Welcome to Literary Ashland

Follow

Matt Kent is a 2014 graduate of Southern Oregon University; he is studying higher education administration at Old Dominion University and is the Assistant Hall Director for the Virginia and Ireland Houses at ODU.

EB: What is your graduate program like? What courses do you take and what sorts of things are you reading?

MK: I am in a Higher Education/Student Affairs Master’s program; the focus of my graduate studies is on practical experience and therefore we are required to complete several internships and maintain a graduate assistantship outside of the program while working on our classes. The classes I take have a focus on student development and politics, trends, and issues in higher education. Most of my classes are a blend of the psychology, sociology, and education disciplines. I take classes like Contemporary Issues in Higher Education, The Contemporary College Student and Diversity, and Student Development theory. Much of what I read comes from the Chronicle of Higher Education and then academic journals in the education and psychology fields.

EB: How has your experience so far shaped your career goals?

MK: As far as the master’s program, it is designed so each student is currently working in the field they intend to work in post-graduation. For example, I want to work in Residence Life and Housing, and I have a graduate assistantship as an Assistant Hall Director as well as a summer internship at Sonoma State University as a Summer Area Coordinator. The program puts a heavy emphasis on students having opportunities to apply what they learn in real world situations to prepare them for those first full-time staff and administrative roles. As a graduate of Southern Oregon University’s English department, I feel that I was extremely prepared for the writing intensive work that I am asked to do as a graduate student.

EB: What is the most rewarding part and the most challenging?

MK: The most challenging part of graduate school would be balancing the actual coursework with the job and the internships, all of which is required. It’s very easy to put more of your time and attention into your graduate assistantship and completely let school slide. Much of the assignments consist of reading 10-50 pages of academic writing or working on a group project outside of class, and so it is easy to let these assignments pile up. Staying motivated and engaged can be challenging.

One of the most rewarding parts is interactions with other students and faculty in your program. Every member of my cohort is extremely passionate about students, student affairs, or higher education as a whole and that shared passion is really exciting. We spend a significant portion of class-time discussing various issues and policies and being a part of that discussion is extremely rewarding. Another aspect of my program that I find extremely rewarding is the real-world student affairs experience that I get through my experiences in my assistantship and in my internships.

EB: What’s been your focus and how has grad school changed you?

MK: My personal focus has been on gaining the skills and knowledge I need to work in and make change in student affairs. I have spent a great deal of time learning and applying student development theory through my courses and assistantships. In addition, I have done some research and presentation-work on First Generation Students and their adjustment to college. Grad school has really helped me to widen my focus and expose me to a variety of different issues.

EB: Any advice for students considering going on for more school?

MK: DON’T DO IT!—Just kidding. My advice would be to understand what you are looking to gain out of that experience, understand what you need in a school and graduate program to be successful, and to be prepared for feelings of intense burn-out. I remember while I was in my last year of undergrad, my classmates would talk about how tired we were, how ready we were to be done, and then jokingly compare how long we had experienced “Senior-itis.” That feeling of burnout only intensifies in graduate school; it’s less of getting out and it will go away, and more understanding how you need to motivate yourself while doing the work and the studying. And choose a program that is cohort based—your peers will be your best support network.

EB: What’s next for you?

MK: I am currently finishing my first year of grad school—I will graduate in May of 2016. I’ll be looking for a full-time hall director position, ideally on the West Coast.

EB: Thanks for talking with us.

MK: My pleasure! Congratulations Class of 2015!

Follow

Brystan Strong is 2013 graduate of Southern Oregon University; She works at the Jackson County Library Services and is completing a Masters in Library and Information Science at San Jose State University.

EB: What is your graduate program like? What courses do you take and what sorts of things are/were you reading?

BS: My graduate program is a distance learning program, so it takes place completely online. It is a combination of email and forum discussions, video lectures, and video conferencing for live presentations. I am currently going for my MLIS (Masters in Library and Information Science) with a focus on Public Librarianship and more specifically Teen/YA programming. Most of what I am reading is academic articles from journals such as Youth Library Journal, ALA (American Library Association) and a lot of teen/tween lit. Although the majority of the classes I take revolve around teen/YA programming, I’ve also taken courses in history, database building, cataloging, and library management.

