In this series of posts, I'm talking about my experiences getting a Ph.D. in philosophy. One goal is to offer some advice to people who might be considering whether or not grad school is for them. The other is target audience is those that are already neck deep in their studies and wondering how they're ever going to finish. These posts are organized according to the following questions. 1. Should you even go to grad school? 2. How do I get into grad school? 3. How do I finish grad school? The first thing you should do is figure out what you want to focus on. Every field of study has subfields. If you go to grad school you're going to have to narrow your focus to one of those subfields. I'll talk about philosophy since that's my area of expertise. But the principle is the same whether you're going to study Classics, Literature, History, or Theology. Your focus will help you narrow down which schools to apply to. The faculty of each school has their own expertise and this is reflected in what the department is known for. When considering further study in philosophy, I was already interested in philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and ethics. In particular, I was interested in studying the nature of human action, free will, and moral responsibility. So I naturally looked for schools with professors who focused on these topics. That's how I ended up at Florida State. As a department, FSU has several excellent philosophers who write about these topics. You can find out more about these specialties at the Philosophical Gourmet. This lists out each specialization and the main schools who are known for that specialization. You can also look up the authors of your favorite philosophy books and see where they teach. If they're teaching at a school with a grad program, then you can try applying there and studying with them. I didn't major in philosophy in undergrad, so my story might be different from yours. I didn't decide to pursue graduate studies in philosophy until I was half-way through the M.Div. program at NOBTS. Because I didn't have a good background in philosophy, I decided first to get an MA in order to increase my chances of getting into a good Ph.D. program. I picked out five good programs from the Gourmet Report, applied and then waited. I was accepted into two programs: the University of Missouri-St. Louis and the University of Houston. UMSL offered me a TA position that would pay tuition and provide a little for living expenses, so it was a no-brainer. The application process involves several parts. One is the writing sample. The writing sample is a big part of your dossier. I spent about a year working on my writing sample. I presented it at conferences and received really good feedback. If you want to get into a good program, work on getting a polished writing sample by getting as much feedback as you can. Another one of the major parts of a Ph.D. application is letters of recommendation from your professors. So one of the things that I planned out during my MA was to take two courses from each of the professors that I planned to ask for a letter. This helped me pick my classes. Sometimes it was a hard decision because there were multiple interesting classes to choose from. But the goal I had set helped to make the decision for me. This might change as you go along because you might change your mind about the topic that you want to research or you might not get along with a professor. But for the most part, this is a good idea. This allows the professors to get to know you better and to be able to make detailed comments in the letter about your work. The more details the better. Lastly, apply to as many programs as you can afford. This is for two reasons: One, the competition is stiff and you are unlikely to be admitted to any one particular program. And two, the application fees add up quickly. Some are $80-100. I applied to 17 Ph.D. programs and spent over $1000 on applications (including taking the GRE and having them send my scores.). I was accepted to two programs, waitlisted to three, and rejected from the rest. If you want to read more about applying to Ph.D. programs, check out the following helpful resources: http://www.apaonline.org/page/gradguide http://schwitzsplintersunderblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/applying-to-phd-programs-in-philosophy.html http://philosophy.olemiss.edu/a-guide-for-philosophy-graduate-students/ Comments are closed.
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