Quote:
Originally Posted by RPI-Fan
Nice! When will you find out whether you're successful or not? What's your backup plan? Did you apply to Master's or PhD program?
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Late June/early July.
Backup plan is to sit out a year, visit Arkansas, Kentucky and Florida for sure this summer, maybe South Florida as well, and whichever school I like best, move to that state and work a year to establish state residency, then apply to the round of schools again next year, including Wake Forest probably.
Master's program because 1) I'm not sure if I want to go ahead and get a PhD, 2) For community college teaching, which is what I'd rather do, you only need a Master's and 3) I'll be 29 next month. My mom will be 58 next month and my dad turns 75 Saturday. I'd really like to have a job and get established somewhere before they pass on.
If I was younger, maybe I'd give a lot more thought to the PhD and university teaching, but then I think about all the problems that come with university life, particularly the publish-or-perish phenomenon and it's just like, no, I don't want to be a part of that.
Besides, I'd rather write literature than research and write scholarly articles about it, which plays into the whole community college vs. university teaching as well.
Of course, that's not to say that I won't ever get my PhD. Getting my MFA at some point is a possibility as well, particularly if I find myself missing university life after teaching community college a few years, because MA + MFA = much stronger possibility of teaching university than MFA alone and there the publish or perish phenomenon would tie into creative writing, which is what I'd be doing.
So yeah, very long-winded answer. Sorry about that.
