Progress??
As some of you may have read many many posts before, my school requires that I take a test called the QE (Qualifying Exam) and that I must take this test because I do not have a master's degree in the subject I am currently pursuing for a Ph.D.. I have a master's degree in English with an emphasis on American Literature; I am going for a Ph.D. in American Studies with an emphasis in American Literature. Obviously, you can see the big difference. Now, this test acts as a real gate keeper. It will demonstrate whether or not I have what it takes to do graduate research for my graduate courses...this semester I am taking my 57th unit of graduate work. I am currently in my final class of my course work. Of course, the test also shows whether or not I can put together a syllabus, like the syllabi I have put together for the 21 classes I have taught. Ahem...
But what is this test. Well, here it is: I have to come up with fifteen "texts" (pictures, films, events, and any other thing counts as a "text"-- as does a poem or a short story) relating to a subject of my choosing. I have chosen Ghosts Stories. After I chose Ghost Stories, I should have been able to take the test later that afternoon. It is now about two years later and I'm still waiting to take the test.
...oh because my faculty adviser's pulled me in two different directions and the committee didn't think I was culturally sensitive enough. My subject was too broad. In any case, at this point, I've probably read hundreds of "texts" in order to get these fifteen (actually 18--it's only 15 officially; unofficially its between 18 and 700). Well, my steering committee has okay'd my list and I have only to get three professors in a room and then it is immediately onto my comps where I will choose three new people to replace these guys and get on with my life!
Except for one little thing: one of the people on my committee simply will not answer an email. Oh, I see him in the hall occasionally and he assures me that the day I want, and the time, is good for him, but nothing official. He assures me he'll check his calender and give me the official okay. Since that assurance however he's cancelled office hours and disappeared.
Is there a moral to this story? A warning that I would like to offer. No. Not really. I mean what could I say that wasn't already said by, say, Kafka. I wonder sometimes whether these people know that they have a job and that this isn't just some hideaway they've managed to get a key to.
But what is this test. Well, here it is: I have to come up with fifteen "texts" (pictures, films, events, and any other thing counts as a "text"-- as does a poem or a short story) relating to a subject of my choosing. I have chosen Ghosts Stories. After I chose Ghost Stories, I should have been able to take the test later that afternoon. It is now about two years later and I'm still waiting to take the test.
...oh because my faculty adviser's pulled me in two different directions and the committee didn't think I was culturally sensitive enough. My subject was too broad. In any case, at this point, I've probably read hundreds of "texts" in order to get these fifteen (actually 18--it's only 15 officially; unofficially its between 18 and 700). Well, my steering committee has okay'd my list and I have only to get three professors in a room and then it is immediately onto my comps where I will choose three new people to replace these guys and get on with my life!
Except for one little thing: one of the people on my committee simply will not answer an email. Oh, I see him in the hall occasionally and he assures me that the day I want, and the time, is good for him, but nothing official. He assures me he'll check his calender and give me the official okay. Since that assurance however he's cancelled office hours and disappeared.
Is there a moral to this story? A warning that I would like to offer. No. Not really. I mean what could I say that wasn't already said by, say, Kafka. I wonder sometimes whether these people know that they have a job and that this isn't just some hideaway they've managed to get a key to.
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
3:06 PM
3 Comments:
So, let me get this straight... the QE is supposed to determine whether or not you'll be able to handle the course work that you already did? Can't you appeal to some higher authority on the grounds of absurdity?
Ghost stories? Sheesh, no wonder they're stringing you along.
Ghost stories are so last century. If you have any chance of saving this QE, you'll have to jazz it up a bit. Might I suggest "Disabled African American Woman Ghost Tales"? You're still wide open for interpretation: you can choose tales of Disabled African American women seeing ghosts, women seeing disabled African American ghosts, or any other combination thereof. Or maybe the ghost of a fourth-wave feminist? We all know that fourth wave feminism is as ephemeral as the fifth Beatle, so again you're free to say just about anything you want.
Or, you could meet with your department chair, show him/her print-outs of every email that has passed between these profs and yourself, and suggest that you might better be served by moving through other departments canvassing for a new committee, using your story of your own department's idiocy as your sales pitch.
If you can't go outside your department for your QE, you can do some cold calling upon other profs in your discipline. Your chair should be able to at least make other profs amenable to your plight. Your QE committee members are literally holding your educational progress hostage, and if you can't beat them, at least sidestep them before your that ever-important Grad Money Clock winds down.
I'll admit that my first, sillier paragraph seems the most efficacious, but just remember this: once you finish with classes, you're in limbo. You're not yet working on your dissertation and you haven't yet passed your QE, which means that you can potentially fall into the "not making satisfactory progress toward the attainment of the degree" category--a category that greatly increases your vulnerability to the rescinding of your funding. Certainly, your case is defensible, but the very accusation creates a stigma nonetheless:
("did you hear about Mr. Monstro, the one who got several years into the program without even taking his QE's? Why, I've never heard of such a thing!")
To put it bluntly, get the fuck away from your QE profs! Do it before they steal another of your semesters. You'll have to pull a QE idea or two out of your ass, but you have two things going for you: you're freakishly intelligent and frighteningly well-read. You should be able to cull several QE lists from works you've already read. Remind your department chair that you're a Californian--I'm sure he understands well enough that we Californians are a litigious lot.
And if your department chair refuses to cooperate? Well, then, borrow a term that I frequently use in the corporate world: "escalate." Set a time frame for disposition for each level, and move up to the next when that time frame is full.
Give 'em hell, Monstro! They've taken enough of your livelihood!
bsuwg, I second that motion...
Post a Comment
<< Home