Religious Studies IU-B

[hugly123]

Hey all,

I find myself wanting to go to IU-B's Religious Studies grad program. It's financial aid package sounds like it would be promising, the department seems to encourage much envolvement in theTA'ing program, and I can minor in gender and -my desired area of focus.

But will will I be getting a lot of calls back from future employers with a degree from IU-B? I feel like schools just want professors from Ivy-League schools.

[Balatro]

If your goal is to teach at an Ivy or a Tier 1 LAC, then yes IU-B may cause evaluators to take a second look but that isn't the endall.

Many graduates come from state schools and achieve prestigious positions - I've sat on Faculty Search Committees as a student, as I'm sure others have as well. Sure, seeing an applicant as a grad from HYPCD made us pay a little more attention to their profile off the bat, but we also looked at other sources - where, what, and how often they're published, videos of lectures/classrooms if they're available, generally we can contact references and get access to redacted student evaluations from the past year or two.

Often the usual profile information we have to go on is removed from the material we're evaluating -- we were given something they published, edited videos, student evaluations, etc and the question we were often asked is "Would you take a class from this prof?" and that, maybe more than anything, helped us narrow down the field to 2-4 professors who were invited to come out and tour the school, meet and greet, and over 1-2 days they would conduct a class(es) for anywhere from 30-90 minutes for select students, faculty, and administation. Often we were evenly split over a professor and the classroom demonstration is what made or broke the employment offer.

Anyway...provided your research is solid, you're not too socially awkward (lets face it, people who cramp themselves in libraries for 4-6 years and shun social interaction -- they're "special"), the Rel. Studies market hasn't completely crashed, etc --- you'll find a job with a liveable wage doing what you love.

[staplerinjello]

I'm not going to comment on how well people generally do in the job market coming out of state schools, but being acquainted with IU's Religious Studies department and having done some graduate coursework there, I'd say definitely go for it. The program is well ranked and they have extremely strong faculty in some areas. For example, if you want to study Religious Ethics, it's an amazing place to be with someone like Rich Miller. If you want to Islamic Studies from the perspective of the History of Religions, it's an amazing place to be. Also, the faculty is extremely nice and supportive and the professors there have great relationships with doctoral students, going out with then for lunch and coffee regularly, and inviting them home. You also stand to gain from the Center for Humanities which holds weekly meeting discussing important texts in the humanities with professors from German, Philosophy, Comparative Literature, participating. You also have to do a minor for your PhD degree which leaves room open for further expanding your horizons and learning from strong faculty in other departments.The faculty also work realllly well with one another so you won't have to worry about being caught between advisers and professors. The fact that they work so well together really allows students to do very interesting and theoretically innovative work. You mention gender studies, and I'm sure you know how well IU is known for their work on gender and sexuality. I will say thought, it is quite a competitive program. They take very few people every year, like 5 or 6 at the PhD and 1 at the Master's level (the masters is funded) and there's many more faculty members than places for new graduate students so your chances of getting in also depend on whether the department collectively feels that your potential supervisor is entitled to a graduate student at that point. I think there's also a growing concern in the department about training the students for post-PhD life so that you can be mentored in things like pedagogy, etc., if you want.