I got accepted to Old Dominion University's PhD in English! Now what?

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by LittleShakespeare90, Mar 13, 2022.

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  1. Hello, everyone!

    I think I have some good news, and I truly wanted to tell you first before anyone else. I got accepted to Old Dominion's PhD in English. I will be a distance student, so my classes will all be online. That way, I can keep my high school teaching job.

    I'm still waiting to hear back from these schools for my PhD:
    • University of Delaware
    • St. John's University
    • NYU
    • Rutgers
    These schools are in-person schools. I applied for funding, but I don't know if I'll ever get funding with the way the market is looking.

    As I have told you before, I was leaning towards ODU for the convenience of getting my degree while keeping my job. I'm a bit worried about something though. I spoke to someone on another forum, the Grad Cafe. It's not like me at all, especially because some users there are not the nicest. :( But one of them told me, "Congratulations! You're signing your career death certificate by accepting ODU's offer."

    My goals are to teach. I'd love to teach at the college level, but if I can't, I'll be happy teaching high school. Maybe someday, I can even be a supervisor of an English Department at my high school. But my PhD will be for me. It's always been on my bucket list.

    I was happy about ODU's offer of admission until I saw that message from the Grad Cafe user. Do you think I should just stick with a traditional school and reject ODU's offer?

    Your advice means the world to me. Thank you so much for everything, everyone. You have my deepest gratitude. :emoji_heart:
     
  2. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Looking at your goals - and the fact that the Ph.D. is "for you" - I wouldn't let one wet blanket (or 20 of them) throw you off. I repeat - it's for you - not this "expert" who likely isn't. How can an ODU Doctorate possibly sign a death certificate on a career you already have and enjoy. Is the school board going to fire you for going to ODU? Not saying you HAVE to go - or not. that's YOUR call. But please - don't rule something out because of one snarky opinion - that doesn't seem to apply at all in your circumstances.

    This is for YOU - not for anyone else, not for us and particularly not for some forum naysayer. It's YOUR bucket list. Not his/hers - or mine, for that matter. You don't have to listen to anyone -- including me, if you don't feel like it.

    You are your own person. I respect that and I think everyone here does, too. Whether you decide on ODU -which appears to fit your circumstances particularly well - or another school, I'm confident that we'll hear, in a suitable time-frame, that you've been awarded the Doctorate you desire, from a school of YOUR choice.
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2022
  3. Courcelles

    Courcelles Active Member

    Oh, yes, a doctorate from an R1 state university is a “career death certificate”. Especially for someone willing to remain in a high school teaching their passion.

    ROFL. That’s an incredibly silly comment.
     
  4. JoshD

    JoshD Well-Known Member

    1st off, CONGRATULATIONS!

    2nd, GradCafe folks can be a little cranky. ODU is a good school. A colleague of mine has his PhD from ODU and he has had nothing but good things to say.
     
  5. TEKMAN

    TEKMAN Semper Fi!

    I think you are worrying too much, with ODU's Ph.D. might lead you to become an Ivy League school professorship; however, it is solid for you at High School, Community College, and even state Universities or Liberal Arts colleges.
     
    LittleShakespeare90 likes this.
  6. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

  7. Rachel83az

    Rachel83az Well-Known Member

    You didn't choose the school that the GradCafe member would have chosen/did choose. Because of this, you are a terrible and your career will suffer. It's unthinkable that you might prosper because that would mean that he was WRONG about wanting a complicated and over-priced degree. And we can't have him being wrong!!!

    Seriously, unless the school has a terrible reputation for something (which ODU does not), it doesn't matter which one you choose. At the doctoral level, even NA schools can be a valid choice for those who wouldn't otherwise pick an NA degree because you no longer have to worry about acceptance by a higher tier of schooling.

    Get your doctorate and don't listen to the haters.
     
    LittleShakespeare90 likes this.
  8. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Talk to a frustrated PhD and everyone sucks, the market is terrible, the hiring process was too political and everything is terrible. And if they have a PhD from a school they think is better than yours, and their experience was so negative, how ever could you expect not to starve in a gutter like the subhuman academic waste that you are?

    Or maybe they're just not getting where they want to get because they are an asshole.

    Post like that makes me think it is at least a reasonable possibility.

    You define your career. No one else. I have worked with people with law degrees who never practiced law but who are making mega bucks as executives in HR. I suppose, to their law professors and to frustrated forum posters they, too, are career failures. After all, they went to law school but they aren't actually functioning as lawyers. I'm sure the criticism really keeps them awake as they attempt to nap in First Class.

