PhD at average Grad School: What's even the point?

[xypathos]

5 hours ago, Eshtah said:

The problem really is to me that it is not so obvious at all which schools are the best. There are the Ivy league schools and then there are the others. Ivy league schools are the best. So far so good. But then quite a few Ivy league programs just don't have any faculty member working in my field. Whereas another universities do although they are not Ivy league.

Is it worth choosing the better fit and overlapping research interests over the name of a university and its prestige? 

I don't know what to say other than emphasize what has already been said. A Harvard PhD *MIGHT* get you an interview but if you don't have someone specifically within your field to guide your research, you will suffer from it. PhDs are about the people you know, the profs. that have co-authored a paper with you, or capable of writing that LOR for you come employment time. This mindset of "If my PhD doesn't say it's awarded by Harvard, what's the point of doing it?" is undergraduate level, recognizable name = greatness, thinking.

Edited February 20, 2017 by xypathos

[marXian]

6 hours ago, Eshtah said:

The problem really is to me that it is not so obvious at all which schools are the best. There are the Ivy league schools and then there are the others. Ivy league schools are the best. So far so good. But then quite a few Ivy league programs just don't have any faculty member working in my field. Whereas another universities do although they are not Ivy league.

Is it worth choosing the better fit and overlapping research interests over the name of a university and its prestige? 

The short answer is yes, but with some qualification. I think Marcion is by and large right above that Ivy schools do have top RS programs whose graduates get jobs. But I do think two things need to be disentangled; namely, top tier school in RS and Ivy League school, especially because the impression on this thread seems to be Ivies=Best, Everything Else=Second Tier. Are the RS departments at Ivy League schools top tier? Yes, for the most part. But if we're looking strictly at departmental reputation, placement record, etc., then a lot of other schools, including non-elite universities, have top tier RS departments. For example, I would never consider FSU's RS program second tier, especially if you study American Religious History. And therein lies the rub--the strength of your program's ability to help you on the job market really does depend a lot on your subfield and who your advisor is. The bottom line, to answer your question, is you need to look at the departmental fit and not the school's overall reputation which really only matters for undergrads. Is FSU a highly ranked undergraduate institution when we're considering it on a general scale of all undergraduate institutions? No. But its RS PhD program is very good for particular subfields.

Departments are always strong in particular areas and not so strong in others. Some departments provide amazing faculty support and at others, some students find it very very difficult to get any face time with their advisor at all. Some students will find the latter a major problem and others no problem at all. Some departments provide great interview coaching and job market training. Some, Harvard for example, provide no such coaching or training (or such opportunities must be sought rigorously on a student's own initiative) and it really shows. I'm sure many of us on this board already in programs have witnessed some pretty atrocious job talks given by Ivy products. As someone has already said, Ivy names will often get an applicant a closer look and probably help toward landing an AAR interview. But the interview weekend cannot be saved by a school name. At that point it's all you and only you.

I think there are three factors you need to consider: funding, fit, faculty. One of the reasons people on the board emphasize schools with funding over those without or very little (beside avoiding debt) is because people with funding simply have more time to do better work than people who have to work an outside job to support their studies. They have more time for grant applications, to write and publish an article, etc.--things that aren't requirements for obtaining a PhD but go a long way toward job marketability and success. Two students of equal ability will likely have different success if one is in a fully funded program and the other is not. Schools that offer funding also just tend to be better resourced overall in terms of fellowship offices, internal grant competitions, etc. But again--that doesn't have anything to do with whether a school is an Ivy. There are fully funded state school programs--Indiana, UVA, UC Santa Barbara, UT-Austin, UNC, and FSU for example--whose graduates get jobs with, I would guess, a frequency competitive with that of the Ivies. Many of the private programs, e.g. Duke and UChicago, are already considered on par with the Ivies, but others, Syracuse, Stanford, Northwestern, etc. are also either historically strong or have become strong recently.

