what the fuck am i getting myself into with this grad school stuff

i'm sorry for what happened to you e.mily. i have to say, this thread and other articles i have read make me terrified about applying to grad school in the humanities (literature). i love literature and even theory but i just don't know if i would be able to "cut it" at a prestigious program. i am not a competitive person and the amount of strategic positioning that seems necessary to get an academic job seems daunting, especially with how the market seems to be. idk why i posted here - i know i have to figure out whether to apply or not on my own - but i guess i just wanted to put my story out there, to see if anyone is in the same boat as me (terrified of applying but still somewhat loyal to my younger self who thought it was his destiny to become an english professor).

I am giving up on the whole "artistic" thing...I visited a department and it was too discouraging. They showed me work by really smart and "special" people and said, "do you have the talent, you haven't done this work in years!" I said I spent years preparing and studying and I thought I was perfect for that line of work.

I think I'll just do time in a furniture store or something or learn real estate. I mean I worked really hard and did all of that reading, but at the end of the day, you're just a number and putting together a portfolio takes a lot of time that I no longer have, plus my desktop broke....

i'm helping my friend who's prof asked her to write her own recommendation letter, any tips?

Find a better referee.

There is what seems to be some good advice here: http://theprofessorisin.com/2012/09/07/how-to-write-a-recommendation-letter/

Writing recs is as much a professorial duty as teaching classes imo; shame on those who do not consider it so. That said, a savvy rec-sender can set it all up (via a brief statement of purpose, well-done resume, and some bullet points to help make the recommender's job easy) for a lazy prof.

she was only asked to write it because she asked for the rec so close to the deadline, the prof will still see it & sculpt the final draft. thanks for the link ljubljana

On a scale of 1-10, how inappropriate is it for a professor to ask a lab manger (who is 22 with a undergrad degree) to rate applications to the PhD program?

Mostly depends on whether the prof is using the lab manager to filter out some of the applications, or as a second opinion on applications that the prof also examines and judges independently. If the latter case, it is merely unorthodox, if the former, then the prof is unforgivably lazy. Those applications represent a huge investment of effort.

Former case.

I am with you on this one but am trying not to overreact.

It gives me the idea that prof views grad students as a generic commodity and an essentially uninteresting one at that. I don't envy anyone he accepts.

Yeah someone who hasn't done at least a few years of a PhD shouldn't be let anywhere near applications imo.

xp - She. And your statement is somewhat accurate in relation to this particular person.

I second all of these sentiments.

Also, I got accepted to Boston U's distance ed program yesterday. Will hang on to hear back from the other school to which I applied (U of MD), but unless they offer tons o' financial aid, BU it shall be. I'd start in May!

Brilliant news, Q, nice one!

Thanks! It has been such a loooooong time since I've been a student, and my last graduate program was a very different beast (basic science degree; all of my time in lab and very little in any sort of traditional class). I also have zero experience with online classes. It will be a totally new world, but I'm really looking forward to it!

To answer your original question, ljubljana, about an 8.5.

Yeah :-( I'd gone for 8.

F*ck, more exhausting shit. There are much worse supervisors than this, so I feel like a wimp for feeling at the end of my tether. Dying to vent (boring) details, maybe I should start a grad school 77 thread.

for gossip purposes i really want to know who your supervisor is even though its probably not anyone i have ever met or will ever meet

I will totally post on a wtf grad school thread on 77. Haven't started yet (still waiting to hear back from one of the two MSW programs to which I applied), but I have done this grad school think before and know I will need some wtf venting.

Created. Apologies for the boringness of my opening rant! Objectively it is really not so bad. I have a problem with disproportionate anger towards people I consider rude and disrespectful.

I'm about to pay tuition for next quarter's class after just finishing up THEE WORST QUARTER IN THEE WORST CLASS I've ever taken, which has prompted me to question whether I even want to keep going on in this program in favor of yet ANOTHER career change. UGH WHY CAN'T LIFE BE AN RPG.

And oh yeah the class I'm signing up for is 7:10AM, wtf.

^^^^that is so many levels of wrong I can't even get my head around it

http://christianityandvirtue.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/a-day-in-the-life-of-phd-in-theology/

i have no idea where to put this but i feel it needs to be shared.

people who show us how to live etc etc

augustine, academic monographs and journal articles, tolkien, pope poetry, vampire diaries, narnia

it's good that we've got such penetrating thinkers looking after our religious traditions

not to mention looking after his moustache

Augustine's tache was a right state, we're finally onto something here.

this is like 180 degrees from my grad school routine, both past (basic science research) and present (social work).

can I just

I mean this guy is really a retired person pretending to be a grad student, right?

seems like he has a nice submissive christian wife but they didn't even do it that day

yeah funny how he makes no mention of "preparing/cleaning up after" breakfast and dinner, and yet participates in the consumption of said meals.

seemingly he's in his mid 20s. kids today...

"interesting, albeit girl-oriented" is a phrase i'm gonna try running with.

the part where you watch tv is in generally pretty accurate though

who the fuck watches Buffy at 7 in the morning?

UK grad students have less coursework, no comps, and less or no TA obligations, right?

I'm just trying to make this make sense.

02:00

I weep hysterically over a seminar paper that was due 14 months ago.

an hour of that, ten hours of ILX, thirteen hours of sleep. Done and done.

No comps and generally nothing serious as far as coursework goes, Sund4r. TA obligations vary a lot but in the humanities probably the majority don't have any / they're all foisted on the few students in the department who have funding.

I mean this guy is really a retired person pretending to be a grad student, right?

seriously! i like that he sometimes bother to attends a seminar but only in the midafternoon and only if he's not too busy watching youtube

xp and I was gonna add that American students in the UK generally don't have internal funding, but then I realised I have no reason for thinking that he's American. Other than that even at our worst, we are not like this.

oh so he has a youtube account http://www.youtube.com/user/historicaldavid/videos?view=0

(Of course, he's American.)

tbh im sure ill enjoy this guys well-reviewed fantasy trilogy about a human rogue who fights dragons during the renaissance or w/e

I hope wifey has a good job because who is going to employ this guy if/when he ever graduates?

some religious school

oh dear god I just watched one of his videos