Pick Leee's next school, win a dollar

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<LI>What an @$$ town.
<LI>The level of discourse seems equivalent to an undergrad class at Berkeley.
<LI>Tiny department (both good and bad, actually)
<LI>What an @$$ town. (Then again, I prob wouldn't be going out all that much anyway.)
<LI>COLD

Chicago
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<LI>Prestige
<LI>Extremely high level of discourse
<LI>Employment resources
<LI>More ilx0rs in the area!

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<LI>Lack of courses specifically dealing w/ pop culture
<LI>(Over) Emphasis on theory
<LI>1 year to do a thesis (my last experience w/ a 1 year course that culminates in a thesis, I dropped out)
<LI>COLDER

xp-- After wherever I go, I'm going to try to come back to Cali (UCLA? Berkeley II?) for my (gasp) PhD!

The teaching experience you mention with BG would be a very good thing when you hit the job market, assuming you'd look for teaching jobs; a lot of my friends are on or have been on the market in the last couple years, and that's been a major "we're down to two or three candidates, which one do we pick" criterion.

"Back to the Future, Parts I, II and III: The Past and Present of the Sequel"

"Sutured Spectacle: The Contemporary Film Musical and Blockbuster Aesthetics"

"Reiteration and Excess in the Digital Performances of Björk and Mariko Mori"

"Spy Like Us: Alias and the Secret Identity of the New Television Superheroine"

"TELL ME IF IT HURTS: Ethics and Aesthetics of Talk Show Schadenfreude"

So, it's not like U of C is antithetical to pop-cult studies. But you probably do have to carve it out more for yourself.

Also: if you go on to a Ph.D., what kind of program would it be in? If you go back to an English program, then maybe a humanities MA would look better than a pop-culture MA?

But that really only matters if you want to go on to a pop culture program, and from there to the field; otherwise it's not going to come up.

(Well, not always. But it's not a factor to ignore.)

(The U. of C. program is a general Humanities program; the BGSU one is in Pop Culture.)

"Spy Like Us: Alias and the Secret Identity of the New Television Superheroine"

Woohoo!

What I meant about "level of discourse" was an obfuscating way of saying "How smart are my would-be classmates." I sat in on one class for each school; at BGSU, they got stuck on a fundamental issue that shouldn't have been part of the debate; at U of C, there was waaay too much emphasis on psychoanalytic theory but in spite of which, the rest of the students were sharper.

I also asked about the college backgrounds of the incoming BG students, who were almost all from mid-west state schools. (One from UPenn and one from UCLA.)

But the real kicker in favor of U of C is that they're offering a graphic novel WORKSHOP next fall!

A point in BG's favor though is that the head of the Pop cult dept. has the season 1 Alias DVD, and a fair collection of Batgirl comics.

xpost awesome s1ocki, I have a plan for the future!

By the way! An important to consider. Critical, in my experience:

How many of the graduate classes -- not just the ones on the books, but the ones actually offered, as well as the ones which form the core required curriculum for the program -- are actually classes unto themselves, and not simply graduate sections of a larger undergraduate course? Most of the "graduate" classes I'm encouraged to take at IU are actually a section of 2-3 grad students in a 40-200 person undergraduate class, with extra papers and meetings added on for us; the level of discourse, in other words, is exceptionally poor. I've had to ditch those types of courses whenever possible and form my own curriculum, which is not making me popular with the administration.

Second suggestion duly noted!

That sounds key to me if your goal is still to teach.

I still have two papers left, but I don't know when one of them is due. I'm ready to sleep for 20 hours.

But, getting an idea of the very finite financial resources for which I'd be competing with other students who, I'd assume, are smarter/more driven than I am, and perhaps for the first time, I'm very very scared. Then again, I've already committed $45 to the letter of recommendation service, so there's no point in throwing that money away! Still, if you can offer assurances, that'd be appreciated; I do think that grad school/academia is something that's right for me, despite the Fears I have.

xpost - shhh!