Plan Your PhD - Resources & Documents

Thank you to all who could join us for our annual "Plan Your PhD" event! We had wonderful and experienced speakers who gave us reviews, tips, and resources for each of the steps of the PhD process. Below you will find links to the documents provided during the event. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you might have.

The Plan Your PhD Handout provides an overview of the requirements provided by the English Student Handbook (requirements, exam summaries, etc.) as well as resources and tools for professionalizing yourself.

The Field Exam and Dissertation handouts provide great strategies and things to look forward to for each of these steps. If you have questions about this or any of the other exams/parts of the PhD (qualifying exam, language exam, or prospectus defense) please feel free to ask.

The following three articles from the Chronicle of Higher Education provide great advice from both professors and students about being part of a PhD program: What I Tell My Graduate Students, Graduate School as Means to a Job, As Smart as I'll Ever Be.

We are also attaching a list of Resources for Americanists (national conferences, publications, blogs, twitter feeds, etc.) and will soon post one for the other two concentrations in the department.

See you at the next event!

Plan Your PhD Documents / New EGSA Board!

Thank you to all of you who could join us for our "Plan Your PhD" event and the Elections Party last night. Congratulations to the new 2012-2013 EGSA Board! Below we have provided links to the documents and resources from the "Plan Your PhD" event, and we are always available to answer any questions that you may have.
We would also like to announce the addition of new Pages to our blog site, including information on your new EGSA board and a Documents Tab which includes links to the Grad Student Handbook and information on the Qualifying and Fields Exams. Remember you can "like" us on Facebook to receive updates or follow our blog via email to the right.

"Plan Your PhD"
Graduate School is a Means to a Job
What I tell My Graduate Students
Plan Your PhD Notes and Resources

Plan Your PhD Event Today

Please remember to stop by Rome 771 from 3:30-4:30pm today for our final professional development event "Plan Your PhD." We are going to cover all the necessary information for making it successfully and thoughtfully through our PhD program. We also have updates on department policies, a new program tracker called DegreeMap, and a group of students who want to share some strategies and tips for handling each "step" in the path to a PhD. Also, don't forget to stick around to meet your new EGSA board from 5-7 (drinks provided).

As a preview for the event, we would like to share this article from the Chronicle with some helpful advice about your Graduate experience. This article comes highly recommended by your EGSA board and GW faculty.

March 27, 2012

Graduate School Is a Means to a Job

Brian Taylor for The Chronicle

By Karen Kelsky

One of the most common questions I hear from graduate students, whether they are in their first or their final year, is what they can donow to prepare for the academic job market.

Excellent question. As a graduate student, your fate is in your own hands, and every decision you make—including whether to go to graduate school at all, which program to go to, which adviser to choose, and how to conduct yourself while there—can and should be made with an eye to the job you wish to have at the end. 

 To do otherwise is pure madness. I have no patience whatsoever with the "love" narrative (we do what we do because we love it and money/jobs play no role) that prevails among some advisers, departments, and profoundly mystified graduate students. But for those graduate students and Ph.D.'s who actually want a paying tenure-track job and the things that go with it—health insurance, benefits, and financial security—here is my list of graduate-school rules, forged after years of working in academe as a former tenured professor and now running my own career-advising business for doctoral students. 

Early in Graduate School

Never forget this primary rule: Graduate school is not your job; graduate school is a means to the job you want. Do not settle in to your graduate department like a little hamster burrowing in the wood shavings. Stay alert with your eye always on a national stage, poised for the next opportunity, whatever it is: to present a paper, attend a conference, meet a scholar in your field, forge a connection, gain a professional skill...(click on the link to read the full article). 

Mark Your Calendars! April Campus and EGSA Events

We know this time of year is crunch time, but we have a long list of exciting events coming up this month. EGSA would also like to add that elections are coming up, so stay tuned for Election information concerning your 2012-2013 EGSA Board members (and we will be having a party!). We hope to see you at some of these events - remember that taking a break is necessary, and networking is helpful! 

April 5 Alternate Career Session 5:30-6:30pm Rome 771 Meet our panel of professionals who took their English Graduate degrees and turned them into awesome, interesting careers. Learn about transferable skills and how to make that CV work for you in the professional world. Hosted by EGSA. Light refreshments provided.

April 7 9pm-12am Please join us for night-caps and scamels as we launch the Luminary Tempest at the Shakespeare Association of America in Boston.
The Charlesmark Hotel lounge, 655 Boylston Street,  Boston, MA

April 9 Thomas Bisson “Crisis in Early Ducal Normandy: Some Conjectural History” 2110 Taliaferro Hall; Refreshments 4:00, Seminar 4:30pm.

April 13 Please join us for our last event of the spring semester: a breakfast seminar with Danna Agmon (History, Virginia Tech). We begin at 9 AM in Rome 771 (801 22nd St. NW). Breakfast will be served. Her paper is pre-circulated; please RSVP to me [lduckert@gwu.edu] and I will send you a copy. 

April 14 Hear great poetry from exciting DC writers and help women in your community--come to Will Read for Women, the first poetry reading/pantry drive of its kind! 

So to Speak, a feminist literary journal, will host our first reading drive to benefit a local domestic violence shelter. The reading will feature poetry by Sarah Browning, Joe Hall, Kateema Lee, and Meg Ronan, with an open mic to follow. Audience members are asked to bring toiletry items and other pantry necessities to donate to the shelter, Bethany House. The list of suggested items follows.

The reading is scheduled for Saturday, April 14th at 8:30 p.m. in the Johnson Center Bistro, a cafe on the first floor of the student center at George Mason's Fairfax campus. Parking is available nearby in the Mason Pond, Shenandoah, and Rappahannock parking decks. We'd appreciate your support in reaching out into the community and getting this event off the ground! Contact us at sotospeakjournal@gmail.com with any questions. 

April 19 “Plan Your PhD” 3:30-4:30pm Rome 771 Hosted by EGSA for current PhD students. Come learn about new department policies, check out DegreeMap, and get a chance to ask advanced PhD students all the questions you might have about your program.