As to fit, if you're not comfortable in your program--i.e. where comfortable means studying with people, both students and faculty, and in an environment that is conducive to your growth as a scholar--you're not going to succeed. PhD programs are too emotionally draining. If an Ivy turns out not to be an environment in which you will thrive, it is not worth your emotional, mental, and physical health. People who choose Ivies over a better fit elsewhere struggle mightily (unless they're academic robots). Being in a place where you feel you belong and can be part of an active scholarly community is really vital to being successful.

With regard to faculty, there are some really great, well-respected, well known scholars who teach at non-Ivy league schools. Bob Orsi and Sylvester Johnson are at Northwestern. John Corrigan at FSU. Ann Taves at UCSB. These are people whose name literally every RS scholar working in a department would know. If you have a person like this as your advisor, no one is going to give two shits that you didn't go to an Ivy. That doesn't mean that you must have someone who is known that widely across RS as your advisor. But if your advisor is well known in your subfield and writes you stellar letters, that will get some traction on the job market.

To your specific dilemma: It's really not possible to say where UC Davis's RS program ranks at this point because it's too new--no one has graduated from it. I did meet a grad student from it, however, who presented in my department's grad student conference back in October. He seemed to be really enjoying it and felt like it was a good fit for him. The UC system is by no means the bastion of well-funded public PhD programs. That being said, it's still regarded as the flagship of public university systems, and Davis is near the top of the middle/bottom of the top of those schools overall. But if you run through those three criteria above, funding, fit, faculty, I think you'll have a better sense of whether or not it's the right choice.

[ThousandsHardships]

As many others have said, it's really not the name of the school that matters in the long run, but the quality of the program. Even when you're trying to look for jobs as a professor, it's the networking that will be important. The faculty within the field will know which schools are good in a specific field and subfield. If you graduated from Harvard, it might look good to your parents and to outsiders, but it will not be advantageous if all of your interviewers know that Harvard isn't as strong in your field.

A lot of Ivy League (and other prestigious) schools have wonderful resources, great mentorship, and an excellent job placement record. They didn't get their name for nothing, and if you find a prestigious institution with all of these things, then all's the better. However, picking a school just for its name, without these other advantages, is not worth it in the end. Firstly, if it's clear that you're applying to a school just for the prestige and not the fit, the chances are that the school can tell and will not accept you to begin with. Secondly, if you don't have a good mentor to work with and no adequate resources at your school, then that can be a hindrance to your research productivity and networking abilities with scholars within your field, which will affect your job search later on. And lastly, PhD students are all the cream of the crop. As someone who's been through a round of grad school and have had both undergrads and grad students in the classes I've taught, I can tell you that the worst grad students BS'ing a class still always, with no exception, stand comfortably within the top 10% when compared to the undergrads. To get into a PhD program requires this type of skill and incentive, and to finish your PhD is in itself indicative of success, no matter where it is. And speaking of which, many students drop out for lack of good mentorship, so don't underestimate the importance of a good mentor.

[fides quarens intellectum]

Just wanted to chime in on FSU, since I'm in the department (though not studying American Religious History).

I don't think many of us who are enrolled here believe it's better than an Ivy or that it's a top tier program.  But we did know that there are truly outstanding faculty here, including Corrigan of course, but also Amanda Porterfield in ARH and Sumner Twiss, John Kelsay and Aline Kalbian who are in the ethics track (my track).  Also, Adam Gaiser who teaches Islam is an absolute gem of a professor.

We are funded, and there is a faculty which truly supports us in our mission to become scholars.  But there is another aspect of our program that I think may not be as well known, and it's that we get a Tremendous amount of teaching experience.  I'm finishing coursework this semester and will have 4 semesters of instructor of record already on my resume.  

Anyhow, wanted to thank Marxian for standing up for the state schools that are often sort of looked down on.  I think the real bottom line is that the job market is just a nightmare, for all of us.  We can only prepare so much, work so hard, and then the rest of it is up to the odds and the hiring committees.

[ThousandsHardships]

On 2/18/2017 at 7:10 PM, Eshtah said:

 

I am talking about a PhD in the department of religion at UC Davis.

