sintura Posted April 5, 2015 Posted April 5, 2015 Hi everyone! I need some help here. I am a Literature undergrad and got accepted to the Comparative Lit. Masters at Dartmouth and to the English Masters at Georgetown. I really want to pursue a career in academics and wish to continue on to a Ph.D in Comparative Lit. after my masters. I was offered full tuition and a fellowship at Dartmouth, nothing at Georgetown but I can afford Georgetown on a government loan from my country. I was born and have always lived in a very big, populated city and I am afraid Dartmouth would be difficult to get used to, given its location. What would yo do in my place????
ilovelab Posted April 5, 2015 Posted April 5, 2015 Go to Dartmouth. 100K+ in debt isn't worth it to live in a big city. Yeah Dartmouth is small but the school is excellent and you can suck it up for 2 years. Plus with the money you save you can travel.
MastersHoping Posted April 6, 2015 Posted April 6, 2015 Hello, I am currently at Georgetown and love it. The city is great and the school is great. Although Washington, D.C. is probably 100000x better than Hanover (and the very thought of living in Hanover... *shudder*), in this case the choice is easy. Go to Dartmouth. Both are highly prestigious universities (well, I guess Dartmouth is a college but you get the point), both would definitely be great names on your resume when applying to Ph.Ds, but the cost of living in D.C. is extraordinarily high and it's not worth going so much into debt for a master's, especially when you got a full tuition funding on top of a fellowship at Dartmouth. Whatever you decide, good luck and congrats to you! But I strongly advise you to pick Dartmouth.
smichelle Posted April 6, 2015 Posted April 6, 2015 I received my MA from Georgetown's english program, and it's a fantastic program. I feel like in my two years there, I became a more critical thinker as well as a stronger writer. I developed my formerly broad scholarly interests. I really can't say enough about the intellectual atmosphere and the supportive faculty. Many of the students (probably half of a cohort) do apply for their PhD in English and many are successful in that. I think that over the years, gtown has adapted itself to students who wish to pursue doctoral programs but it's still versatile and some students choose to get their MA to strengthen their resumes for teaching and others go on to non english higher ed programs. THAT SAID, i was fully funded at gtown (tuition remission plus stipend for two years) and DC is an extremely expensive city (but I love the city and it has fantastic public transportation) to live in. I had to have two more jobs on top of TA'ing my first year and working at the writing center during my second. It was difficult, but I graduated on time and without loans. Do not take out loans for an MA program, especially one in English. It is not worth it. Not sure about the level of rigor at Dartmouth's program, but I've heard it's a year long program and one of my concerns would be if you could get to know your profs well enough to get strong recs from them. I know English programs are very competitive. But, since you want to get your phd in comparative lit, Dartmouth is probably a better fit. It's a difficult choice but good luck and congrats!
Recommended Posts