EB: How has your experience so far shaped your career goals?

BS: I’ve always known that I wanted to work with teens outside of a traditional school environment, but now I am looking at other environments even outside of a traditional library setting. I’m looking at careers in Juvenile Detention Centers, or youth centers.

EB: What is/was the most rewarding part and the most challenging?

BS: The most challenging part is definitely the fact that it is online. I don’t know what my classmates look like, what my teachers look like, and there isn’t a specific time that I have to go to class so I have to be very on top of my game and my time management. Also, completing group projects when everyone in your group is in a different time zone is very difficult. However, overcoming these obstacles, hearing praise from teachers, finishing projects are all very rewarding.

EB: What’s been your focus and how has grad school changed you?

BS: When I was getting my undergrad, I was focused on how what I was learning, what I was doing, could help make me a better person. The question was “how can this make me, a better me?” In graduate school it has shifted to “how can what I am learning here help me to help other people?”

EB: Any advice for students considering going on for more school?

BS: Be confident. I notice that at this point in my education, my professors expect me to act like I am already a professional in this field. I have to write with a lot more academic confidence, and own whatever I say. There isn’t much room to be wishy-washy. Be confident in what you know, be confident that you can learn what you need to know, and be confident in what you produce.

EB: What’s next for you?

BS: Right now I am working 2 jobs and going to school full-time. Thankfully, one of my jobs is in a library, so my goal right now is to be able to get out of retail, whether that is by getting a second library job or increasing my hours at my current library job. I also want to continue my research into alternative youth library programs.

EB: Thanks for talking with us.

BS: You’re welcome

Follow

Zeke Hudson is completing his MFA in creative writing with a specialization in poetry at Boise State University. He is a 2011 graduate of Southern Oregon University.

EB: What was your graduate program like? What courses did you take and what sorts of things were you reading?

ZH: I’m trying to think of the best way to answer this hydra-headed question. I just finished a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing (poetry) at Boise State University. But here’s the thing: there is currently no standard set of requirements for a creative writing MFA.

If you want to go down the MFA path, you’ll come across a few different options. First, there are low- and full-residency programs. At the low residency programs, you do most of your work from home, and then you can fly or drive to wherever your campus is–maybe across the country?–once per semester to work in person with your professors and cohort. At full residency programs, you physically attend classes like normal.

Second, there are academic and studio programs. Academic programs require significant coursework, usually in the English department, and are essentially a Master of Arts in English with an extra year’s worth of courses devoted to craft. Studio programs require little (if any) work outside of workshops and other craft-related courses.

Third, program lengths vary. The shortest MFAs can be completed in a year, whereas the longest can take four. Most programs take two or three.

Fourth, different programs take different approaches to workshops and craft instruction. The most traditional programs tend to give prompts for writing, while the more progressive schools rarely ever give prompts, allowing students to find or better hone their own styles.

In the end, I went for a three-year, full residency, academic MFA with almost no prompts. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. I keep in contact with hundreds of other MFA students around the country, and from what I can tell, I’m more satisfied with what Boise State has offered than almost anyone else. The cohort here is small, allowing only two or three students per year, so things generally don’t turn clique-ish and everyone has plenty of time to respond to each other’s work.

What I read at Boise State largely depended on the classes I took. Most workshop classes assign a book of poetry per week with the occasional essay thrown in. Writing, editing, and responding to classmates’ work comprises the majority of work in those courses. Literature courses tend to have more substantial reading loads of a book per week plus several articles or chapters of theory and criticism. My favorite courses were the mandatory Form & Theory seminars which were populated almost exclusively by poetry MFA students. Because it would be ridiculous to expect graduate students to read manuals about how to write poems (e.g. “this is how to effectively enjamb a line,” or “have you considered using an em dash?”), our Form & Theory reading was by far the most challenging. Beyond a few books of poetry, we spent most of our effort working through philosophy and literary criticism centered around a few common poetic themes (i.e. death, love, beauty), which led us to perennial academic all-stars such as Aristotle, Longinus, Burke, Kant, Hegel, Derrida, Gadamer, and so on.