 

Oh hey, I didn't see this earlier, but I did my master's at Davis and know quite a few grad students in religious studies, having taken a translation class where half the students were from that program. I have to say, those students are really one-of-a-kind, not the typical type of people you've come to expect in academia. They all have very intriguing backgrounds and experiences, and many of them internalize their field of study by their style of dress, dietary habits (a significant number are vegetarian or even vegan), and stuff like that, which makes sense because they were drawn to their field for a reason. Most of the ones I know study some sort of oriental belief system. I'm not sure if the faculty composition is similar. The students are all incredibly nice and intelligent and passionate about what they study. Anyway, hope this gives you a bit of an overview. Of course, my knowledge is still limited.

Edited February 28, 2017 by ThousandsHardships

[sim]

On 2/18/2017 at 1:10 PM, Eshtah said:

 

I am talking about a PhD in the department of religion at UC Davis.

 

Sounds that we are on a very similar path:) PM'd.

[dr. t]

On 2/20/2017 at 0:36 PM, fides quarens intellectum said:

 But there is another aspect of our program that I think may not be as well known, and it's that we get a Tremendous amount of teaching experience.  I'm finishing coursework this semester and will have 4 semesters of instructor of record already on my resume.

This is absolutely not a good thing. 

Yes, you need teaching experience to land a job. Yes, you need to be good at teaching. And yes, some SLACs value teaching very highly. But the "look at all this great teaching experience" is how a lot of programs convince their graduate students that they're not being screwed. On the job market, teaching is a check box - the applicant needs to show that they can do it, and that people seem to like them doing it. But being an occasional TA is enough to demonstrate competence. The expectation is usually that the applicant has enough training to learn the rest on the job. 

If you're putting even a fraction of the necessary work to be IOR on a course every semester, your research agenda is suffering for it. That doesn't mean you can't still turn out good work, but the competition is relative, not absolute. A student at Harvard, for example, doesn't have nearly such a demand on their time to distract them from their dissertation, and so they have the time not only to craft a better dissertation, but to go on research trips, and to present and network at conferences. If you think that even the most pedagogically-minded SLAC would value a couple courses as IOR over this, you simply do not have any sort of a grasp on the realities of the job market.

These are the criteria that make a good program, in no particular order:

• Well-regarded professors to sit on your committee who are close enough to your interests to be able to provide competent guidance. 
• A livable stipend, granted for at least 5 years, including health care. Bonus points if there are easy mechanisms to acquire 6-7yr funding.
• Reliable, regular, and easily identified internal avenues for research, conference, and travel funding. I can wrangle ~$3k a year from internal grants, which means I get at least one conference per year and two weeks in Europe (for archival work) in the summer. 
• Manageable teaching load. Preferably TA ships, but opportunities to be IOR as you're finishing up are good. My university has a program through which you are made a VAP in your final semester (if you finish your diss the semester before). Good programs will also give you fellowship years (for me, years 1 and 4) to concentrate on your research. 
• Solid placement rate. Though really, this follows from all the other points.

It's not that the top schools have the brightest students, it's that they have the resources to provide the structure with the best guarantee of success. The list of schools that fit this criteria is very short. Depending on field, it can be as few as 3 and as many as 20, many of which are obvious (Ivies), but not necessarily so.

If you do not get into one of them, it is very much my advice that you should not go for your PhD elsewhere.

Edited March 4, 2017 by telkanuru

[TakeruK]

1 hour ago, telkanuru said:

It's not that the top schools have the brightest students, it's that they have the resources to provide the structure with the best guarantee of success.

I'm in a different field, but I want to strongly second this point. I didn't really realise how different things are at the top schools until I experienced both. When I first arrived at my PhD school, I was very intimidated because I have never attended a school of this calibre before. I thought I would be way out of my league (standard imposter syndrome stuff!) and that my colleagues would somehow fearsome research beings. Although my colleagues are indeed excellent people, the difference between a grad student at a top 10 school compared to one at a top 50 school is nowhere near as big as the difference between the resources available to these students.

