GatsbyGirl100 Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 I'm a bit new here, and I was recommended here by a friend of mine from grad school. Hope everyone's doing well. I was an English Major in college, and I went to a grad school in New York, but I obtained my master's in humanities and social sciences. My two years at this school were terrible. It was the wrong environment and it had some really bad professors that didn't want to help out. I was 21 at the time and just excited to study at a top-10 university. I actually heard rumors that the money paid for this program is actually used to fund the PhD students. Anyway, I'm now working as a high school English teacher, but I still want to go for my PhD. I applied to several PhD programs before, but I only got accepted to one without funding. My GRE scores weren't that great, but I didn't have solid letters either, mainly because I never established good relationships with my professors. My grad school wasn't a good experience for me. I didn't have the support or guidance I needed. That's why I'm contemplating getting a second graduate degree in English. What do you think of getting a second master's degree? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FalloutCoversEverything Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 (edited) 10 hours ago, GatsbyGirl100 said: I'm a bit new here, and I was recommended here by a friend of mine from grad school. Hope everyone's doing well. I was an English Major in college, and I went to a grad school in New York, but I obtained my master's in humanities and social sciences. My two years at this school were terrible. It was the wrong environment and it had some really bad professors that didn't want to help out. I was 21 at the time and just excited to study at a top-10 university. I actually heard rumors that the money paid for this program is actually used to fund the PhD students. Anyway, I'm now working as a high school English teacher, but I still want to go for my PhD. I applied to several PhD programs before, but I only got accepted to one without funding. My GRE scores weren't that great, but I didn't have solid letters either, mainly because I never established good relationships with my professors. My grad school wasn't a good experience for me. I didn't have the support or guidance I needed. That's why I'm contemplating getting a second graduate degree in English. What do you think of getting a second master's degree? This is the MFA thread, but it might not be a bad idea to go for an MFA if you have any interest in creative writing. At most programs you can take both critical and creative classes and build up rec letters and work on a paper for PhD school admission while working on an MFA. If you don't have any interest in creative writing, it couldn't hurt to apply to MA programs. You also might just take a couple of classes in your area (locally) to build up some recommendations? Maybe just one a semester so the workload isn't impossible (I know teaching is pretty daunting). Or, if you're thinking about the MFA as an option, consider doing one of the summer programs (Jupiter/Naropa/Iowa) to work on obtaining a recommendation. You have lots of options. MFA might look better in the sense that it would be an additional/different degree, and it will give you certain advantages on the post-PhD job market down the road. That said, MFA admission isn't easy, so if you go that route, you'll want to make sure you have some experience with writing before applying, and to make sure you apply to a ton of (funded) programs. But yeah, it could be a great way to build up toward a PhD. Edited March 1, 2016 by FalloutCoversEverything Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rising_star Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 Duplicate post. To reply, go here: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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