The point is, poetry and criticism were built into the course requirements, but everyone’s welcome to take as many literature courses as they desire to get a taste of Gothic, Victorian, or Renaissance literature. I don’t know why you’d want to pick those over any of the other great offerings, but I guess some people are into those sorts of things.

EB: How has your experience so far shaped your career goals?

ZH: I still hope to teach, though my heart isn’t set on it. And that’s a good thing in this job market. However, what I found most surprising is that I have very little desire to research or teach literature exclusively. I figure literature doesn’t happen in a vacuum, so the most engaging courses were the ones with a significant theoretical, historical, or cultural component.

I’ll apply for PhDs next year, and when I do, I’ll be applying in the field of American Studies instead of English, literature, or writing.

EB: What is/was the most rewarding part and the most challenging?

ZH: It’s hard to pick a most rewarding thing. Above all, I’d say the most rewarding part was defending my thesis and hearing my thesis referred to as my “book.” I’m leaving school with most of a book! Having a ready manuscript is the first real step toward a life as a writer, right? Now I have one.

The most challenging this was uh. Well, probably a tie. Time management was difficult. Remember that old triangular graphic that says “College: sleep, homework, social life. Pick two”? A graphic for graduate school would be a far more complex polygon–maybe an octagon–with things like sleep, homework, social life, teaching/class preparation, grading, attending important program functions, etc,. but then the instructions would still be like, “pick two, and expect to cry about it.”

Not whine. Cry. Real, legit tears.

But you get used to it.

The other challenging thing was teaching. At Boise State, MFA students teach as many as two courses per semester (1/2 teaching load), and we teach three different classes. As with almost every school, graduate teaching fellows are given only a couple weeks of instruction about how and what to teach. And it’s not so much that we get instruction so much as we get tossed into the deep in and are told to swim. And bored, judgmental little 18-year-olds are the sharks infesting the pool. Learning how to teach while developing lesson plans, coursework, and syllabi is probably the hardest thing to do in the first year.

EB: What’s been your focus and how has grad school changed you?

ZH: My focus? You mean like what did I study? Poetry.

I’m not sure how much grad school changed me. At least, I don’t think that most of the changes I’ve made are a direct cause of my coursework or studies. I remember when I first applied to grad school, before even hearing back from schools, I decided that it was time to be responsible. I started dressing better, cooking more elaborate meals, cleaning more often, and being generally more responsible. Basically, I decided that it was time to be an adult.

But grad school? It definitely taught me how to more effectively budget my time.

EB: Any advice for students considering going on for more school?

ZH: Oh man. Yeah. I have so much advice. I know this has already been long-winded, but this is probably the realest part.

You have to want to be there. You have to love what you’re doing. Believe me, if your heart isn’t in it, you’ll never make it. It’s a lot of work–much more than a full time undergraduate course load, and a little bit more than an undergraduate course overload. Factor in teaching and it can be brutal (until you figure out how to manage your time). If you’re going to school for something in the humanities, you can’t count on your degree leading to a job, so learning should be its own reward.

Really research the schools you want to apply to. I cannot emphasize this enough. You should be at least a little bit familiar with the faculty, the course offerings, and the academic climate. Definitely talk to students who are currently attending programs you’re looking into. Remember, it’s important to know that you’ll get along with your professors and peers.

Don’t apply to a school only because of its name or reputation. Don’t mortgage your happiness for academic success. Find a place where you’ll be a good fit. From what I’ve seen, people who are unhappy with their programs but who try to stick it out because they think it’ll be worth it or impressive almost always drop out.

Depending on your degree, you might be in a place for anywhere from two to seven years. Make sure the school is in a location that you’d be happy to call home for a good while. You have to actually live there, you know.

Especially if you have a small cohort, try not to sleep with anyone in your program.

Pack light. Call your parents. Eat your vegetables.

EB: What’s next for you?

ZH: I need a little breather. I’m taking a year off to send out poems and my manuscript, plus my friend and I are starting a literary journal, and I’ve begun writing for a sports blog, so I’ll be keeping my hands in the literary world.

After my break, the plan is to apply for an American Studies PhD. I’ve already done most of the research, plus I have a draft of my writing sample and statement of purpose, and most of my letters of recommendation have been written. No last minute stuff for me!

EB: Thanks for talking with us.

ZH: Thank you!