This extends beyond the grad student stage too. In my first year as a PhD student, there was an event where students had lunch with our Department Chair to get to know each other better and for students to get some advice and for the department to get feedback on the student experience. At that time, my advisor was also new to the department (arrived one year before me), so I asked the Chair on their philosophy on hiring faculty and the tenure process as well as how to they determine which subfields to hire yet.

I was surprised to hear that the answer was that they aren't really super concerned about hiring the "very best" people. Their philosophy was to hire great people and provide them with so many resources that there is no way they would fail. Being a top school, they already attract the top of the applicant pool and instead of having to worry who is #1 or #2 or #3 etc., they just need to pick the people they feel would fit into the department the best. They hire everyone with the expectation of granting tenure because they expect that the huge amount of resources they will pile on the new faculty will translate to great research. 

[Joseph45]

Don't do it. As somebody who has finished and has been on the job market, I can't have a clean conscience if I don't tell you not to do it. The job market is horrible for everybody. It does not matter who you are. It's horrible for Ivy League and equivalent people, but it's even worse for second-tier people. If you go to a "second tier" school, the best case scenario--best case--is that you'll finish in five years without added debt after living quite modestly, you'll move every year for 2-3 years for adjunct or low-paying visiting posts that often don't include health insurance or cover moving costs (i.e., $5,000 of your $40,000 salary goes to moving across the country). You'll have an extremely limited budget for conferences, which means its difficult to get feedback on your research, your teaching load will be insanely high, so you don't have much time for research, and then you finally land a tenure track job at mid-level state school, for $50,000 a year. This is if you stay up until 3:00 a.m. most nights grading, preparing, and writing. Hope that you don't have or meet a partner, and god-forbid you want kids. You won't have the time or money for them, and they won't want to move every year (or can't move because they have a real job that actually pays money).

A lot of people have offered a lot of good comments on this thread, but very few of them have seen the job market up close. Yes, having a degree from the Ivy League and equivalent does not guarantee you a job. People from non-top tier programs can get jobs. It doesn't follow however, that you or anyone else will get a job by going to a non-top tier. (I don't think banking on being in a situation where search committees know that you'll be so desperate that you'll move anywhere is a good thing, especially since there will be at least 20-40 other applicants in the same boat--not to mention plenty of people with degrees from top schools grew up and/or like living in the middle of the country. Anybody telling themselves that they'll be able to get a job because their not-so-great application will match a not-so-great job has serious problems.)

This scenario might not have been true even five or ten years ago, but this is how it is now. Don't let hearing about the random exception to this story make you think that everything will work out. Please, I have enough friends for top-tier and second-tier programs that I know how this story goes. We were all optimistic when we started, loved being in PhD programs, "knew" that the job-market was tough, but were all somehow convinced that it would just work out. It rarely rarely does.

I'm rambling now, and it certainly depends on the subfield, but the job thing really is a lottery. If you're coming from a second tier program, it's usually much harder to finish (less funding and more teaching), and you usually have less contacts. (I can't tell you much being at an Ivy opens up doors compared to being at even a good second-tier school.) Even having a big-name or multiple big-name advisors at a secondary school usually doesn't help much, because the search committee is composed of people who are outside the subfield (usually--that's why they're hiring), and they don't know/care how important so-and-so is.

