#that's both of the phd programs i'm applying to

[astriiformes]

Current fear that has lodged deep into my soul: Everyone keeps reassuring me that it's not impossible to get accepted into PhD programs without first doing a Master's, and I want to trust them. But when I actually go and look at grad student profiles at the schools I'm applying to, they almost all have M.As or the equivalent. One of the professors I was interested in working with even outright told me that I should look into getting an M.A. first.

I cannot afford an M.A. -- I am the sole provider for both myself and my very disabled partner who cannot work. It's PhD or bust, and I'm very scared I'm wasting my time applying for these programs. And that I may be locked out of a career path I'd really love entirely because I don't have the money for it.

[000png]

JUST SUBMITTED MY SECOND APPLICATION AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

just submitted my first application i'm gonna throw up

[mintaka-iii]

My mental health can't possibly good if an essay on the found family trope gives me such an indescribable feeling of hollowness and yearning

[thesargasmicgoddess]

Happy Birthday!!!! 43 looks great on you :)

Thank you so very much!

I think sometimes it's just hard for a woman to age because our society has consistently idolized and prized youthful beauty in a woman. Hence, as I've aged, I've really had to redefine what beauty and success mean to me. I've also had to do the work to find my 40's identity.

There has been an elegant fierceness to being in my 40s. It wasn't how it started, but that's where it's been going, and I'm ALL for it. During this decade of my life (so far), I've had this capacity to do things that scare the shit out of me, and I'm really proud of that. 😂

At 40, I worried about the loss of youth--both aesthetically and mentally. The pandemic had reminded me that life should be lived FULLY, because, things can shift in an instant. I wasn't getting any younger so I said fuck it, and tried OF to check it off my bucket list. It was a hilariously fun, irreverent, and thrilling 6 months of random nudity and smut 😂

At 41, I was restless and thought I wanted to retire from work work to travel the world, but then my brain got bored 😂. Then, a series of events happened that led me to decide to apply for a PhD program, just to see if I had what it takes......😂🤷🏻‍♀️

At 42, I worked, got into and started my PhD program (LOVE it!), and traveled the world.

And HELLO 43, I can't wait to see what's in store....😉

[the-real-list-of-ominous-threats]

Hey what type of classes did you take for oceanography? And how much time do you actually spend in the ocean? I wanna go into marine science and biology, but I also live in the middle of KANSAS so I have nobody to help me out other than Google lol

Classes are largely ecology, statistics, geology, zoology (technically this one is an elective, but I highly suggest it, mostly because I'm in a zoo class right now and I love it), and chemistry (both general and then higher-level marine-specific specialization classes), as well as a specific oceanography and marine systems class.

They're not hideously difficult, but it's still a science, so it's not super easy either.

I don't spend that much time in the ocean, but I'm there a fair bit, because I help out my marine ecology professor with his research, which is often on the water. I'll definitely spend more time on the water once I actually graduate and I'm in the job for real, because my professor who I work with is out on the water all the time working on various things (he does a lot of surveying that requires diving/snorkeling).

Feel free to dm me if you have any further questions; I love yapping about my degree. I'm currently an undergrad, so I can't tell you about PhD programs (yet), but I'll be taking the GREs next fall and will be applying for grad schools shortly after.

[squeakadeeks]

My social media culture professor said I was so good at folklore studies that he asked me to do a thesis so that he could apprentice me. Also said I should go to NFL Canada to do a master's degree. And while this is all very satisfying, I now must ask you, my local academic: I'm the most blue collar tradesman ever, I even have a welding license. How do academics. Like. Make money. The Particles don't pay you. How does someone to a master's-- going to school for a living-- and get.... Paid money

oh shoot can you not answer asks privately now ?? D: well....heres my spiel about grad school funding

getting income as a masters student can be a challenge. in general this is a tough thing to answer bc graduate school funding varies wildly based on country, school, program, and even research group.

however in general, a masters degree can, but will not always provide pay. if your PI has a grant, maybe they will fund you through the grant. If you can find a fellowship, something akin to a grad school scholarship, it can also help either pay or reduce tuition. but most schools treat it as a continued schooling, not a research job and wont provide pay on top of tuition remission automatically. There are other routes like TAships and work study that are still ""second jobs"" but are at least related to your field.

Some programs will fund their masters students automatically, some dont. some provide tuition remission, others dont. some do both, others do neither. that's part of the "it varies wildly" i was talking about.

