But as I've been in correspondence with a woman who is debating whether or not to apply to Literature Ph.D. programs, I've realized that my grad school experience was, in fact, pretty awesome. There's more to go into about that, but that's going to have to be a different post.
And since lately I've been talking with people about all the things I wished I had heard when I was in (or preparing to start) my program, I thought—all this stuff like what I'm writing to this woman, why not post it here so that I don't feel like I'm completely slacking?
So the posts in this series are for consumption by anyone who is considering applying for Ph.D. programs in the humanities (or social sciences, probably), at UCSD or elsewhere. They're modified versions of emails from the aforementioned (longer) conversation, but the general ideas remain the same.
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. . . Since you already have an M.A., I assume you're familiar with the
process of applying to programs based on advisors whom you would be
interested in working with, in addition to taking into account how the
overall program fits with your intellectual approach. (Very quickly: I
had no idea how to do any of that when I applied to Ph.D. programs. I'd
gotten my B.A. and M.A. at the same time (from the same school), which
meant I never went through the process of applying to grad programs
before. After getting my M.A. I worked for a few years, during which I decided to go back for a Ph.D. I didn't know
what was involved in writing an application or choosing schools, so I
chose based on geographic location. (I'm from southern California, and I
was working in San Francisco, so it made sense to stay in California.) I
got accepted to UCSD's Literature Ph.D. program and to the M.A. program
at Purdue (I have family there)—and between those two, it was easy for
me to choose UCSD.)
It can be hard to glean information from department Websites beyond the superficial—so I'm glad that you're actually contacting people. We do have a good program at UCSD, and as you say, there is a lot of freedom and working across national literatures that is a big draw for those who are interested in that. The reality, though, is that it can be hard to put together a program that works well for you in terms of depth—there's a lot of variety you can be exposed to, but you have to make some concerted effort in order to develop the kind of depth that you would need to be really good in your field.
An example: I am an East Asian comparative literature scholar (with a focus on modern Japanese literature), and there is not a single person in our department who does what I do. This is an issue with both the department and the university in general—California doesn't invest a lot of resources into public higher education, which means schools like UCSD take a pretty substantial hit. What's more, because UCSD places so much emphasis on science and engineering, humanities departments like ours often get the short shrift in terms of resources. This has made many of our faculty members leave—which happened with my former advisor and her partner. On top of that, we have had difficulty maintaining a strong East Asian studies community here at UCSD (for similar reasons to the above), which then made it difficult for me to find coursework related to my field of study. In short, I didn't have faculty from my department who were directly involved in my development as a Japanese literature scholar.
Buuut, of course that's not to say that people haven't supported me. In fact, I have had amazing professors who have been there for me, read my fellowship applications, gave tips on the job search, etc. But these were people outside my field of Japanese studies, and sometimes outside of the department as well. And again, because resources are tight, professors are having to stretch themselves as well—teaching larger and larger classes, grading more and more papers with fewer TAs, etc. Professors are human too, and they just can't be there for all of their graduate students in the way we want them to be.
With that said, I really enjoyed the six years I spent in UCSD's Literature department. I learned a lot, I met some great people, I got to go to Japan for a year on a Japan Foundation fellowship that I was awarded because of the training I'd received here...and now, I've finished my program and am starting a teaching job, even if it's temporary. These are all wonderful things (that sounds weird coming from me...sorry), and I couldn't have done them without the support system I had here. Plus I've benefited from our emphasis on cultural studies, and serious critique of structures of power that dominate our lives—even if we don't always practice what we preach in terms of resisting them (or at least not replicating them). A degree from UCSD is something to be respected—but it can also be difficult to finish the program in a fulfilling way.
I hesitate to name specific individuals who stand out as supporters (though a good number of them come to mind immediately), and for two reasons: 1) a prof who is good to me may not be good to other grad students; and 2) you will most likely spend most of your time and energy interacting with the prof closest to your research field, which I think isn't Japanese literature. This second point is particularly important: Of course, after you arrive at a graduate program, your research interests and approach will change and develop—they should, that's the whole point. But the initial step of getting accepted by a program, and for at least your first year, you want to have identified someone who is aligned with your scholarly interest, rather than aligned with your "personal fit" (e.g., how supportive they are).
One more thing: your decision to apply to a Ph.D. program or not, to start one or not once you've been accepted, which program you choose to attend—these, I imagine, are all things you will think about in the coming year, sometime between now and next April. I admire that you want to teach at the college level and that you are eager to jump into academia again after having worked upon getting your M.A. What I do want to stress (and others will remind you of this as well, even if we come from different perspectives) is that you have to do a Ph.D. program because that's what you want to spend six+ years of your life doing. You have to do a Ph.D. because you love it—because you love to read, because you love to write, because you love to teach bratty undergrads at low pay, be stressed out about qualifying exams, not get enough sleep for 10 weeks straight, etc., etc. Because in those six+ years, you may have awful professors, you may get rejection after rejection for fellowships, and at the end of it all, you may not have a job lined up at all. I'm lucky because I was offered the job I'm starting in August—but I can genuinely say that, if I didn't have that job, I'd still be happy finishing my Ph.D. and going out and looking for a non-academic job. For many of us (especially in the humanities), that is a tough situation to have to accept. And we can spend seven, eight years staying in a Ph.D. program, always looking for that college-teaching job we thought we would get once we finished our Ph.D. None of this is meant to be a deterrent, but it's important to me that I say it. I don't know what your personal situation is like, I don't know if you have family to support—but no matter what program you decide to go to, I think it's good to have that perspective, to know that a Ph.D. in the humanities may not actually get you the job you wanted to get.