Check out the Wiki board on religious studies jobs this year, or past years (links available on this year's site). Look at how many jobs are listed that you could apply for, paying particular attention to the additional search criteria the committee has listed of interest. If they want to hire in your subfield, that's great, but also note when they want that person to also be able to do X (e.g., gender studies, race studies, language Y, to focus on this time period of your subfield). In other words, just because there is a (rare) job opening in Religions of America, for example, it doesn't mean that anyone in that subfield is actually a fit. They might be looking for someone who does women and religion, or indigenous traditions, or Latinx traditions, or material religion, etc. (Some jobs, of course, are more specific than others). This means that there will probably be very few jobs that you actually "fit" in a given year. Getting a job is oftentimes more about the happenstance of the year than anything to do with the quality of your application, the name of your advisor, or your school. Of course, if you do fit a job perfectly, that's great. Much better chance of getting that job. Then again, you end up in a situation where you're applying to 10-15 jobs, but only really fit 2-4 of them. A couple of those are probably big research schools (e.g., UCLA, Oregon) and the chances of anyone getting those jobs straight out is quite small (they often take people who are already on the tenure-track or are in the midst of a prestigious post-doc). This is a good time to note that you won't just be applying against recent graduates, you'll be applying against everyone who's graduated in the past year or two, with those who have held visiting assistant positions or postdocs having a star by their name.

 

 

 

[sacklunch]

I'll echo many of the comments above, especially Joseph and telk. First, it's worth emphasizing one of telk's comments:

"It's not that the top schools have the brightest students, it's that they have the resources to provide the structure with the best guarantee of success. The list of schools that fit this criteria is very short. Depending on field, it can be as few as 3 and as many as 20, many of which are obvious (Ivies), but not necessarily so."

This is the gist of it all. FWIW, I am at a tier one (for a PhD) and I know many others at a tier two in my subfield (late antiquity). Those at the latter are just as gifted and motivated as the rest of us; but their funding is awful and their teaching requirements are unreasonable. The last statistic I read was 20% of those with PhDs in the humanities have a tenure track job. The rest are either adjuncts or working outside academia.

The only thing I should add to the helpful comments above is that, regardless of whether you are at a top school, you should only do a PhD in the humanities if you are okay with the possibility (some would say inevitability) that you will never work in academia. Even if you "make it" the sacrifices you will have made produce very real consequences, personal and financial. But at least for me--and I suspect others here as well--doing a PhD at a good school offered better financial prospects than had I done something else, at least for 5-6 years. Had I not done the PhD my "salary" with a BA and two M* in RS would have no doubt been lower than my current and rather generous stipend. But had I gone to a second tier school this would not likely be the case; the much lower stipend and bloated teaching expectations would have made it much more difficult financially and personally (and, in turn, would have hindered the already bleak prospects of securing any permanent job). In short: only do it if you are okay with "walking away" from academia at the end of the PhD and only if you are compensated sufficiently. 

[menge]

For anyone looking for good resources concerning these issues, I recommend both Karen Kelsky's blog "The Professor Is In" as well as the book she wrote with a similar title. Terrifying and illuminating for anyone wishing to embark on this path.

Edited March 8, 2017 by menge

[rheya19]

12 hours ago, sacklunch said:

This is the gist of it all. FWIW, I am at a tier one (for a PhD) and I know many others at a tier two in my subfield (late antiquity). Those at the latter are just as gifted and motivated as the rest of us; but their funding is awful and their teaching requirements are unreasonable. The last statistic I read was 20% of those with PhDs in the humanities have a tenure track job. The rest are either adjuncts or working outside academia.

When I interviewed with Iowa a few weeks ago, one of their questions for me was, "What is your dream position after graduating, and what is a second option you would like if you couldn't do the first?" I actually appreciated the question, because it shows that they recognize the crisis in the job market, and they probably want students who have thought seriously about that.

I think we all have to start thinking creatively about what we have to offer the job market and education in general. The game is changing very rapidly.

Edited March 9, 2017 by rheya19
Repeated myself from an earlier post

[menge]

12 hours ago, rheya19 said:

When I interviewed with Iowa a few weeks ago, one of their questions for me was, "What is your dream position after graduating, and what is a second option you would like if you couldn't do the first?" I actually appreciated the question, because it shows that they recognize the crisis in the job market, and they probably want students who have thought seriously about that.

I think we all have to start thinking creatively about what we have to offer the job market and education in general. The game is changing very rapidly.

