What's your dream degree? Anywhere, anyone...

[elizbiz]

On 2/9/2013 at 6:03 PM, Samahito said:

PhD at either of these: Indiana U Religious Studies , HDS with Eck, Berkeley or UCLA Buddhist Studies, U Chicago with Doniger and Collins, or Cornell South Asian Studies with Blackburn (top choice). I'm waiting out M.A. decisions ATM, so I plan to apply to all of these when I finish the M.A. (if/when I get accepted).

 

Dream job: FT TT at a community college. I came up through an amazing CC and it changed my life. 

we have the similar interests and definitely the same scholar icons, wow!! I have considered and or have applied to all those too. I see that this post is old, but did you get in and where if so? I would be very interested in hearing of your success and possible tips for getting connected to the same people! 

[NyarkoSan]

Dang, I guess if we're reviving this thread, I'll go.

My dream degree is a PhD in Religion, focused in Islam, at UPenn. Beyond just loving the school as a whole due to its commitment to diversity, urban setting, and robust set of resources tied to their wealth of manuscript and Arabic texts, the program also has Jamal Elias, Donovan Schaefer, and several other individuals who all form this wonderful group of instructors who could both help me advance my current interests while simultaneously exposing me to new areas and methods of study.  It's one of the few programs which have an explicit focus on visual and material culture, and it's definitely the best program for actively individuals into contact with resources pertaining to this topic due to their system of museums and collections. 

I have an interview with them this Friday, and I am just beside myself with stress and fear.

[sacklunch]

Some kind of combined ("interdisciplinary") PhD program in classics and religion--but like the good ol' days when such distinctions were nonsense. The program would be either in NYC or Berkeley (NYC now, Berkeley in the 60-70s), with a 60k+ stipend (today's money), and, most importantly, you could get funding, should you want it, for up to 10 years. That's about the time one needs, I think, to lock down a specialty. After the degree, I want a professorship without undergraduate teaching responsibilities. I would work only with graduate students and at a school with a very large--mostly unpublished--papyri collection, which would lead to years of productive research, publications, and hair-pulling, side-by-side. 

[ChristoWitch87]

If I had all time and money in the world with an admissions letter, I would want to do an MD (Psychiatry)/PhD (Theology) combination and do work on Hermeticism, Jungian Hermeneutics, and other generally spooky topics related to the intersection of medicine and magick. I honestly don't even know where would be good for that given how niche those interests are lol.