    If teaching at a high school is on the table for you then the PhD will serve you just fine. If you're open to a non-linear career path that isn't "tenure or bust" you'll be just fine. There are people with PhDs working as consultants in education, for software companies, as fundraisers, and in fields that are even further away from the original intent of their studies. So what? You do you.
     
  9. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Remember, most people's definition of "degree mill" is any school that is less prestigious, however slightly, than the one they attended.
     
  10. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    First, congratulations!

    Second, do not listen to bitter folks from GradCafe. Elite humanities scholars live in their own world; there was a big article not too long ago on how schools like U. Chicago and NYU downright prey on these people by offering expensive unfunded Master's programs that offer false hope of keeping what they know as "career prospects" "viable". Very frankly, with your foothold in K-9, you stand far better chance of not getting into giant debt and/or starve than most of these delusional people.
    Again, ODU is just fine.
     
  11. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Because teaching high school is a dog eat dog environment? ;)
     
    Maniac Craniac likes this.
  12. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    One advice: do not go into in-person grad program without funding. This is far worse idea than an online/hybrid degree program. Chances are, you will have no realistic prospects of what space cadets from GradCafe would consider "career success", either way - but will get into debt plus lose time for a traditional program. Unless you are one of the few who gets fully funded for a truly great PhD program (what are the rankings of the places you applied to?), getting a doctorate nontraditionally is a least bad option. And becoming starving grad student is young folks' game.
     
    Rachel83az and SteveFoerster like this.
  13. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Something like that :).

    K-12, of course.
     
  14. Thank you so much, everyone! Your support truly means the world to me. I am so grateful to have found this lovely forum!

    I will keep you posted on what I decide. I still have to hear back from a few more schools, but I am leaning towards ODU for the ability to keep the best of both worlds: studying literature at the doctoral level and teaching high school. :emoji_heart:
     
    newsongs, Johann and Maniac Craniac like this.
  15. You are so right! I fell for it too. I got my MA in Humanities from NYU. Worst mistake of my life!
     
  16. ArielB

    ArielB Member

    ODU is a good school - I wouldn't let one random idiot on the Internet dissuade you from doing something that you want to do. It's more than enough for teaching in High School. For college, unless you're looking for something tenure track, even a Master's is enough to teach, so you'll be fine. As you said, you're doing this because it's something you want to do for yourself.
     
  17. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    This doesn't take into account how competitive those positions are. Holding a Master's may be enough to be academically qualified, but that's not at all the same thing as being a competitive applicant.
     
  18. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    I get an average of 20 emails per week that come down to "But I met the minimum qualifications!"

    I get it. It sucks. But when I put out a posting for two positions for entry level engineers with less than 2 years of experience and I get 20 applicants with Masters degrees, it gets harder to justify putting the ones without Masters degrees onto the callback list.

    That said, if the only thing you have going for you is your degree for anything other than an entry level job...you've got bigger problems than where you went to school.
     
    JoshD, Dustin and Maniac Craniac like this.
  19. DrSchmoe

    DrSchmoe Member

    I think Johann said it best when he described that other person as an "expert" who likely isn't". There are a couple of them running loose around here too in Degreeinfo. These fake experts are usually those who are failures in their own careers. In real life, their colleagues have tuned them out long ago, because all they have is all fluff and no real knowledge. The only reason why they have a job there is because it's a role no one else wanted (which is making them even more bitter). They're usually on multiple boards poking and prodding to see what insults tick people off and what doesn't. And as you can tell, they've really mastered that craft.
    One thing I wanted to say about ODU is that it's a fantastic school. I've known several with ODU degrees who went on to teach at other prestigious schools. One in fact is a professor at UChicago. So yay for your post-Ph.D career.
    If you are still having reservations about joining a program that is distance students friendly, I can tell you that all the major corporations (e.g Apple, Google) are making business-critical decisions with globally distributed teams. No one cares about distance vs in-person anymore. Also, the ODU degree is not an "online degree". The online aspect is just the modality. You'll be collaborating with your fellow researchers on Zoom. Some of you will be in a conference room, and some on camera. Even when not meeting synchronously, most on-campus researchers are still communicating through asynchronous means (e.g. Teams, Slack, etc), so everyone is using "distance" technology one way or the other.
     
  20. DrSchmoe

    DrSchmoe Member

    Excellent observation. I also have a set of observations that are different than yours. Perhaps we can combine our observations and come up with a unifying theory.
    I noticed some people's (stated) definition of a degree mill is any school that is subjectively more prestigious than the one they attended. It comes down to them being rejected by that school (or one of similar caliber) or them knowing that if they apply they would get rejected. Dustin's video clip above explains it more nicely. "So Jealous" lol.
     
    Rachel83az likes this.

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