Advice needed. I worship educators. I have revered my teachers as nearly god-like beings ever since I was a little girl, and this knowledge-crushing has persevered throughout my college years, too!
So I’m going to graduate in April with a B.A. in Spanish, and I have a slew of professors I want to send personal thank you letters because I feel their work has directly impacted the course of my life in a huge way. They totally deserve the accolades.
On the other hand, I fully intend to go on to graduate school and come this Fall I’m going to be hitting my favoritest of profs (the ones where I’ve compulsively taken 3+ of their classes, since they’re most familiar with my work) up for letters of reccomendation.
So I’m wondering if it would be a bad idea to send the letter of thanks a few months before the requests for reccomendation, or if it would be better to wait until after they write references for me. I ask because I don’t want them to think I’m writing them letters of thanks just to get a good reccomendation somewhere down the line. Conversely, if I wait until after the references I’m worried they’ll think I’m just grateful for the references instead of the things they actually taught me.
What say you, Dopers? What’s your H.O.? How do I do this?
I think if you write honestly and from the heart, it won’t matter. If it’s a generic letter that you can practically photocopy half a dozen times, it’ll feel like sucking up. If it’s honest and specific (including specific anecdotes or memories or projects you worked on together and how that experience affected you), then it won’t.
Assuming it’s a heartfelt and honest note, I’d do it now, as a “wrap-up” of your undergrad work. It almost feels more like sucking up if you wait to “pay them” for their recommendation letter with an appreciatory note - it might feel like the only reason you’re thanking then is because they wrote the note. It’s fine to send them another note of thanks for the rec. letter, but it should be a separate occasion, IMHO. This note is about the education, that note will be about the letter of recommendation.
(It’s only one guy, but I just asked my husband, a college prof, and he agreed. For what it’s worth. And he also says he loves getting those letters and never feels like the honest people are sucking up.)
I would talk to them in person if possible about writing the letters of recommendation before you graduate. You’ve got a few months, so make sure to get an appointment with each of them, and come to an agreement with the ones who’ll write you the letters as to how you’re going to handle getting them the info they’ll need to write them and how they’re going to be sent out. I applied to graduate school this year, and, despite a minor snafu (one of my recommenders died over the summer) I was able to get the letters done and sent to all of the schools on time. Also, if you’re going to be moving out of the area like I did, this would make initiating the LOR process easier, as they’ll still be familiar with your face and your work and you can talk with them in person. This is also a great time to get advice from them for going to grad school and whatever worries or ambitions you have in regard to graduate studies. (It certainly helped me a lot.)
After all of that, whomever you have write the LORs will do the letter writing for you, and then after that, I’d send them a big, warm-hearted thanks for all that they’ve done in helping you succeed. If you want to send letters thanking your non-letter-writers as well, I’d do it around the time you graduate. Just be sincere and honest, and don’t gush too much.
I think letters of thanks to professors is being too familiar. That is their job.
If there’s no opportunity to say something in class, it’s probably because they prefer a little distance.
If you intend to go to grad school this fall, shouldn’t you be gathering recommendations and filling out applications right about now and not months from now? I know that I got letters of recommendation from professors in January or February to go with applications due early March… Even if your application deadlines are more liberal, the earlier you ask them for letters probably the better - before they’re buried by requests from other students. At the very least getting those recs now means no worries about the appropriateness of letters in April
Nope, I don’t intend to GO to grad school this fall. I plan to APPLY to grad school this Fall. I can’t have them write letters of recommendation until 2008-2009 apps are available. Does the fact that I am not going to grad school this Fall, and that I will be living in the area until Fall 2008, change anything?
ETA: sorry for being unclear in the OP. I’m graduating April 2007, applying in Fall 2007 and starting grad school in Fall 2008. Hence the confusion about what order to do this in.
I haven’t the slightest idea how, as I learned tonight. I took a moment at the end of a class to thank the professor, explaining that this particular class has been so very valuable to me I just wanted him to know. Given that he’s one of two teachers in my field at my school, what started out as a simple thank you for a job well done got interpretated as a slam against the other teacher for a job not well done, since I’ve had most of my classes with the other guy.
I tried to explain that no, I wasn’t slamming (even though everyone knows Other Prof is just phoning it in and waiting for retirement at this point, that’s not what I intended!) It’s more like after slogging along, it’s epiphany-city this semester.
So, try to avoid anything like that, even though I’m not sure how I put my foot in it.
And let us know when the actual happy day happens, it’s way past time for a local dopefest and I can’t think of a better reason!
Asking for a letter of recommendation from the professor for grad school may depend on what type of letter is needed. Does the grad application require that the letter be in a sealed envelop and mailed to the school, or can it be a generic “Dear Sir/Madam” type letter?
