Sunday, October 24, 2004
(4:41 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
A Candid Remark
If you've set a personal goal for having graduate school applications finished, and if you are already really ambivalent about the prospect that a misplaced comma on your statement of purpose could mean the difference between acceptance-with-stipend and rejection, and if you aren't sure that teaching is necessarily where your talents lie, and if you have already read the vast body of literature on exactly how badly the academic labor market sucks, and if you aren't sure that you will be satisfied in any particular specialization -- then do not start combing through Invisible Adjunct's archives, or at least refrain from doing so until the applications are already in the mail. And do not read the article about how you need to apply to 10 to 15 different programs and visit all the campuses and spend $1000 on the application process, and especially don't read the one about how the grad school process is one of slow, systematic training in humiliation and servile deference.If you do any of those things, it's going to be a whole hell of a lot harder to come up with an eloquent way to say you want to study phenomenology and psychoanalysis, and how, impressively enough, you can read French. Imagine, reading in a foreign language!
UPDATE: I managed to make it through. All statements of purpose have been written, all electronic applications have been submitted, and all writing samples have been assembled in large envelopes. My only remaining tasks are to obtain transcripts from Olivet and CTS, put them in the appropriate envelopes, insert the appropriate checks, and mail them off. My application for New School is going in the mail tomorrow, because they want transcripts sent directly to them (an eminently sensible policy). The only one I need to wait for recommendations on is U of C, and I'm sure they'll be arriving eventually. Overall, I am ahead of schedule on my self-imposed deadline of October 31 for having completed all grad school application related program activities that directly depend on my actions. By the end of the week, the only envelope that will still be in my house should be the one for U of C. (I am exempting my application for CTS from this deadline, because I can literally just hand them the materials and the application fee. I know that applying there is horribly impractical since the funding levels and name-recognition is low, but it's nice to have options, as Pedro says.) For those just joining us, the list of schools is DePaul, Vanderbilt, New School, Nottingham, University of Chicago Divinity School, and, last but not least, Duke. I was flirting with applying where Infinite Thought goes to school, but I'm sick of applying to schools. If I don't get funded anywhere, that'll be the top of my list next year.
Another goal for this month was to have mailed off my Bonhoeffer paper to another journal. We'll see how that goes. I was thinking Modern Theology, since I'm a burgeoning Milbankian. Well, actually I'm not, but still.
My final goal for the month was to complete Donner la mort, of which I have fewer than 20 pages remaining.
Next month, I hope to make a last-ditch effort to pass the classes in which I am currently enrolled.
