Visiting the future

In the last several weeks I have started visiting schools in an effort to assist my chances of getting in to a PhD program.  I have an extensive list of schools I am applying to and the costs of which are absurd.  But I'm all in - I MUST get in to a program - so I'm going to go sell myself to each one.  The dyslexic football player I am does not seem to look as good on paper as I do in person - as Rutgers reaffirmed to me last year.

So I have been to visit UCONN, York, and Binghamton thus far and will visit Boston College and hopefully Northeastern tomorrow, then Stony Brook on Thursday if anyone is around there.  Rutgers is having an open house on the 29th as well that I will go to.  The only schools left really then would be the west coast schools which I am hoping I can get to, or at least UC Santa Cruz and Davis in the first week in February.  Santa Barbara and Hawaii are a bit too far afield for my current means and time schedule so will have to be left to their own accord.

As it is, I am very happy with the meetings thus far.  (You can read more about UCONN here).  I almost feel like I'm back getting recruited for football again.  The schools have all gone out of their way to show me around and put out the red carpet.  After three visits, York in Toronto is head and shoulders above the rest.  It seems like an ideal program for me.  I met with the closest possible supervisor for me and got on well.  I have some reservations about a few methodology/theoretical issues, but with more information these may be completely resolved.  The fact is that she is an activist and scholar along my mold, just further advanced in her study.  I met with the head of the graduate program as well, and the admin person, and they were wonderful.  Not sure if its because they are Canadian or just that they are nice, but they were great.

I also was up there at the behest of one of my best friends who is doing a PhD in their program and that I know from Central European University in Budapest.  We are now working on very similar things, and frankly I may just want to go there to work with him, nevermind the eleven other faculty members with similar interests.  The program there is shorter - as they value my masters - there is six years of funding, and a flexible core structure that would fit perfectly into my skillset and dyslexic parameters.  Just one method and theory requirement of your choice - quite different from UCONN's two Quants and two Quals plus their courses.

Then of course there is Toronto, which at first glimpse left quite a bit to be desired.  But I as coming from Montreal - which was AMAZING, even under two feet of snow and a wind chill of -14 degrees Fahrenheit - so Toronto could just but subjectively leaving things to be desired.  I mean it wasn't bad, it just looked discombobulated and eclectic, like there was no zoning regulations and you could build anything anywhere not matter what it looked like compared to the thing next to it.  But we had good food, and the rents seem cheep.  I would do just fine there.

From there I went to Binghamton, NY.  I was just in and out and met with some grad students (I'd met with one prof in NYC last week).  They have a really good program for me.  It is very flexible, and you get to set much of it up as per your liking.  But there seems to be some difficulty within the faculty.  I mean the program is completely left and the right vantage point for me, but the faculty seems to struggle at times to work together.  The funding is also an issue.  The give three years of funding and it seems to be causing serious problems with students (I'm hearing the same things I hear from New School students).  The funding is supposed to cover through your comprehensive exams, but it doesn't  seem that anyone finishes them in less than four years.  And it also seems that a really "leftist" program as they describe it does not bode well in grant applications.  One person said grant fund organizations and the government just simply don't fund Binghamton projects and the types of projects coming out of there.  It's tough to hear as well, because Binghamton's core courses would be my electives elsewhere.  Basically, global capitalism, how much it sucks, how unequal it is, and then theories on how to critique it, and the problems with social science's methods.  lol.  So needless to say, it is a great program for me.  But my visit left only more questions and maybe even some reservations.

But, all told, I would do really well there.  They basically said that if you are proactive and assertive that you can get the things done you need to and in a timely manner.  No one has ever accused me of not standing up for and pushing for what I want.  I would do fine there, and intellectually rather well.  Better funding would probably be the trump card.  But we shall see.

Off to Boston tomorrow....

School

So this time of year I have noted at other points has become my favorite.  It is the time when I get to look at the future with hope.  Not the future in general, but mine.  It is school application season.  The time of the year that I can at least hope that this time next year I will be in a PhD program, and the time of year that I always get to engage with my own intellectual interests.  I have put in a number of applications now and still have a few more to go.  UC Santa Barbara, UConn, UC Davis, Hawaii, UC Santa Cruz, Boston College, Rutgers, Pitt, and York (Canada) are all in.  BC and York still have materials that need logisticing, but otherwise there are just a few more to go.  I've got three more spots to fill in my limit and four schools, SUNY Stony Brook and Binghamton, Vanderbilt and Northeastern.  I also have a fall back school in the University of Ljubljana should all go array.  But anyway, I'm almost there.  I'll give a full break down of the costs and finagling it took to bring that down once I've got everything in, but for now I am just about making that last decision and promoting myself at each school.

This Tuesday I just started what should be a few school visits that will help me both decide where to apply and hopefully get in.  Despite having some form of the bubonic plague I jumped in my car and headed up to Storrs, Connecticut to visit UConn and their sociology department.  What I thought was going to be a last minute, one half to maybe an hour's worth of time with a professor or two turned into a four hour red carpet tour of the program and school.  I met with pretty much every professor there on campus at that point and the grad students.  I met with two of my top three choices for supervision and was very happy with them.  One works on social movements and such with a focus on Africa and Ghana and the other has won an award for a published article about a new theoretical way of looking at social movements.  Both were really nice and I felt that I had a good intellectual engagement with them.  The graduate director as well, who works on closely related issues - mostly labor issues - was great also.

The campus itself is getting a major overhaul as they are adding building after building and new professors.  Sociology alone will get 5-6 new professors for next year and one of them would benefit me apparently.  There will probably be more as well in the coming years. While the building they are housed in could use a face lift - it is one of the oldest buildings on campus - it is a classic new England school architecture that is nice.  The school is out in the middle of no where though.  And when I say this I do not mean like Morgantown, WV out in the middle of nowhere (a town of 30,000 in the middle of nowhere), I mean, no town at all in the middle of nowhere.  Like an intersection with a couple shops in it is the whole town.  Suffice it to say, moving there from Brooklyn would be tough.  But then again, I've always dreamed of a cabin in the woods!!  hahaha!!

The program itself has received a face-lift in the last 15 or so years as well.  They have consciously made it more structured.  Not the best thing for me, as they now have two classes required in both qualitative and quantitative methods.  I would like to only have to take one quants class at most, but overall its still really good.  They have moved away from exams as well - a good thing for me - and only require one comprehensive exam to move the next levels of the program.

Anyway, as it is, it was a great visit.  I would do well there and with their staff.  The mere fact that they rolled out a little carpet for me makes me think that I am going to be well considered there.  They'd seen the NY Times videos and went out of their way.  I feel good about my chances.  I was told that they would be starting to make their list in the end of January.  They have pushed their Dec 1st deadline back to January 15th - I would assume because they didn't get enough applicants or as good of ones as they'd like.  They are also likely to be a fall back school for a lot of Ivy type candidates.  The impression I got, was that I should be patient and allow the process to take its course.  That I will be on a list, wait list at worst and that I should just let it all play itself out.  They brought in 11 people last year, which is a lot more than a place like Rutgers that had two last year.  Plus with more Sociology programs in the country there is not the squeeze that there is in Anthropology.

I feel good about the visit.  We'll see where the other schools fall.  I'd certainly like to be in more of a city, but all the same might do well with no distractions!  I am going to go to York in Canada during the first week of January and stop at Binghamton on the way back.  I'll try to sneak out to Stony Brook one day here when I have off from work.  I'd love to get to Cali and check at least Davis and Santa Cruz.  I need to sell myself to these people, bring out my strengths for them.  I'm never the strongest on paper, but in person I carry more merit.  So that's the plan, and its moving forward!