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. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Given the state of traditional faculty job market in Humanities? I'd say the chance of landing a professor job at UChicago with ODU degree, for practical purposes, is zero. I mean, it is possible, just like it's possible to win Powerball jack pot. It's unwise to count on it.
    The comments of the Grad Cafe snobs are based in reality. Their mistake is the idea that their tiny and rather twisted little fish-bowl is the whole world. They very seriously think that NOT nabbing that tenure-track job in a top-50 Doctorate-granting English department is a great shame and the end of the world, when there are probably 20 such openings any given year for several times that number new PhD graduates from the very same programs.
    There are tons of part-time Doctorate programs for education administrators and teacher-leaders to get ahead. ODU degree will be just as or MORE prestigious than any of these, and is more than sufficient to serve the OP's stated goals (with all due caveats about not being any guarantee).

    True.
     
  2. JoshD

    JoshD Well-Known Member

    While I for one cannot confirm the ODU grad getting a professorship at UChicago, I can say that would be a 1 in a million. The vast majority of UChicago professors are going to come from Harvard, Yale, MIT, UPenn, Duke, Johns Hopkins, so on and so forth. It’d be pretty impressive to go to ODU and land a job at UChicago.
     
  3. DrSchmoe

    DrSchmoe Member

    I knew it would be hard to believe, but for the life of me, I can't remember her name! I thought at one time universities published the name of all the faculty members in their university catalogs. It used to be at the back. It doesn't seem like they do that anymore, so I can't search for professors by school name. She had 12 publications by the time she finished her Ph.D. so that was clearly a factor. I think elite private universities are much more interested in those who demonstrate that they can produce quality research.
     
    JoshD likes this.
  4. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Justva quick search of Ivy League professors shows people with terminal degrees from *gasp* state schools.

    There is no reason to think that you need a PhD from an elite school to teach at an elite school. It's not an alumni club. If you have a strong publication history and are a sought after academic, the big schools will want you.
     
    chrisjm18 likes this.
  5. JoshD

    JoshD Well-Known Member

    No one says it is impossible but I would imagine it is more difficult (no proof as I have not gone through the process).
     
  6. mattbrent

    mattbrent Well-Known Member

    Just chiming in, as a professor within the Virginia Community College System, to share that I have worked with an ODU PhD in English grad, and she was phenomenal. I also know of others throughout the state who have completed the program and gotten professorships.
     
  7. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    This is a truly unhinged rant. A general smear with no specifics and no examples to back it up.
     
  8. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Do you have any examples of this, because it currently stands as an odd non sequitur?
     
  9. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Just for fun, I pulled up a list of Cornell's College of Engineering new faculty. They post profiles on all new faculty who join every year.

    New Faculty Profiles | Cornell Engineering

    Of the first 10 profiles, 3 of them have PhDs from public universities (Georgia Tech, University of Illinois and UC Berkeley). Two others have PhDs from non-US schools that I'm sure are good schools but are not the sorts of places that jump to our mind as the most prestigious in the world like Oxford (KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and Politecnico di Milano in Italy). The rest on that page are all MIT.

    So...anecdotes, obviously. Still, that's not really a situation where it's technically possible but highly unlikely. Part of the reason for this is schools like Georgia Tech have such solid tech programs that while the institution may not be on the same playing field as Stanford, their programs compete quite well. The same could be said among engineering programs. Cornell is Ivy League. However, it ranks below University of Illinois - Urbana, University of Michigan, UC Berkeley and Georgia Tech. So it shouldn't be shocking to find graduates of those programs teaching at Cornell.

    Hopkins consistently ranks as a top medical school hip bumping nearly all of the ivies out of the way in doing so. It happens. Program ranking can be very different from the university's overall ranking.

    My point with this is that we cannot make any sweeping generalizations. To say that most professors at UChicago would go to the schools you mention completely ignores program quality.

    To be fair, you did mention UChicago and not Cornell. So let's take a look at their new faculty pages...

    New Faculty 2021 – New Members of the University Faculty (uchicago.edu)

    First person? NYU. Second person? Has an MD from Loyola and an MS from UChicago (no PhD, so let's skip). Thereafter we have UC Berkeley, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, there's a Yale and a Stanford, and University of Milan, University of Texas, I found one Harvard PhD (two Harvard JDs) and at least five other UC Berkeley.

