EALC 2018

[anon1234567]

As for why they ask to what other programs you applied or didn't. In my personal experience, it was done to gauge their perceived reputation. So say, it is expected that if students apply to Princeton, they will apply to Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, Berkley, etc. If you are not applying to some of those programs, POIs will almost always want to know why. I was asked this at Princeton and Harvard, and my friends did also, at their respective institutions.

All this is especially relevant on visiting days, when programs try their best to recruit students, which they do by targeting programs that are their direct competitors. 

[lordtiandao]

35 minutes ago, anon1234567 said:

As for why they ask to what other programs you applied or didn't. In my personal experience, it was done to gauge their perceived reputation. So say, it is expected that if students apply to Princeton, they will apply to Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, Berkley, etc. If you are not applying to some of those programs, POIs will almost always want to know why. I was asked this at Princeton and Harvard, and my friends did also, at their respective institutions.

All this is especially relevant on visiting days, when programs try their best to recruit students, which they do by targeting programs that are their direct competitors. 

Yeah, when I was interviewing for UCLA the professor talked a little about why he thought the UCLA program was better than Princeton's. I didn't think this was a coincidence since I listed Princeton as one of the schools I applied to on the application.

[Naito]

Thanks @anon1234567 for confirming!

Just wanted to share what I know. Another advice I got was to determine, if you can, who will be on the admission committee!! A professor said that your chances of admission depend on one or two professors on the admission committee who say "we want this person!" and go at length to promote your file. If you can somehow find out who are the decision makers, your chances will increase because you can tailor your applications. 

One advice also comes up very frequently: talk with current (and past) students. Actually, past students are likely to be the most helpful because they've been there, done that, etc. and are probably more candid to talk about the most crucial thing: the personality of the advisors. It's hard to know whether you will work well with a professor based on an interview or online bio! In my case I reached out to an associate professor who already graduated from Harvard and I got a lot of great, very specific advice!!

And I'm not sure if this last piece of advice is cynical or not...But I was told specifically for PhD application, if you can show that you are prepared for a successful completion of the program and the job market, your chances will increase. I still shiver at the truth of what I was reading whenever I reread it, but PhD is a "vocational" training, with many "petty rivalries, intellectual dead-ends, disillusions and disappointments, self-doubt and self-reproach", so the admission committee is more likely to admit someone who they think is well-prepared for the storms ahead. It is like an investment. They want to invest their scarce resources (stipend and funding) for the ones most likely to finish. And, I was advised by this professor to even include a hint as to what are non-academic career options "beyond teaching" that I would do with a PhD, because a great majority of PhDs who study with even the most famous scholars never find highly elusive tenured academic jobs.

Not to sound pessimistic but that's the advice I've been getting!

And of course, if you can show you can be a promising teaching assistant, that will probably help too! Universities need TA's for the undergrad classes!

Edited January 15, 2018 by NaitoBaron

[Naito]

And if you can, reach out to retiring-soon professors and professors emeritus/a! I was specifically told what NOT to do, what direction NOT to take, and a list of professors specific to my research. Since they are at the top of their fields, they certainly know what works and what doesn't! In my case, a soon-to-retire professor (I didn't know he was retiring until he told me so, and suggested me not to apply there) advised me that his school doesn't really have anyone suitable for my research except him but he's retiring anyway, but I can still forcibly do it with an associate professor who hasn't really published in this line of research yet and who is just interested in it (but no publication record, and that's very important); however, that's not recommended because, again, you need an established professor as advisor!

 

Edited January 15, 2018 by NaitoBaron

[Naito]

@lordtiandao UCLA is a great school! The 5 PhD programs (strictly for East Asian Languages, Cultures and Literatures / East Asian Studies) I was told to "concentrate" on are: Harvard,  Stanford, Chicago, Berkeley, UCLA. I can't imagine myself being in Chicago and although I can live in California, I prefer the East Coast yet he lists just one East Coast school there (Harvard)...

Edited January 15, 2018 by NaitoBaron

[bakedmanapua]

It is so nice to see things so lively in the EALC forum!!

Sorry if this was covered already, but what is the deal with interviews? I’m seeing some folks getting interviews to schools I applied to, and wondering if *not* having an interview is a sign of any kind... (ie should I prepare for the worst?)

@NaitoBaron you’ve done a couple, right? Any hints from your experience? 

[Kaiwei]

"but PhD is a "vocational" training, with many "petty rivalries, intellectual dead-ends, disillusions and disappointments, self-doubt and self-reproach", so the admission committee is more likely to admit someone who they think is well-prepared for the storms ahead." 

