I’ve decided to get a Master’s degree – either an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, or, more likely, an M.A. in English. I’ve had my B.A.s for 10 years (Journalism and Political Science), both from Indiana U. Now that I’m in Chicago, Northwestern seems the obvious choice. Now I’d like some opinions…
Am I overlooking any other excellent liberal arts grad programs in the Chicago area?
How tough is the GRE? Can I coast through it like I did the SAT? Are those prep books worth anything?
NW requires a 12-25 page “critical essay” with “scholarly citations” on some literary topic for M.A. English admissions. What in the world does that mean? Do I just go research and write up a big ol’ research paper? That seems too easy, to me. What might they be looking for, there?
My undergrad GPA was 3.4. Is that good enough? Do they care about real-world work experience, for returning students, in lieu of a stellar undergrad GPA?
They also want 2-3 letters of recommendation. Now that I’ve been out of college for 10 years, I’ve obviously lost touch with former profs and advisors. But I work at a college, so could I get these from some of the educators/management people at my school? I work with a bunch of folks who have nice education credentials, and one guy with an English/Creative Writing M.A. What sort of recommendations should I go for? (for example, Director of Education, or Executive Director, or Director of Admissions, or what?) Is it going to make a difference if Bob the PhD gives me a recommendation, or if it’s only from Frank the M.A.?
How much time per week is this going to suck out of my (already busy) life? I’m more than willing to sacrifice and rearrange to earn this degree, but I’d like to know what I’m getting into. I believe my boss will be amenable to some flexibility (after all, it is a college), but am I looking at an additional 30+ hours a week?
I took a few grad courses while doing my B.A.s, and they weren’t significantly different from undergrad courses, as far as difficulty and the level of effort required. Is that generally true? Do the classes ever get harder, or are they just more specialized? (Liberal arts, keep in mind… I’m sure scientific courses are a whole different bag.)
Yes, I’m heading into this relatively ignorant of the entire grad school scenario. I never thought I’d want to do this, but it’s been bothering me for several years now, so I’m going to do it. I’ll be 35 someday anyway; I might as well be 35 with a Master’s. I’d appreciate any opinions or experiences with graduate school.
I didn’t find it that tough. Between the time I decided to apply to grad school and taking the GRE, I had about 10 days, and my cumulative score was excellent. I think the books might be helpful, at least so you know what the set up is for it. I don’t know if they’re all computer based now, but I took mine online and walked out knowing my scores. I do know that they’ve added an essay portion since I took it in the spring of 2002.
My overall undergrad GPA was a 2.8, with a 3.0 in my major. I had no problem getting in after working for seven years - I think that made a significant difference in my case.
My letters of recommendation were from three bosses (the current one (at the time) and two former bosses. I wasn’t in touch with my former professors at all. If there’s someone at your current employer who is familiar with your work and who has a similar degree, so much the better - they know that you can do the necessary work for the degree.
It depends, really, on how many classes you take at a time and what those classes are. I’m a full time student and I work part time, easily putting in 9-12 hours a week per class, beyond class time. Your situation may well be different - you’re looking at a differnent degree and a different school.
Oh jeez, the Hampsters have been drinking again, here is the rest of my post:
You may not have to take the GRE’s as a returning student. There may be a returning student status like they have at my school, where you do not have to take the GRE’s especially if you will be taking more night classes or not. It’s been 8 years since I was in Grad school and I’m sure much has changed since then.
A trip to the admin office to speak with someone is the best way to find out the info…
I checked with Northwestern, and they’re pretty stringent on grad admissions. However, a follow-up question, because I know you’re a prof… Does it make much difference what university a degree is from? As in, academia? Will anyone care or even notice whether I earn a degree from Northwestern or Po-dunk U?
Whew, that post was poorly worded. Let me rephrase one of those questions, to phlosphr… If my goal is to teach in a university, how important is it where I earn my graduate degrees?