As far as when to write a thank you note, I’ve have experience with all times. The two that really stand out in my mind were once, shortly after I’d taken my final exam, I dropped off a thank you note to the professor’s office, telling him how valuable his class had been to me already, and how I could see how the “food for thought” he’d provided would serve me in the future. (And, yes, I aced the class.) The other was a thank you I’d written to a professor about six years after I’d had her for two classes. I thought the world of this professor and often I would think, “Hmmm…how would Dr. Froeb react in this situation?” She made an incredible impact in my life–not only academic, but also how I lived my life overall, so I wrote her a (somewhat delayed) thank you letter and explained how she had made the impact in my life. Shortly thereafter, I recieved a letter back from her (I was in a different state at this point). To say I was thrilled to have received a letter would be an understatement–One would think I recieved a personal telegraph from the Queen of England. (I still have that letter today.)
So, it’s never too late, or too early to send a thank you letter to anyone.
Thank-you notes when you graduate are fine, olives. WhyNot makes an excellent point about it looking worse if you wait until after they’ve written letters.
For letter-of-recommendation purposes, make sure you’ve talked to profs while you’re still in their classes. That way they can specifically consider what they would say about you. If they’re really good letter-writers, they’ll want to wait until they know what program(s) they’re recommending you for. They’ll probably write the letters slightly differently based on the professors in the program, the major focus of the programs, etc.
Also, make sure to keep them updated about what you’re doing. Also, offer to include a summary of that information, along with information about the classes you had with them, topics of papers, etc., in an e-mail when you actually need the letters. This will make it much easier for them to decide what to include in the letter. You don’t have to include lots of detail (don’t make it look like you’re writing a letter for them), but enough so that they don’t have to go to too much trouble to put something together for you.
Smitty B, I think it’s much more personal and possibly uncomfortable/inappropriate to bring up your appreciation of a teacher in class or after class. The vast majority of teachers will appreciate a thank-you note. When I taught, I found it was very difficult to gauge whether I was being effective, even though we always had pretty good evaluation processes. The thank-you notes I received always made me feel like I’d actually reached someone, which is something that conscientious teachers always want to know.
As there are so many, how about writing to the Dean as an interim step? Just say how much you have valued your education at the college under his stewardship and how valuable you’ve found the curriculum, especially the courses given by Professors X, Y, and Z?
Is English your first language? Your use of “familiar” seems odd.
My job for the last three weeks consists of preparing documentation; each of the three people who’ve so far reviewed documents I’d written has congratulated me on some detail they found extraordinary and indicated they’re going to try and get other writers to do it as well. This is people who’ve worked together for five years; I’ve just arrived and I’m teaching them little things that can make a huge difference. One detail mentioned yesterday cuts the amount of rework needed to adapt courses to individual factories by a factor of ten or so.
Receiving kudos for making a difference is only logical, but too many times people don’t want to sound mushy/asskissing/whatever.
And given how many university professors don’t think of teaching as part of their jobs (rather as something “keeping them from research”), that’s one sector where I believe that getting the kudos to the right people is especially important.
That’s an interesting idea. I actually DO owe a debt of gratitude to the Dean anyways… I was a recipient of the Dean’s Merit Scholarship for four years and I remember freshman year she went out of her way to remark that she was personally moved by my thank-you letter (to the donor) because she had a similar background to me. God, I have SO many people to thank! (and in that sense, I’m fortunate.)
I’m leaning toward just sending the letters out when I graduate. It just occurred to me that I’ll only need one letter of recommendation from a professor because I’ll most likely get one from my current research director and another from the academic coordinator of my internship program.
So I’m actually stressing out about a single person… who will most likely be my current Spanish prof, with whom I have had 3-4 classes and with whom I have spoken specifically about my the direction of my career. He has given me excellent advice and excellent instruction over the years and his work has completely affected the way I approach my own. I am tearing up in the current class so he has an excellent final impression to work with when considering my merits for graduate study. He is aware of my career goals and the fact I’m going to Mexico this summer, so it seems like it would be appropriate for me to write him the thank-you once my final grade is posted, then e-mail him in the Fall, describe the Mexico experience and update him on the shape of things. Then I’ll request the letters of recommendation–even offer to meet if he’s not clear on my career goals or has any advice to offer. Also, because he’s been around since Sophomore year when I was a sputtering, not-speaking-up insecure little fool, he’s seen vast improvement in the quality of my work, and that should count for something.
Perhaps the poster meant “familiar” as in “informal.” As in “Some professors like to keep a distance with their students and interpret personal notes of thanks as being too familiar.”
As a teacher, I really appreciate any sort of thanks.
The vast majority of pupils will never say anything, so just a short note is fine.
English is my first language.
I would have put Smitty B’s sentiment this way:
‘I think that writing a letter of thanks to a professor is being too familiar.’
Certainly in the UK, a person can be ‘too forward’ or ‘too familiar’ or ‘too personal’.
It’s like calling a judge ‘matey’ instead of ‘Your Honour’, or addressing an elderly person you have just formally met as ‘love’ instead of ‘Mrs. A’.