@NaitoBaron I can't tell you how many professors have admonished me about the dismal state of the academic job market (especially in the humanities!) It's almost like they're trying to dissuade me from going into this field. Several professors at different universities expressed similar pessimism and cynicism surrounding the path to a PhD. The other week, I sat down for a lunch with a few friends in Boston who are STEM graduate students visiting from the West (we even ate 小笼包和麻婆豆腐) and had quite a productive conversation on the matter. 

I figured out the only logical path for me right now is getting a PhD. I understand the job market is abysmal, but I'm not completing a PhD in Humanities to get a job--I'm continuing my studies in EALC because it's something that I love to do and it uniquely informs my creative process as a poet. I'm aspiring to complete a PhD because it was one of the only avenues that allows me to spend a bulk of my time reading and writing and sharing my enthusiasm for literature through teaching. And coming from a low-income family, I really have nothing to lose. I understand this a romantic ideal, and I'm neglecting to acknowledge the chance that I might not cut it in a scene filled with "petty rivalries, intellectual dead-ends, disillusions and disappointments, self-doubt and self-reproach," but I've already dealt with a lot of that stuff and any person (whether your an academic or a laborer) goes through these kinds of hardships. 

Furthermore, there are plenty of other job opportunities for EALC grads right now. One is not condemned to the academic job market. Just graduating with a BA in Chinese, I have found plentiful opportunities to use my language skills in education consulting and tutoring for Chinese nationals, and I'm sure these could be lucrative endeavors in the future. 

I guess these professors are trying to dissuade people who are on the fence about heading into graduate school, but for someone like me, it's the only career move that makes any sense. I think I have an adequate response next time someone cautions me in this vein  

 

[Naito]

@spicyramen I got asked questions in emails but not in a Skype interview like the PhD candidates (because I'm an MA-only applicant this year...taking it one step at a time 步步扎營！　and also as a caveat, most PhD programs with Harvard coming immediately to mind most likely do NOT take candidates who don't have an MA, or so I have heard!). I got some lengthy email correspondences with professors if that counts for interviews. One professor repeatedly wrote "why don't you apply to Columbia? Please apply to Columbia! If you're at Columbia, work with Professor this and that and stay there! I graduated from Columbia! It's a good program!" so on and so forth...From what I heard, MA is a different ballgame compared to PhD application, so don't worry if you don't get an interview. Actually, most people are not interviewed and my professors told me that decisions are mostly based on your written materials, especially the SOP, which makes or breaks... These people are very, very busy and sometimes the admission committee service work is another line on their CV for the tenure promotion 6 years down the road (service to the university category), so they don't really have a lot of time. They are probably more worried about publish or perish...Anyhow, I also reached out to a few people asking how to prepare for an interview either for this year or 2 years later when I apply for a PhD, and one person suggested me to prepare for interview during the stage where you collect your application materials. You want to get a LOR from a professor who was a PhD advisee of a full, endowed or emeritus professor because such professors can promote your file on the admission committee; they like to read what their former students-turned-colleagues recommend in the letters. If you end up getting an interview with the full professor who was impressed by their former student's recommendation of you, you can instantly pass the "fit and match" round right away. It's like dating. In a Japanese o-miai (お見合い) the two parties are usually introduced by a third party. Also I was told to be sure to read the acknowledgements in the potential advisors' books -- see what their personality is like, do they acknowledge their students and colleagues' contribution, etc. and of course read their books before you interview if you have time! And talk to former students of that potential advisor who interviews you -- they probably know a thing or two that only experience can teach. If I can remember anything else I will add!

@costevens I was advised by a few PhD holders not in the academic track to also consider other options, such as management consulting, government, etc. Please read this article from a History PhD, who ended up becoming a partner at McKinsey consulting (https://www.mckinsey.com/our-people/josh-wolff), who also got his dissertation published in Cambridge University Press (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/western-union-and-the-creation-of-the-american-corporate-order-18451893/D96207D9AA361EDFE495AAF820B29D24) after exiting academia (in fact the connections probably helped him get published in Cambridge as opposed to some other journals, like Brill -- getting your stuff published by Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard is always a good thing, and Brill is like a second option, IMHO, but maybe @anon1234567 can offer a second opinion). Here's the article: https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2014/a-new-course-converting-a-passion-for-history-into-a-private-sector-career
(It's an article written in the American Historical Association, and it's very, very well-written and has a lot of golden advice on how to use your PhD outside of academia, so please read it by all means. The author writes very well so it's a good read!) 