That is a fairly multifaceted question, MissGypsy.
and
The answer is Yes and No. If the uni you attend is accredited, and you get your master’s or PhD from said institution you will be qualified to teach at almost any higher education school - with-in reason. If the school is not accredited…- well you know the answer to that.
Will people care which uni…The answer to this is…They shouldn’t! But unfortunately the system in the United States for hiring in academia is a porous one at best. The main question is do you want to teach at a Tufts, or Harvard or at a state or community school…Feel free to email me if you need more pointed Q’s answered.
I don’t mean to be contrary, but what’s your motivation?
Very different beasts, which brings me back to my question above: why?
There really isn’t such a thing as a liberal arts grad program, with a few exceptions like the Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts Ph.D. programs at Emory University (http://www.emory.edu/COLLEGE/ILA/ila.html). Undergraduate liberal arts programs are about providing a solid general education, whatever the specific field of study. Graduate programs are primarily about specialization and credentialization. If you don’t know what you want to specialize in (writing? literature? pedagogy?) and you’re not acquiring credentials for a particular career goal, then I’m once again back to the first question.
The GRE and SAT are roughly equivalent if my experience is any guide; I think I ended up with a composite of about 1450 on both, weighted somewhat toward the verbal portion.
I hate to continue my role as chief micturator on your parade here, but my initial impression is that if you don’t know what that means, you’re probably not prepared for a graduate program in English. The assignment is typical of what you’d be expected to produce once or twice a semester in each class at the graduate level. Unlike most undergraduate level courses, in grad school the prof’s going to expect a certain level of critical thought to be reflected in such a paper, meaning that it attempts to shed new light on its topic; merely researching and presenting what others have already said isn’t sufficient, though a certain amount of it is necessary to illustrate that you’ve familiarized yourself with the existing literature on the subject (otherwise, how do you know that the light you’re shedding is in fact new?). Among the other hazards here is that you’ll probably need to be familiar with the various camps of contemporary literary theory, to ensure that your research has covered the full spectrum – omit the denomination to which the professor belongs, and your grade will likely reflect this (as will declaring allegiance to the wrong one, in many cases).
In the case of a sample submitted in support of an admissions application, they’ll mainly be looking to see how thoroughly you’ve done your research, how clearly and perceptively you’re able to think in a critical manner about both your primary text(s) and the other critical sources concerning it, and how well you can write. The length requirement is mainly about ensuring that you can effectively complete a writing project of sufficient scope to give you good chance of being able to complete a masters’ thesis.
Should be sufficient – most grad programs are going to look at your GPA in your relevant coursework, your GRE scores, and your recommendations more than your overall GPA. Unless you’re applying to a program with a specific emphasis on business communication or something of that ilk, the real-world work experience is probably neither here nor there, though persistence and achievement in any field are positives.
The admissions committee will be looking for evidence in the recommendations that you’re capable of doing the work required in the program. The more that the recommendations address that, the more valuable they are. All things being equal, recommendations from more academically or intellectually impressive individuals will carry more weight, of course.
In my experience, graduate-level English courses typically meet once per week for two or three hours. Extensive reading between sessions will be expected (couple hundred pages per class might not be unheard-of). You’ll also usually have one or two writing assignments per course of a scope similar to the one described above, again with the expectation of a much more comprehensive review of the existing material on the topic. So an additional 30+ hours a week might well be called for. In an M.F.A. program, you’re mainly looking at workshop sessions once a week and whatever time it takes you to complete the assignments.
This will depend a lot on the institution and department. At a major national university, grad student work in any of the humanities fields will typically be held to a higher standard than undergraduate work (gaps in research, fuzzy thinking, or other problems might be overlooked in an undergraduate course or in an undergraduate taking grad courses but penalized in a grad student). The biggest difference I encountered was in the scope of both the primary and ancillary reading expected and in the scope of the writing assignments (neither problematic in themselves as far as I was concerned). You’ll typically be digging in deeper on more narrowly focused topics than in undergraduate courses, but you know that.
