I was planning on applying to PhD programs in rhetoric and composition this fall, but due to being really busy (and somewhat poor), I’m going to put it off a year. Part of me is disappointed: I really want to be starting a PhD program next fall. I had already started the grieving process of leaving Corvallis, and it feels weird to reverse that. Part of me, though, is a little relieved. I can have better applications next fall, when I am a little less stressed. I can hopefully spend next school year a little less stressed than this one. I’m not sure what I’ll do instead. Probably take a third year as an MA here, or graduate and find something else to do.
I just read Jim at Blogora’s post on PhD programs and finding jobs. He writes:
Living through finishing a PHD seems so much like living in an Eastern European country before the fall of Communism: cold, grey, poor, dangerous (both to self-esteem and love-relationships), and being at the complete mercy of the bureaucracy (the apparatchiks at OGS) and of leaders who speak in coded language about constantly shifting ideological “lines” (are you in, are you out, are you heading for the Siberia of a community college with a 6-course teaching load?).
Doesn’t sound fun. Perhaps I am glad I’m putting the PhD program off a year.
Michael, don’t know if it’d be of help, but I just ordered a copy of Semenza’s Graduate Study for the 21st Century, and am finding it a useful counter to the copious lore out there on grad study, both pro and con. There’s a review of it, too, in the latest issue of Pedagogy.
My advice is not to put too much stock in anyone’s account of doctoral study (my own included)–they tend to be very anecdotal and localized. For what it’s worth, I took a year and a half off in between my MA and PhD programs, and ended up blazing through the latter with renewed enthusiasm and energy. There are worse things than taking a year and making sure that it’s really what you want to be doing. Good luck…
cgb
Thanks Collin! I’m coming to terms with not starting a PhD program so quickly, and beginning to relax a little around that. In fact, I’m kind of looking forward to whatever I wind up doing next year.
Thanks again.