Results tagged “graduate school” from Photoethnography.com Blog

In the last few months, I've now gotten letters from prospective graduate students with CVs  that suffer from what I would call "Areas of Interest" bloat.   One had twenty-five (25!) areas of interest and the other was also well over a dozen.

This is just too much. Yes, you are young and the whole world looks like a giant oyster -- but too many raw oyster can give you really bad indigestion.

As a general rule, try to keep your areas of interest to less than six or so.   Since I (rarely) try to practice what I preach, here are my "Areas of Interest:"

• Region 1 (general world region): East Asia
• Sub-region (country or local area): Japan
• Topic 1: Disability Studies
• Topic 2: Politics of Identity and social movements
• Sub-discipline: Sociocultural and Visual Anthropology

OK, I cheated on the last two bullet points...... anyway, you get my point.

Try to go through your areas of interest with a very fine tooth comb and make sure it's as concise and focused as possible.  Use it as a way to find out which departments might be interested in what you study and vice versa.

I also tell my graduate students to perfect their elevator speech, but that's a topic for an entirely new blog entry.

April is the time for rain, taxes, and decline letters from grad schools. How can you improve your odds of getting into the program you want to next year?

When grad schools evaluate candidates for their masters and doctoral programs, they generally focus on things such as:

1. Fit. Are there several faculty members or topical/regional concentrations that make you appealing to the department, and vice versa?
2. Preparedness. Do you have field experience and know the local language, and have you taken some anthropology classes before? Why are you interested in this site and topic, and will your project have legs?
3. Intellectual ability. This is generally gauged through the transcripts, letters, and statement of purpose.

How can you improve your strengths in each of these areas?

1. Fit. Go through the department websites, see how the department describes itself and its topical / regional strengths. Make sure there are several faculty at differing ranks that might be interested in your work, and contact them.
2. Preparedness. Summer field schools, MA programs, language study.
3. Intellectual ability. Work on the statement as much as possible. Make sure your letters of recommendation are written by faculty who know you well, think positively of you, and have plenty of time to craft a good letter.

Comments and thoughts more than welcome!

UIC's program in disability studies is excellent (and there's a new minor at UCLA after the jump):

PLEASE CIRCULATE THE FOLLOWING ANNOUNCEMENT TO ALL WHO MAY BE INTERESTED:

The Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Disability Studies at the University 

of Illinois at Chicago is accepting applications from prospective students 

for Fall 2008. The deadline for receipt of full applications is January 1, 

2008. UIC's Disability Studies Ph.D. program promotes the development of 

new scholarly models for understanding disability. Part of this 

intellectual approach involves the education of disabled and non-disabled 

academicians, researchers, policy experts, and clinicians who will join 

with disabled people in the community as active challengers of oppressive 

institutions and environments. The program examines how addressing 

disability in its full complexity can promote the full participation, self- 

determination, and equal citizenship of people with disabilities in society.

I've recently gotten several e-mails from people interested in graduate programs in Deaf Studies or Disability Studies within Anthropology. I've come up with the following list to help people narrow down their choice of schools. It's still very tentative and I would greatly appreciate feedback from people who know of other programs.

Note that for the most part I have only listed places where there are faculty active in Deaf Studies or Disability Studies. However, most of us are first generation scholars -- we received our PhDs at programs where there was nobody who focused in Deaf culture or disability. I do not think we are yet at the second generation of scholarship yet -- where people will be studying more or less in specialized programs. Thus, you should not narrow your focus to only the programs listed, but also look for programs that are strong either in your areal speciality (geographic region) or topical speciality (such as language ideology; biomedicine and social institutions; etc.). You can always ask one of the people listed below to serve as an external committee member or dissertation reader.