You should also be aware that as a terminal masters student at a major research university with a Ph.D. program in your field, you will generally have to work much harder than your peers in the Ph.D. program to be taken seriously, either by the faculty or by the other students. You will be assumed to be a dilletante with nothing better to do with your time, or a teacher looking to earn a few thousand a year more by virtue of having an M.A. Generally, terminal M.A. candidates are not eligible for fellowships, assistantships, or other forms of financial aid. Graduate programs are measured by the quality of the Ph.D.s they produce (which generally means how much those Ph.D.s publish and where in the first few years after hitting the streets); no one with only an M.A. is likely in this era to produce groundbreaking work in their field, or to get it published if they do, so there’s no real advantage to the department in investing resources or energy in them.
Also, your undergraduate degrees aren’t in literature, so unless you’ve done a fair amount of careful reading on your own, you’re going to be at an even greater disadvantage in not having the base of knowledge of the canon that’s expected of a grad student in English. Careerism and professional competition are prominent features of every English graduate program I know of, and most of the other students won’t hesitate for a second to tear you down if they think they can score points with the faculty or other students by it.
I dropped out of the Ph.D. program in English lit at Emory fifteen years ago, mainly because I wasn’t enjoying myself at all, and it seemed that few if any of the other students or faculty were either. Didn’t seem like a very pleasant way to spend the next three or four years, or the rest of my career. Haven’t ever regretted it. YMMV, of course, but I’ve rarely encountered anyone who enjoyed grad school more than they’d expected; the opposite experience is nearly universal.
Most of my comments are specific to grad programs in English literature, unless I’ve specified otherwise; that’s where my experience lies. I have had some contact with folks in M.F.A. programs but I haven’t been in one myself. Generally, you’re not expected to do as much conventional course work, but you are expected to write extensively, and participate in workshops to critique each others’ work. Looking at the output of poets and writers who come out of these programs, one suspects that the chief result is to homogenize the efforts of all the students, so that they all end up writing to please the other members (or at least the most vocal or most overbearing members) of the workshop group.
I second the advice to know what you want to get out of it. But if what you want is just to be a “dilettante” with a Master’s degree, as rackensack alludes to, I’m actually OK with that. That’s probably not what you want to come right out and say in an admissions interview. But if it’s on your own dime and you value learning for learning’s sake, I see nothing wrong with that.
If your goal is definitely to teach in a university, maybe a bigger concern than which school should be whether you should be in a PhD program instead of an M.A. When I looked briefly into graduate English programs in NC, it seemed like PhD programs often got students started right away in Teaching Assistantships. It seemed like you applied to either the Master’s or PhD program, not that you completed the Master’s, then applied for the PhD.
I’ll also mention that schools tend to avoid hiring their own graduates to teach. They want to accumulate diversity of thought. So do you want to go away to school, then come back home to teach, or study locally, then relocate?
About the literary criticism paper, to me this sounds like something that an undergraduate English student would have done as a final project. Definitely kinda tedious (IMHO) to just do on your own. Maybe you could warm up to this by taking one semester of an advanced undergrad course?
Are you overlooking other excellent programs in your area? I’m not sure. But you may want to consider the flexibility of programs as well as their quality. Because if you’re not signed up for the 100% academic lifestyle at this time in your life, flexibility will be the key to balancing your various commitments.
Well, I can say from firsthand experience that there is at least one graduate English program where this is not true, which brings me to my main piece of advice: Choose a program where you can live with the people. Visit all the schools you’re seriously considering, and if you get any vibe that the students are unfriendly or unhappy (besides the usual workplace grumbling), cross the school off your list. The character and climate of a department matters.
I strongly second Fretful Porpentine’s advice. I’m not in the humanities, but what she said about finding a good climate is important for any grad student, regardless of the student’s field of study.
Be very, very sure that you really want to go. Don’t go because you think it’ll be fun to be in this learning environment surrounded by other people happy to be there. It’s not fun, if what you want to do doesn’t tie into a professor’s research you can forget about it, and there is a lot of pissing and moaning in the graduate offices.