OK, this has gotten far too long... I know you don't have to apply until the Fall, but maybe thinking about these things will let you do some traveling over the summer to check out some of the campuses . . . !
It can be hard to glean information from department Websites beyond the superficial—so I'm glad that you're actually contacting people. We do have a good program at UCSD, and as you say, there is a lot of freedom and working across national literatures that is a big draw for those who are interested in that. The reality, though, is that it can be hard to put together a program that works well for you in terms of depth—there's a lot of variety you can be exposed to, but you have to make some concerted effort in order to develop the kind of depth that you would need to be really good in your field.
An example: I am an East Asian comparative literature scholar (with a focus on modern Japanese literature), and there is not a single person in our department who does what I do. This is an issue with both the department and the university in general—California doesn't invest a lot of resources into public higher education, which means schools like UCSD take a pretty substantial hit. What's more, because UCSD places so much emphasis on science and engineering, humanities departments like ours often get the short shrift in terms of resources. This has made many of our faculty members leave—which happened with my former advisor and her partner. On top of that, we have had difficulty maintaining a strong East Asian studies community here at UCSD (for similar reasons to the above), which then made it difficult for me to find coursework related to my field of study. In short, I didn't have faculty from my department who were directly involved in my development as a Japanese literature scholar.
Buuut, of course that's not to say that people haven't supported me. In fact, I have had amazing professors who have been there for me, read my fellowship applications, gave tips on the job search, etc. But these were people outside my field of Japanese studies, and sometimes outside of the department as well. And again, because resources are tight, professors are having to stretch themselves as well—teaching larger and larger classes, grading more and more papers with fewer TAs, etc. Professors are human too, and they just can't be there for all of their graduate students in the way we want them to be.
With that said, I really enjoyed the six years I spent in UCSD's Literature department. I learned a lot, I met some great people, I got to go to Japan for a year on a Japan Foundation fellowship that I was awarded because of the training I'd received here...and now, I've finished my program and am starting a teaching job, even if it's temporary. These are all wonderful things (that sounds weird coming from me...sorry), and I couldn't have done them without the support system I had here. Plus I've benefited from our emphasis on cultural studies, and serious critique of structures of power that dominate our lives—even if we don't always practice what we preach in terms of resisting them (or at least not replicating them). A degree from UCSD is something to be respected—but it can also be difficult to finish the program in a fulfilling way.
I hesitate to name specific individuals who stand out as supporters (though a good number of them come to mind immediately), and for two reasons: 1) a prof who is good to me may not be good to other grad students; and 2) you will most likely spend most of your time and energy interacting with the prof closest to your research field, which I think isn't Japanese literature. This second point is particularly important: Of course, after you arrive at a graduate program, your research interests and approach will change and develop—they should, that's the whole point. But the initial step of getting accepted by a program, and for at least your first year, you want to have identified someone who is aligned with your scholarly interest, rather than aligned with your "personal fit" (e.g., how supportive they are).
One more thing: your decision to apply to a Ph.D. program or not, to start one or not once you've been accepted, which program you choose to attend—these, I imagine, are all things you will think about in the coming year, sometime between now and next April. I admire that you want to teach at the college level and that you are eager to jump into academia again after having worked upon getting your M.A. What I do want to stress (and others will remind you of this as well, even if we come from different perspectives) is that you have to do a Ph.D. program because that's what you want to spend six+ years of your life doing. You have to do a Ph.D. because you love it—because you love to read, because you love to write, because you love to teach bratty undergrads at low pay, be stressed out about qualifying exams, not get enough sleep for 10 weeks straight, etc., etc. Because in those six+ years, you may have awful professors, you may get rejection after rejection for fellowships, and at the end of it all, you may not have a job lined up at all. I'm lucky because I was offered the job I'm starting in August—but I can genuinely say that, if I didn't have that job, I'd still be happy finishing my Ph.D. and going out and looking for a non-academic job. For many of us (especially in the humanities), that is a tough situation to have to accept. And we can spend seven, eight years staying in a Ph.D. program, always looking for that college-teaching job we thought we would get once we finished our Ph.D. None of this is meant to be a deterrent, but it's important to me that I say it. I don't know what your personal situation is like, I don't know if you have family to support—but no matter what program you decide to go to, I think it's good to have that perspective, to know that a Ph.D. in the humanities may not actually get you the job you wanted to get.
OK, this has gotten far too long... I know you don't have to apply until the Fall, but maybe thinking about these things will let you do some traveling over the summer to check out some of the campuses . . . !
