I am in the process of doing research on graduate schools that I’d like to go to. (Internally, I am concurrently screaming in terror and squealing with glee).
I have also realized that doing this makes me unconsciously use too many large words unnecessarily; I guess you’d say I have sesquipedalian tendencies. Please take note: the below blog is coming from someone who has nary a graduate degree to her name, nay, nary a graduate school application under her name, so… Please, read this from someone who has no experience in the matter, but needs to discuss the matter anyhow.
For a long time, I was very set against higher education; not because I hated the idea of learning and research (I loved that idea), but rather that I hated the thought of surrounding myself with pompous people who were too full of themselves. Thankfully, my thesis advisor (no, dangit spell-check! I prefer my ‘o’ in advisor, not ‘e’) in my undergrad was awesomely awesome, down to earth, brilliant, and entirely personable, so I realized that it is possible to be human and be involved in higher education and academia. Phew!
Anyhow, doing research on grad schools is a momentous and daunting task. If one reads any books about applying to grad schools, one gets the idea that it’s necessary to do such an enormous amount of research on each and every potential Department’s faculty and their research, comprehensively reading and skimming all relevant articles and related papers, that it would hardly seem necessary to go ahead and get a degree; you’ve already done the equivalent amount of reading and research.
That, of course, is mostly hyperbole. Mostly.
But really, it’s not a good idea to pick a graduate school on the same qualifications as your undergrad school: cost, location, and Scene-quotient. It’s a good idea to have people in mind within a body of faculty who could potentially be advisors (dangit spell-check, stop that, I know you think it’s wrong, but I don’t care about AP style guidelines right now!) to your dissertation. Because really, if you can’t find someone you’d want to work with for 4+ years, then you’re probably not looking in the right place.
But sometimes… Sometimes, you don’t know exactly what you’d want to research, in the first place! And that is the problem. I am definitely set on Linguistics, the half of my undergrad for which I did a thesis, but beyond that… Well. Let’s just say I want an interdisciplinary program.
My background is primarily theoretical syntax, with a good punch of computational modeling. I enjoyed that. I really would like to do something aligned with the practical or computational application of theoretical areas of linguistics, but the idea of stringently adhering to a syntax-focused program makes me cringe. I love syntax, don’t get me wrong. But the mainstream representations of syntax, while being very computationally motivated, I believe are woefully inadequate to represent real-life linguistic phenomena. My undergrad, if anything, taught me that.
I am however, interested in incorporating multi-interfaced approaches to syntax. That interests me greatly. And that, along with my desire to actually make money after school, whether it be in the business sector or academia, makes me want to focus greatly on computational linguistics, because I think that is where the largest amount of flexibility and applicability is found.
And ha! Here I am, talking like I get to choose my grad school, as opposed to them choosing me. I am trusting that God will lead me to the right people, and right program… But still. It is nerve-wracking to consider that a year from now I might begin to receive a long list of resounding (and curt) “No’s” from the schools I want to go to. But hey. Here’s to hoping, and praying, and researching, and doing what you love to do.
Six Months Later 