I had a similar experience at Temple, but pre-application. I had a phone call with a would be POI after a few e-mails back and forth. We had a great conversation, and she agreed to support my application there (Temple apps require a faculty sponsor) but was very clear that their recent placement record was poor and that it was a bad decision to attend there. I made the decision not to apply there since I already had an acceptance at a ranked program in another discipline, even though religious studies is/would have been my first choice as a discipline to work in. In retrospect, not being in religious studies will likely be a boon to my job prospects upon graduation. 

[rheya19]

12 hours ago, menge said:

I had a similar experience at Temple, but pre-application. I had a phone call with a would be POI after a few e-mails back and forth. We had a great conversation, and she agreed to support my application there (Temple apps require a faculty sponsor) but was very clear that their recent placement record was poor and that it was a bad decision to attend there. I made the decision not to apply there since I already had an acceptance at a ranked program in another discipline, even though religious studies is/would have been my first choice as a discipline to work in. In retrospect, not being in religious studies will likely be a boon to my job prospects upon graduation. 

I'm not really clear on some of the language surrounding programs. I understand what Ivy League and R1 are, but what do you mean by "ranked?" Ranked where?

[menge]

10 hours ago, rheya19 said:

I'm not really clear on some of the language surrounding programs. I understand what Ivy League and R1 are, but what do you mean by "ranked?" Ranked where?

As you allude to, religion doesn't have formal "rankings." However, a number of other disciplines do, even if they are somewhat contentious. Philosophy has the PGR rankings, for example, and a number of other disciplines have similar rankings. In my case, the ranking is published every three years by the disciplinary equivalent of the AAR based on a number of different criteria including faculty research productivity, PhD productivity, PhD funding availability, placement, etc. etc. 

[staplerinjello]

To the OP: i also saw somewhere you got into georgetown. Doing Islamic studies at Georgetown is first-tier stuff, if you're working with people like Jonathan Brown or the other scholars in that field. I'd say you're better off doing Islamic Studies at Georgetown or Emory than Harvard or Yale or Brown. Islamic Studies is a very odd duck kinda field: it's defined by the work and capacities of a very few significant scholars and those are the people you need to gravitate towards for grad training. 

[staplerinjello]

For Islamic Studies, I'd list Emory, Georgetown, Columbia, Princeton, UCSB (shitty funding and over extended profs/supervisors though), UNC, Indiana, as the best schools for grad study. Of course one could go to other places like Syracuse, Virginia (very odd duck place where Muslim theologians and philosophers hang out, but there's conventional Islamic studies too), USC, Harvard, Yale, Michigan, Duke

[Eshtah]

2 hours ago, staplerinjello said:

To the OP: i also saw somewhere you got into georgetown. Doing Islamic studies at Georgetown is first-tier stuff, if you're working with people like Jonathan Brown or the other scholars in that field. I'd say you're better off doing Islamic Studies at Georgetown or Emory than Harvard or Yale or Brown. Islamic Studies is a very odd duck kinda field: it's defined by the work and capacities of a very few significant scholars and those are the people you need to gravitate towards for grad training. 

Since I started this topic, my situation has changed quite a bit. I learned a lot from all the replies and the still ongoing discussion and have a much better insight into the diversity of the academic landscape in the US, especially regarding Religious and specifically Islamic Studies. I applied to 5 programs in the US and got accepted very early at UC Davis. Since their program is new, I couldn't find much information on their program and on their reputation online and was rather unsure about the quality of their program. A lot of research and interviewing people has changed that. The funding they provide is very fair and equal to what I have been offered at Georgetown (it's a bit less, but Davis is a lot cheaper than Washington D.C.). The program they run is solid and provides excellent training. Of course, nobody can say anything about their placement record, because the program is very new. But after a lot of researching, I think it is fair to say that they are a very good choice for whoever got in.

By now, I have received more offers most namely from Georgetown and I will most likely accept this offer. It is a very competitive program and I look forward to working with Jonathan Brown and Felicitas Opwis. However, as has been pointed out many times before, nobody can guarantee at all that this will eventually land me a job in academia. I don't remember who it was, but I quite liked his/her approach to his/her career and I share this attitude: I will do my best and invest what I can and see how far I come. When I stop receiving good offers, I will know that it is time to leave academia. And that will be hard to accept, but it is part of the game. 