With a PhD in anything you come in as an associate and then probably get promoted very quickly because a PhD is a credential clients value (they want smart people and PhD signals you can do research and find solutions). The Director of McKinsey in Shanghai got a PhD from USC: https://www.mckinsey.com/our-people/jonathan-woetzel

There was a panel last year hosted by the Association for Asian Studies on the topic of Careers Beyond the Academy for Asianists: http://www.asian-studies.org/Conferences/AAS-Annual-Conference/Conference-Menu/PROGRAM/Special-Events/Beyond-the-Academy-Careers-for-Asianists

I don't know if they will host it again but there were a few prominent PhD's who didn't become professors. I'm tempted to point out Christian Murck who went to Princeton: http://www.apcoworldwide.com/about-us/our-people/bios/Christian-Murck#

You can also consider the Foreign Service: Ambassador Stephen Young (PhD Chicago, History) http://globaltaiwan.org/stephen-m-young/

If you want to become a government official (for the US) like Tang dynasty's scholar-official/mandarin/bureaucrat, you can consider the Presidential Management Fellows program which requires at least an MA but if you have a PhD you come in at the GS-11 level (PhD required) which pays more than the MA level, and by the way, if you have any student loans (federal loans, that is) they pay for your student loans too. https://www.pmf.gov/become-a-pmf/eligibility.aspx
https://www.pmf.gov/the-opportunity/compensation/pay-and-promotions.aspx
https://www.pmf.gov/the-opportunity/compensation/student-loans.aspx

But I must add, I believe Du Fu warned people not to become a bureaucrat! He wrote "束帶發狂欲大叫，簿書何急來相仍"  (Stephen Owen's translation: "I tighten my belt going crazy, I want to shout out loud,  how urgently public documents come continuously!" )

《早秋苦熱，堆案相仍》

七月六日苦炎熱，對食暫餐還不能。
每愁夜中自足蠍，況乃秋後轉多蠅。
束帶發狂欲大叫，簿書何急來相仍。
南望青鬆架短壑，安得赤腳蹋層冰。

Prof. Stephen Owen's translation:

"Suffering the Heat in Early Autumn, the Paperwork Keeps Piling Up on My Desk 
On the sixth day of the seventh month I suffer the steamy heat,  I face my meal, take a bite, and then I can take it no more.
I always worry how in the night there are plenty of scorpions, even worse now with the coming of autumn there are even more flies. 
I tighten my belt going crazy, I want to shout out loud,  how urgently public documents come continuously! 
I gaze southward where green pines frame a short ravine —  how can I get with bare feet to walk on its layered ice?" (from The Complete Poetry of Du Fu)

（The poets of the Tang can roughly be divided into two types: the ones who succeed in government service, like Bai Juyi, and the ones who don't like it, like Du Fu lol...)

Like the Ancient Tang, state apparatus such as the State Department is also a huge bureaucracy with a lot of paperwork...How some things never changed! 

Becoming a curator of a museum is also a niche:  Alex Gardner (PhD Michigan, Asian Languages and Cultures), Executive Director and Chief Editor for the Treasury of Lives, a digital humanities project that comprises a "biographical encyclopedia of Tibet, Inner Asia, and the Himalayan region." https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/humanities-phd-proj/2017/05/15/a-digital-humanities-project-in-tibetan-studies/

You can also teach in Asia, like Professor Pastreich: http://www.asia-institute.org/members/
He also wrote a lot of books in Chinese and Korean and wrote his MA thesis in Japanese...Incredible. 

So there are many options for the PhD, but just that tenure track positions are very, very scarce!!! 

Alternatively, if you can get an assistant professor job at an Ivy school right after PhD, you can get a tenured job at a lower-ranked school. Why not at the Ivy school where you got the first academic job? Because Ivy schools tend to hire very promising PhD graduates and make them work for 6-7 years but don't really offer them tenures at the end, but the assistant professorship is like a prestigious, extended "postdoc" that once completed will open doors to tenured positions at lower ranked schools. Ivy schools tend to offer tenured jobs to established professors at other universities.

@costevens, you remind me of the poet Yang Xiaobin 楊小濱 (http://www.litphil.sinica.edu.tw/people/researchers/Yang, Xiaobin) and you will be his 學弟 / 師弟 / 後輩 soon if you end up at UC Boulder! He wrote so many poetry books: 

楊小濱：《穿越陽光地帶》（詩集），台北：現代詩社，1994。（獲1994年現代詩社第一本詩集獎）

楊小濱：《青春殘酷漢語·詩歌料理》（詩集），《新詩》叢刊11輯，烏魯木齊，2007。

楊小濱：《景色與情節》（詩集），北京：世界知識出版社，2008。

楊小濱：《為女太陽乾杯》（詩集），台北：傷物，2011。

楊小濱：《蹤跡與塗抹：後攝影主義》（攝影+詩集），台北：傷物，2012。

楊小濱：《賓至如歸指南》（詩集），《詩歌EMS》周刊總第161期（2012年9月）。

楊小濱：《冷乒乓主義》（詩集），《詩歌EMS》周刊總第239期（2014年4月）。

楊小濱：《楊小濱詩 X 3》（詩集《多談點主義》、《女世界》、《指南錄·自修課》），台北：秀威，2014。

楊小濱：《到海巢去——楊小濱詩選》，台北：印刻，2015。

I can imagine you becoming a (published) poet!!

