). Plus, I believe they're working out an affiliation with the Getty Center, but that's still a work in progress so don't quote me. As for African art, Elisabeth Cameron is the go-to person in the department (http://havc.ucsc.edu...abeth-l-cameron).

As far as size, I believe angieray is mistaken. Cornell has about 20k students, Santa Cruz about 15K and Texas about 50k.

Cornell is FAR from NYC, no matter what the bus costs.

Santa Cruz is about 1 hour from San Francisco which is a big West Coast art center.

Edited April 12, 2011 by jmcnyc

[Venus_of_Urbino]

That four hour bus ride to NYC from Cornell is $75 each way. Also, Ithaca is extremely economically depressed, and not very racially diverse! Just sayin.

I could never live in Ithaca (although I am headed to Minneapolis next year), but my best friend from college loves it there. Also, something should be said about the status of a school especially on the east coast. Getting a degree from an Ivy on the East Coast will help you get jobs on the East Coast, if that is what you want.

[crinoline]

As a California resident in the UC system, I am familiar with Santa Cruz. Truthfully, I sort of view this new Visual Studies program like their pretty much now defunct history of consciousness program. While it was a progressive program when it was started, right now, to be brief, it has no senior professors and all the important scholars have retired. Most of their students take classes in, you guessed it, visual studies. Prestige isn't everything, but I wonder how much a shelf-life these interdisciplinary programs have. But of course selecting a program should be about who teaches there and if your interests mesh with the faculty, as others have pointed out.

I will say, though, that beach town Santa Cruz ain't anymore diverse than upstate New York. And everything there is incredibly expensive.

[jmcnyc]

I would suggest go visit the UCSC Visual Studies program site (http://havc.ucsc.edu/visual_studies_phd), try to visit in person or at least via email/phone, and make up your own mind.

As a California resident in the UC system, I am familiar with Santa Cruz. Truthfully, I sort of view this new Visual Studies program like their pretty much now defunct history of consciousness program. While it was a progressive program when it was started, right now, to be brief, it has no senior professors and all the important scholars have retired. Most of their students take classes in, you guessed it, visual studies. Prestige isn't everything, but I wonder how much a shelf-life these interdisciplinary programs have. But of course selecting a program should be about who teaches there and if your interests mesh with the faculty, as others have pointed out.

I will say, though, that beach town Santa Cruz ain't anymore diverse than upstate New York. And everything there is incredibly expensive.

[kanshefle]

Thank you all for the input! It was very helpful, and, in case you're wondering, I'm going to Cornell! All the best, kanshefle