Slight Hijack:
It’s not only the students who are already there, but the students coming in with you. My cohort was filled with a bunch of wanna-be workaholics. What that means is that there is a constant pissing contest about who stayed the latest in the office last night. Typical conversations involve “Well, I left at three and came back at five.” “Well, I left just to take a shower and came right back.” “I just lined up the chairs, took a fifteen minute nap, and went right back to work!” The funny thing is, I came in to pick up some stuff, and none of you were here. Nobody was here. The lights were off, the computers were shut down, and the doors were all locked. Do you, perchance, work in an alternate reality office?
No, I’m not bitter that I’ve just spent the last year and a half in my own personal hell, by my own choice. Why do you ask?
Holy kittens, it’s all that horrible? I am absolutely sure this is something I NEED to do, to be satisfied in life, so no doubts there. I sure didn’t expect that much whining amonst grad students, however.
I’m a pretty lit-oriented nerd, anyway, so I’m not very concerned about obscure research and/or topic sbeing an issue.
However, I am also a single mother. (Yet one more reason to further my education…) Is that going to detract from my app?
Not horrible – not, say, compared to being a political prisoner under Stalin or Saddam Hussein – but definitely frustrating and demoralizing a lot of the time.
Forgive me for continuing to play devil’s advocate, but I find this difficult to accept, given that you see to have a fairly ill-developed idea of what “this” is; your two examples of what you’re considering, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and an M.A. in English, are so very different (roughly analogous to being an elephant or being a zoologist) that it makes me question what, exactly, is so compelling to you. Is it merely having a masters’ degree in something, anything? Do you have expectations that an M.A. will make you more marketable in general, or in specific potential career fields? Is it the expectation that you’ll be intellectually challenged and engaged? Obviously, you don’t owe me an answer, but you’ll probably be expected to provide one as part of your application materials, and just saying it’s something you NEED to do won’t cut much ice with an admissions committee. They’re going to want to see evidence that you understand what you’re signing up for, have thought carefully about how it fits into your life, and are prepared to do what it takes to succeed.
There’s plenty more where that came from .
I realize I’m probably sounding like something of a snob here, but I’ve been where you’re heading; it’s not the obscurity of potential topics that’s going to be problematic for you. I have no idea how extensive your background in English, American, and world literature is, but unless it’s equivalent to what would be acquired in an undergraduate English lit program, you’re going to be at a disadvantage relative to other students who’re going to share frames of reference that you won’t, who’re going to recognize allusions and quotations you won’t, and who’re going to (generally speaking) have little or no compunction about making you squirm if they can and enjoying the show. I’m not denigrating you or your prior intellectual accomplishments or your current intellectual capabilities – again, I know only what you’ve said in this thread – but I have seen extremely smart, capable students flounder in this environment when the lacunae in their knowledge of the canon were exposed. If you’re the sort who can let that roll right off of you, so much the better.
I’ve realized, too, that my earlier answer about GREs was potentially misleading. I was thinking specifically of the General GRE, and what I said about that holds. However, most graduate English programs also require the Literature in English Subject GRE. This attempts to assess your familiarity with the canon, with historical and social contexts, and with the most common schools of theory and criticism. It’s not much better or worse at this than most standardized tests (i.e., a lot of what it measures is test-taking ability, which is even less relevant to graduate study than undergraduate), but it is the chief way in which programs assess the depth and breadth of an applicant’s background in the field. It’s scored on the same 800-maximum basis as the individual parts of the SAT, and anything above a 700 will generally reassure the committee that you can at least credibly fake the required background, which is all that’s really necessary. If you take tests well but don’t know the material, you’ll probably be able to break 600, but 700 would probably be a stretch (I take tests extremely well, but am hopeless in most areas of math; I scored in the mid-600s on the quantitative sections of both the SAT and GRE, and I’m assuming that it’d be the same on most tests where I was generally unfamiliar with the subject matter).