楊詩人 is not only a poet, but also a researcher at Academia Sinica so that's also an academic path to take -- becoming a professional researcher at places like Academia Sinica which can make use of your literature knowledge, without the stress of getting tenure. I would love to read your poetry books so please let me know when they are published in the future! 人生得意須盡歡，莫使金樽空對月。/ 天生我材必有用，千金散盡還復來。 / 烹羊宰牛且為樂，會須一飲三百杯 [...] / 與君歌一曲，請君為我側耳聽。[...] / 古來聖賢皆寂寞，惟有飲者留其名 (!)  -- 青蓮居士李太白!

Alternatively, if you're a perpetual student, you can consider both grad school and law school (caveat: NOT recommended unless there is a full scholarship! All the attorneys I know even from the top schools are in greater anguish than PhD's!!! Cannot emphasize this enough), and do the JD/PhD program at Harvard. I am acquainted with one person who did the JD/PhD there and passed their state bar. I don't know if the financial incentive is still there, but if you do the JD/PhD it usually takes 9 years (3 years Law and 6 years grad school) but the Law School tuition is waived. Harvard Law now takes the GRE exam so you don't have to worry about taking the LSAT -- as long as your GPA is 3.8+ and GRE is in the 99th percentile you should be a strong candidate at Harvard Law, as their admission process is more number intensive than grad school admissions... http://hls.harvard.edu/dept/academics/degree-programs/special-programs/jdphd-program/

So that's also an option, but make sure you do the joint JD/PhD that is totally funded for both the law school and the grad school portions; I know someone who did a PhD first and then a JD but since he did it separately, he had to pay for the JD portion and is now regretting the massive student loans even though he has a very high-paying job (more than 99% of Americans). And I imagine with a JD and a PhD your tenure options are extended -- you qualify not only for academic jobs in the EALC departments but also at law schools teaching East Asia related subjects, like Chinese Legal History or something like that! And you can consult for Chinese nationals wanting to immigrate to the US under the EB-5 investor category, not just educational consulting.

Oh and I should mention that publications in EALC are peer-reviewed, but publications in American law journals/law reviews are STUDENT-reviewed and run. Some professors were able to publish their articles in student-led law journals and still count those for their tenure application, and they got promoted to associate professors -- although they teach in Asia, not in the US, so maybe the tenure standard is not as stringent. University of Pennsylvania's Asia Law Review is an example of a student-led journal relating to East Asia. But it's ideal to get published in a peer-reviewed journal in the field...as low-quality publications will come back to haunt you later. 

And there is a Cambridge PhD holder (in Philosophy...) who ended up founding an education consulting and I think a lot of the clients are from Asia, so yeah if you are entrepreneurial and love education that is a good option: https://menlocoaching.com/team/

One PhD pointed out to me that the CEO of Palantir Technology who has a net worth of 1.6 billion has a PhD in German sociology and studied under Jürgen Habermas in Frankfurt and so that's an inspiration story for non-academic jobs in technology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Karp

Sure, languages will definitely help with non-academic careers. There's a Comparative Literature PhD from Stanford who commands 7 languages (mostly European as they are more or less related, for example Romance languages are similar to each other)https://dlcl.stanford.edu/events/best-decision-ever-thriving-business-humanities-phd http://arcade.stanford.edu/blogs/utility-humanities-21st-century

Many kind people gave me advice so I'm just regurgitating...

PS: I'm also tempted to repeat a professor's advice: The PhD is about pushing the edge of human knowledge, so you will be expected to read A LOT of books (both original sources and secondary scholarly writings) and to come up with something NEW and ORIGINAL to say -- i.e. pushing the edge of the existing human knowledge even further. That's why it takes such a long time. So the professor told me to find something nobody has done before. Someone I know who read 20th century literature decided to drop out of her PhD program after 7 years because even after reading all the literature currently available on 20th century literature, she couldn't find anything new to say and so just ended up with a terminal MA. 

