(no subject)

[bedlamsbard]

The good news is that my GRE scores FINALLY FREAKING ARRIVED. (Remember: I took them at the end of August. Ugh, ugh, ugh -- they changed the test and the scoring system, which is why it took so long, I guess.) The bad news is that I did not do quite as well as I was hoping for -- I did worse than my dad did when he took them twenty years ago. On the other hand, I like to think that it's harder now than it was back in the day. The good news is that I still did pretty good, at least if you don't look at my Quantitative Reasoning scores. My Analytical Writing scores are in the 96th percentile, anyway.

...I guess I should get around to applying to graduate school. Wow, if only I knew what I wanted to study. (Hint: I...kind of don't. And I'm back to feeling really freaking unqualified.)

Comments

[cursor_mundi]

The test has definitely changed -- when I graduated from uni in 2002 it was about to switch over to a new system, which totally revamped the logic section, added in the writing, etc. Same thing's happened with the SATs since I took them; comparing either set to your dad's is pointless and an exercise in misery. (And yes, it is harder and a better test; no, these things don't really serve any purpose.)

[bedlamsbard]

Yeah. *sighs* Stupid test. My dad was in the 99th percentile in the reading when he took it back in the day, so...yeah.

[cursor_mundi]

Keep in mind, too, that fewer people were taking the test 20 years ago, and it depends ENTIRELY on who takes the same test that you take, etc. It's all a stats game, and as my father (the statistician) always says, "I can prove, statistically, that the sky is green -- don't take this to heart." But I hear you: I'm the black sheep of the family, going for literature. All the rest are organic chem and engineering or mathematics or physiology. :/ (Result: family dinners are damn near incomprehensible to outsiders, I think!)

And, looking at the comments downthread, I'm just going to say that the few people I know who went into grad school straight out from undergrad are still there (remember: BA in 2002!), with no exit strategy in the immediate future, and they're totally burned out; those of us who waited a few years are out or almost out, and have career goals. The skills you learn while working a job that you know isn't your vocation make the vocation that much more enriching, truly. *hugs*

[bedlamsbard]

I am just glad that I have by now figured out that the last thing I want to do is take career advice from my dad. Which is to say -- yes, he works at a university, and he enjoys what he does (he teaches ESL), or at least I assume he does, since he's been doing it for the past twenty years. On the other hand, I think he's still sad that I didn't go to college and do something practical like become a geologist. On the third hand, he is the reason that I have no interest in ever teaching ESL.

The thing I worry about if I take a year off is that I am basically unemployable -- like, I've never had a job, unless you count two months of work-study in social media, and I'm a lib arts major. And I live in a small town with a university, so there's already competition for that kind of job between the high school students and the university students and the locals who didn't go to uni. So...I worry. *sigh*

[cursor_mundi]

Hey, I took a double major English / Italian degree, and in the 2002 -- a really shitty year to graduate, thanks to the crash caused by 9 /11 -- I ended up with a Federal government job that hired me because of my grades and majors. For serious, there are lots of options. Make Tulane's Career Center work for you!

[bedlamsbard]

Hmm. Yeah, there is Hire Tulane to think about...

[highlyeccentric]

Bedlam, honey. If you can't decide what you want to do, don't do it. Seriously. You don't have to make up your mind RIGHT NOW. The last thing in the world you need is to spend however many years in grad school wishing you'd gone to the -other- grad school.

[bedlamsbard]

But I kind of do! Since the deadline is in three weeks for most schools. *twitches* (Unless I go abroad, which my mother doesn't want.)

Ugh. I feel really trapped right now. (Also, like I have to choose between passing my classes, writing my thesis, or applying to graduate school, since I really suck at time management.)

[highlyeccentric]

Take a year off. Do something else. Go abroad for fun and profit. Do what you absolutely -have- to do right now (class, thesis) and do the rest another time. Grad school will still be there in 2012!

[bedlamsbard]

I just...have no idea what I'd do, that's the thing. I'm thinking I might try a post-bacc instead of going straight into grad, but...and my family is not that keen on me not going straight into grad.

[highlyeccentric]

That sounds like a good idea to me. :)

Have you thought about something like the JET program? Teaching experience is never going to go astray in higher education.

[bedlamsbard]

I think I should probably just admit that I can't put together a graduate school application in three weeks, especially since I don't have recommendations yet. I don't know. This is very tiring. I want one less thing to worry about, you know?

(Okay, and the thing is, I do know what I want to study, sort of. It's just that the overwhelming majority of schools I'm interested in are abroad, and the only reason I'm panicking now is because the ones I haven't looked at are the ones in the U.S. and those are the ones with the deadlines in three weeks. Which are coincidentally the ones my mother wants me to apply to as back-up.)

Well, the thing about doing ESL is that teaching ESL is the one thing I have promised myself that I will never do -- my dad's an ESL teacher.

[highlyeccentric]

Yeah, I think you should admit that, yes. I think you should focus on the overseas applications, it seems like those are the ones you actually want.

[bedlamsbard]

Yes. Heh, I just had this conversation with my mother, and I spent about ten minutes going, "Are you disappointed, Mom? You sound disappointed. Mom, are you all right? Mom, this is my choice. Please don't be disappointed, Mom."

[delfinnium]

Well I'd say that you can try applying to the USA ones later, and really it 's okay to take a year off. A few months off, even. You sound too frazzled to even consider applying for the US grad schools. You can just apply to the overseas ones, and then tell your mother you'll need to spend time to work on applying for the US grad schools because ohgod they have too-tight deadlines.

Uh.

I know exactly what you're going through, except I don't even have the excuse of homework and thesis and everything.

:|

I just haven't sent the query letters to the UK universities. Or Australian universities. *hides*

[bedlamsbard]

Yeah, I had this conversation with my mother last night, where I told her I was going to make the overseas schools my priority, since that was what I really wanted, and if I didn't get into those then I'd either apply for a post-bacc in the U.S., look for schools that take grad students second semester, or just take the year off. And then I felt better about it.

DEADLINES. THEY SNEAK UP ON YOU.