It shouldn’t, since marital status and number of children shouldn’t be part of the application based on my understanding of the law. If you make a point of mentioning it in your application materials, then it might – again, as a terminal masters’ applicant rather than a potential Ph.D. candidate, you’re already fighting the perception that you’re not intellectually serious or capable.
Don’t misunderstand me, MissGypsy; if you really have the motivation and desire to get an M.A. in English, I’d never want to talk you out of it. But I’d also hate for you to go to a lot of trouble and expense to do it without understanding the things I’ve tried to point out. If you still want to do it, with full knowledge of what you’re signing up for, go for it with my sincerest best wishes.
Wow, thanks for the insight, [racken] In all honesty. both scary and helpful. Your viewpoint made me re-consider, for a moment. Stilll gonna do it. Now TERRIFIED! Yikes!
Rackensack - Oh where oh where to begin. First off let me tell MissGypsy - do not be frightened and please do not give much stock into rackensack’s poorly orchestrated Micturation of your dreams.
Your dreams are your dreams and no one should EVER try and dissuade you. I am appauled at rackensack’s blatent, yet unwitting to admit, denigrations of you.
I can not believe how naive a statement you make here. Who do you think you are saying things like this to someone you do not even know? Did you get through Grad school? I teach at a college where I am in contact with grad students on a daily basis, and they would be equally appauled at your assertions.
Refering to the entrance process and the requirement of an essay.
Anyone who has been out of academia for a prolonged period of time may not know the current process. You have got to be kidding me with your last remark.
Poor class and equally poor taste to even attempt to say some of the things you do. Are you worried about future competition? What on earth are you thinking rackensack to try and dissuade a woman from going to grad school? Maybe it’s the fact that I make my career in academia that I am so appauled, but jeez! Come on now…
MissGypsy - go forth with your dreams, and I would take that trip over to the admissions office and find out about the returning student status. It is my experience that there are a different set of rules for returning students, there is at my school. Find out if NW has them, and rock on!
It is also my experience that returning students, such as yourself, garner much respect from their fellow grad students and usually do quite well in their fields of study. Good luck in your future endeavors. !
No. It depends very much on the student and the program. I’m in my sixth year of a PhD program in English, and I don’t believe I will ever have any regrets, despite the fact I suspect I won’t be one of the lucky ones on the job market. (I say this because I consider academic research a necessary evil, and teaching my real purpose and passion; unfortunately the system rewards people who are the other way around.) No matter what happens in the future, I feel incredibly fortunate that I’ve had the chance to spend my twenties outside of the usual work-commute-buy-spend-repeat routine, with a job where I get to think for myself and set my own hours, students who have taught me far more than I have taught them, and colleagues who are – mostly – a fun, supportive, intelligent crowd. I know I’ve said this already, but I can’t overstate the importance of this last element. If you don’t like your fellow students you will be miserable. If you do, grad school can be a heck of a lot of fun.
And I’m appalled (note the spelling, please) at the notion that someone asking for advice about a potential course of action should be encouraged in it regardless of the potential pitfalls and hazards. If one of your students had a dream of shooting up smack and having unprotected sex with her needle buddies, would you not try to dissuade her? Or at least, which was more my intent, to ensure that she’s aware of all of the potential negative consequences?
It was not my intention to denigrate MissGypsy; I based my comments on the things she’s revealed about her background in this thread and the nature of her other comments. To wit: her undergraduate degrees are not in literature, but are in Journalism and Political Science. This establishes a basis for a rebuttable presumption that her coursework in English and world lit was not as extensive as that of someone who majored in English. If that is in fact the case, she will have a harder time of it, even in an M.A. program, than someone who does have that background, dreams or no dreams. To pretend otherwise would be to indulge in naivete.
