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Life after Graduation

I plan to go to graduate school? How do I get help with that?
What happens after I've sent off all my applications?
How do I decide which acceptances to choose?
I'm headed for law. What do I need to know or do to prepare myself?
I want to teach somewhere in K-12. What do I need to do?
What if I want to do graduate work in some other field?
I want to teach English in college.

I plan to go to graduate school? How do I get help with that?
First, attend the advising sessions offered by the department and the career center about applying to graduate school. These are meetings, usually held in Fall quarter, where you can get detailed advice on how to select graduate schools, what sort of criteria (GRE test scores, GPAs, etc.) you'll confront, and how to submit an effective application.

Second, talk to the professors whom you know the best; they are all full of advice about graduate school, and they love to talk. One of the things they will discuss with you is whether you have a highly polished essay or research paper that you can submit as a writing sample with your application. Most graduate schools request a sample, and many put a great deal of weight on the professionalism of your paper.

Third, the department offers a handout on how to handle asking for recommendations and assembling your applications to send out to schools. When you ask faculty members for a letter of recommendation, for example, you should give them a copy of your statement of purpose, your transcript, and a xerox of the papers or exams you wrote for them. This helps the professor get a more detailed picture of your academic performance and your academic goals. Also make sure the professor knows the deadlines by which letters have to be in to the various schools--they will vary widely. You might put a post-it with the deadline on each application form. We will keep copies of your confidential letters of recommendation on file in the event that you need them at a later time.

What happens after I've sent off all my applications?
You wait until you hear from schools whether they've accepted or rejected you.

How do I decide which acceptances to choose?
See your advisor or mentor to discuss this. You'll need to take a number of considerations into account, including the quality of the program, the availability of financial aid, the fit of the program to your interests, and the geographical locations of the school. Your advisor and mentors can help you evaluate these factors.

I'm headed for law. What do I need to know or do to prepare myself?
For admission, law schools--like graduate schools--care about test scores and letters of recommendation, and whether you took a solid undergraduate program and did well in it. If law is a special interest of yours, look for courses, not rare here, that treat literature and law. You'll also want to think seriously about taking a minor in Humanities and the Law, a program the School of Humanities here at UCI offers.

Also use your electives to explore the legal system in the history, political science, and philosophy departments. But that's for you: the law schools don't seem to care if you never saw a statute or decision when you enter so long as they see that you are smart and that you know how to read and write very effectively.

I want to teach somewhere in K-12. What do I need to do?
Whether you want to teach at the primary or secondary levels, go early to talk with people in the teacher education program in the Department of Education (2001 Berkeley Place); they will have advice about some courses you can take on your way to the B.A. that will shorten the teacher-credential program for you. Admission to education schools has become much more competitive in recent years: do well in your courses. Consider taking courses in the English language.

You may also consider doing volunteer teaching in the H.O.T. (Humanities Out There) Program. And remember for later years, that the Department has a Summer M.A. Program designed for already-employed teachers.

What if I want to do graduate work in some other field?
I haven't decided yet, but I'm interested in a lot of different fields--maybe business, city planning, psychology, design, religious studies, anthropology, philosophy, social work--whatever.

If you knew which of these fields you were likely to want to pursue, then it would make sense for you to consider either a double major, or a major in that field with a minor in English--or vice versa. Obviously taking courses in these fields as your electives is a good idea. The courses will help you decide if you want to pursue the field seriously, and will also show a graduate program that you have some background and preparation in the field. In some fields (medicine, engineering, marine biology, nuclear physics, for example) you would obviously need much more specialized preparation to qualify for a good graduate program. It would be best to talk to professors in those fields to seek advice on how to manage your course of study, if you think you might be heading in that direction.

I want to teach English in college.
Again, first of all talk to your professors about your ambitions. This is one field they know really, really well!

Here's some general advice:

1) Nearly all four-year colleges require a Ph.D. of their faculty. Some community colleges do not--ask around. If possible, apply to a Ph.D. program rather than to an M.A. program, unless the M.A. clearly feeds into a Ph.D. program. UCI for example does not have a separate M.A. program in English. We focus our attention exclusively on the Ph.D. and admit only students who are headed for the Ph. D.. We deliberately have not constructed a self-sufficient M.A.

(We do have a summer M.A. program aimed at a high school teachers. This program is not generally open to new B.A.s since we want people with teaching jobs and teaching experience to apply. The summer M.A. is distinct from the Ph.D. program and a very different thing.)

2) If you're headed for a Ph.D. program in English, go to the best one you can get into. Be ready, even eager, to move to another region of the country--avoid provincialism. An excellent Midwestern state university--like Michigan or Wisconsin--is better than a mediocre program on the West Coast.

Be prepared not to enjoy the first couple of years of graduate school very much: the transition from excited undergraduate to a highly competitive graduate program where everyone at first seems smarter than you, can make you feel insecure and a little frightened. But stay the course. If you are committed, things will get easier as you get your bearings. Don't take this route unless you are willing to be fully committed to it, because only the best and most determined graduate students these days are likely to get a good college teaching job at the end. Most Ph.D. programs take about five or six years to complete.

3) What impresses graduate school admission officers is also the best preparation for graduate school. Specifically, for graduate work in English, take care to do two or three things.

First, take a very solid program of courses in English, including early and less popular fields, and take several more than the minimum of required courses. (Because the GRE--the graduate school equivalent of the SAT--tests, among other things, the range of your experience with literature, it doesn't hurt to start your E 102s early.)

Second, develop your best foreign language further, and start to develop a second. Those languages are best which are most useful in connection with literature in English: you can't go wrong with French, German, Latin; many students also offer Spanish, Italian, Russian, or Greek. A combination of an ancient and a modern languages is especially impressive, and various non-European languages are likely to become increasingly useful in the future.

Third, keep in touch with a professor or two whom you like, and ask him or her for advice. That person may be writing a letter of recommendation for you
UC Irvine Department of English