As an international student, it is all the more difficult for me to gain insight into "the game" and how it all works in the US. That's why I am very grateful for all the insight that has been provided here. This whole forum has rather saved my life and my nerves in the last weeks. ;-)

I have one question though: Where do you rank UPenn? 

[ThousandsHardships]

On 11/03/2017 at 10:39 PM, Eshtah said:

I have one question though: Where do you rank UPenn? 

I don't know about the religious studies program in particular, but UPenn is a very prestigious school that's incredibly well-known and well-respected in general, up there with Harvard and Yale (though with slightly less of an international name). In my field, it seems like most of the professors got their PhDs from one of these five schools: Princeton, Yale, UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins...and UPenn. There are obviously exceptions, but it's definitely a very good school where the name alone gets you an advantage in a lot of places.

[sacklunch]

I don't know Penn's reputation for Islamic studies, but for religious students in general it has a very good reputation. Though that reputation, it seems, is built on an older generation of scholars, at least in fields of Judaism/Christianity in antiquity.  At least in religious studies, they have a fairly small department (faculty and grad students) when compared with some of the other big names (Harvard, Chicago, Duke). I'm curious, how many faculty work in Islamic studies at Penn? How many grad students do they have?

[sim]

On 3/11/2017 at 2:22 PM, staplerinjello said:

For Islamic Studies, I'd list Emory, Georgetown, Columbia, Princeton, UCSB (shitty funding and over extended profs/supervisors though), UNC, Indiana, as the best schools for grad study. Of course one could go to other places like Syracuse, Virginia (very odd duck place where Muslim theologians and philosophers hang out, but there's conventional Islamic studies too), USC, Harvard, Yale, Michigan, Duke

As a current student in Islamic Studies, I am wondering what criteria you used to create your list because, for instance, I am surprised that you did not include UChicago in your list. 

[staplerinjello]

Oh I forgot Chicago and Penn! Chicago is awesome, one of the best, and Penn is good too. I think with these two, we have them all. 

I think you're picking well with Georgetown, and it's good you're open about the academic future. It may be that you might do better with jobs outside of the US than within the US. Jobs here are tough, but are expanding rapdily in the non-Western world which has developed a massive appetite for English-medium and Western academic standard education. 

[staplerinjello]

And you're right DC is just wayyyy too expensive. i don't know how the colleges there expect students to get by on the stipends they give. 

[staplerinjello]

I looked into Davis after you mentioned it and it's something that they have Mairaj Syed working there who seems to be one of the really exciting new people in Islamic Studies, but i don't know how he would be as an advisor or what who else you would have

[Averroes MD]

On 3/11/2017 at 11:18 AM, staplerinjello said:

To the OP: i also saw somewhere you got into georgetown. Doing Islamic studies at Georgetown is first-tier stuff, if you're working with people like Jonathan Brown or the other scholars in that field. I'd say you're better off doing Islamic Studies at Georgetown or Emory than Harvard or Yale or Brown. Islamic Studies is a very odd duck kinda field: it's defined by the work and capacities of a very few significant scholars and those are the people you need to gravitate towards for grad training. 

I read this on the FAQ for Georgetown's PhD in Arabic & Islamic Studies:

How long will it take me to complete my degree program?

 

The Ph.D. program takes approximately 5 years to complete--4 years of coursework and 1+ years to work on comprehensive exams and dissertation. The Graduate School places a limit of 7 years on a Ph.D., and a limit of 3 years on a MA, but some students are able to extend the program if extra time is needed.

Four years of coursework... Even if you come in with a BA and MA in the same field?? And you are supposed to do your comprehensives and dissertation in 1 year? lol

I'm assuming two years of coursework are cut off if you come in with an MA? Then, you don't earn an extra M.A. like many other universities after finishing the first 2 years of coursework?

Edited March 14, 2017 by Averroes MD