    Is ODU still a longshot? I don't know. Perhaps. But I also haven't seen if any ODU programs actually rank favorably in comparison to other schools. I don't think one would be starting from the negative place that is implied, however. If an ODU PhD was producing the same volume and caliber of research as a graduate of any of the other schools that are better represented, they would have at least a shot at the job. Just look at what they're competing against, though. These publication histories are no joke.
     
    Dustin, JoshD and Rachel83az like this.
  10. Hey, everyone!

    I wanted to write to you with an update. So, it looks like I got rejected from NYU and the University of Delaware. My only prospects are Old Dominion and St. John's.

    I was reading something about the rankings of these two universities, and St. John's is not much higher than ODU, but it requires in-person classes. I actually cannot make the commute to Queens, NY. :( Therefore, I think Old Dominion would be my best bet.

    Forgive me, I know I've been waffling back and forth about this. I just don't want to make another mistake. I consider NYU to be the biggest mistake of my life. I wish I would have went to Rutgers instead, but I wanted the brilliance of the name on my resume. It was a waste. :(

    I want to get the PhD for me, to become a doctor of literature and expert of literature for me. I don't mind being a high school English teacher and adjunct professor. I know for a fact that even getting a PhD from Harvard won't guarantee a job in academia.

    I just hope I'm making the right decision. Perhaps I should pray about this.
     
  11. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    If prayer works for you, why not? Anything - prayer, reading teacups, I Ching - whatever is preferable to listening to some naysayer in a forum (or wherever) dash your dreams. You do you, LittleShakespeare90, and Bless You! I mean that sincerely. Let me know when you receive your Doctorate. I'll be well into my 80s but I'll still be dancing for that! :)

    I'm off now to pursue my own new dream - fashion design. :)
     
  12. JoshD

    JoshD Well-Known Member

    I agree with Johann. Do not let a naysayer in a forum shoot your dreams down. Pursue that PhD at ODU and be proud to join an elite, and very small, group of folks pursuing a doctoral degree.
     
  13. Thank you so much, my dear friend! I am so excited for you to pursue your dream, too! :D
     
    Maniac Craniac likes this.
  14. Thank you so much!!!!!
     
  15. Rachel83az

    Rachel83az Well-Known Member

    I agree: don't let your dreams be ruined by someone on a forum. Especially someone who probably derides every single university except for their own alma mater (or the one that they WOULD have gone to, had they been accepted). So long as you aren't under any false impressions, such as this degree being a sure-fire way to fame and riches, do what you want to do.
     
  16. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    [​IMG]

    Seriously, ODU is a great choice. I hope you enjoy it!
     
  17. Tireman 44444

    Tireman 44444 Well-Known Member

  18. TEKMAN

    TEKMAN Semper Fi!

    You can try to request your diploma says, "College of William and Mary at Norfolk" instead of "Old Dominion University" :D
     
  19. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Why would ANYONE?

    (1) I think it'd be a definite non-starter. It could put someone in a bad light with their school.
    (2) Is there something WRONG with Old Dominion? A lot of people (especially here) say there isn't. Let the grad be PROUD of her degree, as awarded. She'll have VERY GOOD REASON to be.

    I'm not much on snobbery - especially when it's meaningless - as it is in this case - and usually is. Wet-blanket-ism of a particularly noxious variety.
     
    LittleShakespeare90 and Dustin like this.
  20. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    This is so important.

    Much of the discussion on this board is window shopping. Two-dimensional and superficial looks at one school/program after another, with very little of substance being said. (Not that there is anything wrong with that!)

    It's really useful to listen to what people have actually experienced.

    It's also really important to do the degree you want and need for your own interests and ambitions.

    Finally, the distinctions around branding almost never represent actual differences. A handful of schools have a national reputation (for good or for bad). Some have local reputations that matter only in those localities. The rest? The vast majority of these schools' branding is irrelevant. Much more important is that one does the degree that is the best fit for one's present and (presumed) future needs.

    I worked in prisons for a while. You know who knows the prison the best? The inmates. As a staff member, you're there 40-or-so hours a week. But they're there 168 hours every week. They know every little nuance of the place, ever security vulnerability, every routine, every staff member's personality and proclivities. But...their distinctions matter not one little bit outside the prison walls. This is (mostly) true here, too, where distinctions between schools and/or programs are depicted as huge chasms when, outside this little discussion group, they make little or no difference at all.
     

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