I think I’m the same person I am when I’m saying things like this to people I do know, which I have done. The woman asked for advice; based on the content of her requests and on her other comments, I offered my perspective, and asked some pointed questions. As I’ve already indicated, I did not “get through” grad school, I “got out” of grad school, for a host of reasons, the main ones being that despite entering with a great deal of enthusiasm, the only part of the entire experience that I enjoyed was contact with select few of my fellow students and producing a couple of first rate papers. I didn’t see the things I disliked about grad school or academic life being likely to change, so I left. Some of the things I encountered were specific to me, while others are more general. I tried to provide MissGypsy with some idea about the latter, so that she could make an informed decision. Obviously, other people will have had different experiences, and other institutions may be different (though I will also point out that I had the opportunity to get to know a fair number of other extremely promising literary scholars as undergraduates and stayed in touch with several through their grad school experiences, which were more similar to mine than not). Fretful Porpentine’s experience, for instance, seems to have been quite different, and I’ve come to respect her posts here on literary matters over the last few years, so her comments carry a certain authority with me. Apparently, the students at your institution would disagree with me as well; so be it.
No, I don’t have to be. I’m perfectly serious that an assignment of this nature, with little more explanation than that, is exactly what I’d expect her to be called on to produce regularly during graduate coursework in English lit, and if she’s at sea regarding how to do it, she’s going to have a tough time of it even in an M.A. program. The faculty will presume that anyone in graduate classes knows what that means and how to go about it.
My class and tastiness aside, I’m hardly worried about future competition. I’ve been out of academia and in the business world for the last fifteen years. I can honestly say that I have never been tempted for second to go back, nor have I regretted getting out.
I’ve tried to explain this already, but once more with feeling . . . . I’m thinking that here’s an earnest and enthusiastic woman who believes, rightly or wrongly, that obtaining a masters’ degree of some kind will enhance her life. I’m thinking that she seems not to know why that is, other than that it appears to have some sort of inexplicable value for her. I’m thinking that she doesn’t seem to be aware of some of the things she’s in for in pursuing that course. I’m thinking that if she can’t explain any better than she’s done so far what it is she expects to get from obtaining an M.A., she’s not likely to get it even if she does earn another degree. I’m also thinking that she’s setting herself up to spend thousands of dollars of her own money (no aid for terminal masters’ candidates, recall) and hundreds of hours of her already busy life in pursuit of this dream, and that the return on that investment may be pitifully small or non-existent. I’m thinking that I’d never have realized how English grad programs and Ph.D. candidates look down on terminal masters candidates unless I’d seen it myself – some programs don’t even admit anyone for an M.A. only, but offer it as a consolation prize to Ph.D. candidates who complete their course work but wash out at the stage of comprehensive exams or the dissertation. I’m thinking that whatever her decision, she deserves to be aware of these things before she incurs the costs in money and time that’re going to be involved. Graduate school in English, in my experience and that of the other people I’ve known who’ve experienced it, is not “like college only more so”. It is a completely different animal, and part of succeeding at it is understanding and dealing with that difference.
Speaking of appalling, Phlosphr, even a charitable reading of your post tallies scarcely one sentence in four that’s not marred by an error in grammar, usage, or spelling. A typo or slip here or there is one thing, and easily overlooked, but if you’re teaching at the college level I’d have expected a more literate performance.
Finally, MissGypsy, I hope I haven’t offended you in drawing the conclusions I have from your statements about your background or in my comments about what you’re likely to encounter; certainly I intended no such slight. I consider the case analogous to the situation if I were to return to graduate school to get an M.A. in History: I had a few history courses in college, and while I’ve since read extensively in the field, I would no doubt find it frustrating and confusing at times, since most of my peers would have common knowledge and experiences that I don’t share. That’s no reflection on my intellect, but would be a factor in whether I succeeded in grad school.
And you still know what criteria go into a college entrance essay? We change our criteria for grad students entrance essays quite often. Same as undergrad. How do I know? Because I’m on the admissions guidelines committee.
As per issues with my grammar and writing style. I know.
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