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Edited January 15, 2018 by NaitoBaron

[Naito]

Oh and @spicyramen -- I've just remembered something! How good are you at technologies? If you get an interview, of course come with a few questions of your own, but also express your being comfortable with technologies, such as digital humanities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_humanities or  10,000 Rooms Project: http://digitalhumanities.yale.edu/projects/ten-thousand-rooms or Stanford: https://news.stanford.edu/2017/12/14/humanistic-inquiry-digital-technology/ or  中國哲學書電子化計劃: http://ctext.org/zh

A friend at Harvard who is in the MA program right now told me he is learning a lot of methodologies using Big Data (such as mapping of literary references, what this author and 5 other authors say about this work etc.) and he thinks it will be very useful for him if he wants to get a job outside of academia in the future. (For example, beyond academia, there was a PhD grad from Princeton with a focus in Japanese literature who went to a boot camp in coding later to become a computer scientist). So express an interest in learning those technologies or better yet if you know how to use them already bring that up in your interview! If your interviewer uses such technologies in his/her research, he will be like "wow, this sets this candidate apart! I can use you for my research assistant!" The faculty thinks long-term, and so they want someone who can help them in the future and digital humanities is the cutting edge technology right now. Maybe they will need you to help them with HarvardX online!!!

Just an idea!

PS: And bring up if you have German or French proficiency as well because either one is a helpful language for research in Sinology, and I think for Japanology, Chinese and Korean in addition to German or French are helpful. Again, some professors told me the more languages, the better in academia. This professor is very impressive, with 15 languages!!! http://www.bu.edu/wll/files/2017/05/CV-Denecke-Winter-2017-FOR-WEB-1.pdf%20

"Language skills: German (mother tongue); English; French; Spanish; Italian; Norwegian; Hungarian; Chinese (Mandarin); Japanese; Korean.  Read: Greek; Latin; and classical languages of China, Japan (bungo and kanbun), and Korea (Middle Korean and hanmun)."

 

 

Edited January 15, 2018 by NaitoBaron

[bakedmanapua]

Thanks @NaitoBaron! That's a lot of content right there  I applied for PhDs at a wide range of schools and programs so I guess I'll just be sitting tight. The results boards are showing nothing until mid-February, anyway. 

Re: technologies I've never worked with digital humanities tech, but I'm a fast learner, and it might actually be very helpful to my research interests! Not too useful in an interview situation, but an interesting avenue of study!

This waiting game is killing me! Best wishes to everyone. 

PS @costevens I'm impressed by your reasons to be pursuing EALC! Love how you put it -- that we're chasing a "romantic ideal" in many ways. Respect! 

[kotatsumuri]

Heyyy @spicyramen, nice to see you again! I've been wondering the same with some people hearing from programs I applied to but haven't heard anything from myself...ugh!!! But we'll make it through--January is already half over!

[bakedmanapua]

Hey @kotatsumuri! I'm often here, just been hardcore lurking lately  We are so close! It's such a relief to have you all to commiserate/share triumphs/anxieties with. Here's to hoping you hear back soon!

[Riby]

Hi everyone! I'm new to the forum here. I've applied to a handful of PhD programs. The waiting game is definitely tiring, but hoping it's all worth it in the end

[Naito]

I got accepted to University of Pennsylvania!!! 

[Kaiwei]

Yes!! Congrats, Naito!! 

[Naito]

Thanks @costevens!  

[bakedmanapua]

Woohoo! Congrats @NaitoBaron! 

Welcome @Riby! Good to see you here. What’s your area of study? 

[Naito]

Thanks @spicyramen! 

I'm still surprised this is so much earlier than expected!

[lordtiandao]

Congratulations on your acceptance!

[Naito]

Thanks @lordtiandao! I hope you will hear from UPenn soon as well!

[SUMMER715]

Big Cong@natiobaron! Didn't expect MA programs to send admissions so early! 

[Naito]

Thanks @SUMMER715 !  

Yeah I was very surprised. I thought the email was a rejection (as usually definite rejections are sent out first, but sometimes they also wait to send out rejections much later though to see which accepted students decline to enroll so they can move down their list...) since it didn't say "admitted" in the title! But I clicked on it and found out I got accepted! That is a huge relief!

Edited January 17, 2018 by NaitoBaron

[kotatsumuri]

Wahoo!! Congratulations @NaitoBaron!! It's so exciting to see some results starting to come in.

@Riby Welcome to the group Riby! What are you planning to study?

[Riby]

@kotatsumuri @spicyramen I applied to EALC programs with a Korean focus. I am particularly looking at modern Korean literature.

[Naito]

Very nice to have a Koreanologist, @Riby! Our thread now has future researchers of all of East Asia!