A lot of Phd students have union contract stipulations that say we have guaranteed funding via research pay, teaching, or fellowships for several years. because phd students have significantly more secure funding on average, ive known of a lot of people who applied as a phd student even though they intended to master's out in their 3rd year anyway to have a stronger employment contract.

that being said, you could still ask a department of interest if they would offer GSR or TAships to masters students, as these are often the most secure way to fund grad school. this is much more likely if its a general program like psychology, chemistry, english, etc as opposed to art history for example since general programs supply service courses that service a ton of students. you might have 3,000 students that need a chemistry TA per year but only 300 who need an art history one, smaller class sizes require smaller TA pools.

but the problem is its really really hard to say because it depends on your situation wildly. this is the system for the schools i know of in STEM specifically, that have union protections, in this university system. some things im willing to bet are fairly common (for example that masters students do not have stable, guaranteed funding) but i have no idea if canada has different employment contracts for masters students. i know of a lot of masters students who have other jobs on campus too, but i'd also look into applicable fellowships for more stable support

[dionysus-complex]

this summer I've been toying with various ideas of what to do post-graduation as the end of this PhD program approaches and as of right now there are basically three obvious paths (below readmore since this is mostly me talking to myself):

the paths are:

(a) attempt the academic job market and come to terms with the likelihood that if I do get a job, it would mean both my spouse and I having to uproot and move somewhere with very little choice about where that is. relatively likely to run up against a hard line we both have about not moving back to a red state (particularly if the 2024 election goes how it seems to be leaning), and even if it doesn't, the blue state options are largely in the Northeast which is not especially appealing to either of us. also likely to run up against the fact that most jobs for fresh PhD grads in the field these days are visiting professorships or non-tenured lecturer positions, which means that my spouse and I could be looking at multiple cycles of uprooting our entire lives. but there is the possibility of winning the lottery so to speak and finding a long-term position on the West Coast or in CO/NM

(b) find a job teaching Latin at a secondary level. this might also involve uprooting, but with somewhat more ability to choose where we live. I enjoy teaching; biggest problem is that the majority of jobs on balance are at charter schools which I'm ideologically iffy about (I've worked at a few, in red states, and would rather not do it again!) or at private schools, often religiously-affiliated. ideally I would want to teach at a public school and preferably in CA but that would require getting a CA teaching credential, which is doable but means more school

(c) law school???? I very nearly considered applying to law schools after my first MA but decided I couldn't be happy without trying the PhD route first. if I do go this route I'd want to go to school somewhere I plan to stay long-term (no T14 for me!) and the obvious choice is here in LA. would prefer not to do my current university or any of the UCs. good news is I have no academic debt and could probably get a significant scholarship with my undergrad GPA and academic background, especially if I'm thinking well outside the T14 world. greater potential for long-term stability than academia but also potential for burnout; ideally I'd want to do public interest/environmental/union-side labor stuff but that's not an easy path

a postdoc could also be a possibility but this is essentially a version of (a) that puts off the decision but does not dodge it

additional factor is that my spouse would like to stay in SoCal at least long enough to finish their own current degree program, which I am all in on but means that option (a) is probably not going to happen for a few years at least. in which case I'd either need to pursue (b) or (c) or find some other way of paying the bills here for a while

[zipstidbits]

hi zip! 👋 i'm just really curious about how you got into astrophysics 👀 and what careers interest you in that field if you don't mind sharing ☺️ i just think it's so cool, but like, in the way of someone who knows absolutely nothing about astrophysics except that it's probably really hard and also rockets 😛🚀 have a lovely day! 💞

hi zesty!!!!! thanks so much for asking, i don't mind sharing at all :))))

how i got into astrophysics:

both my parents are second-generation americans so education/college was always The Big Goal growing up. this translated to my parents really emphasizing math and science skills and i got really interested in science this way. (the post-cold war american cultural emphasis on science as a whole probably contributed to this as well, lmao.)

i ended up momentarily ditching the science dream because i started struggling with math in middle school. i can do it, but my adhd means i struggle to hold numbers in my head (do mental math) and sometimes i can be slow/need to write things out more than others/make silly mistakes/and then get bogged down by imposter syndrome. this was like 10+ years ago so i had zero diagnoses and minimal support so i hopped onto the anti-math train.

i never stopped liking science though. i want to know everything and imo, science contains the answers to everything and is how we'll learn all that is unknown right now. once i hit high school and science class started having a shit ton more math i started to view math differently. it became the whole 'the enemy (math) of my enemy (the unknown) is my friend' thing. thankfully, math, when applied to physics concepts, makes more sense than when in a pure math class, so this became a very doable arrangement.

i also started consuming a lot more pop-science/science in the news around this time. neil degrasse tyson, the one astrophysics class i took in high school, and my dad who played a lot of star trek and pbs space videos on youtube to bond with me opened my mind to the most beautiful thing ever (space). i just think it's the coolest thing ever and the unknowns are so cool and i want to know what's going on up there so bad!!!!

this (and some spite*) led me to apply to college for a BS in physics. doing just physics and not astrophysics was sort of a safety net because i thought i'd really like particle physics too but it turns out quantum mechanics is evil and fucked up so i chose to stick with astrophysics as my concentration, lmao.

*i felt like a lot of my peers in high school assumed i couldn't do this because i wasn't naturally good at math/physics and i took a little more time and effort (i spent a lot of early mornings and afternoons in help sessions, lmao) and a part of me wanted to prove them wrong.

then, this past fall/winter, i applied for a bunch of astrophysics phd programs because i've thankfully got a BS degree and i've made my mind up on what i want to do in life (study/learn about space). i got rejected from 7 out of the 8 schools i applied to which was terrible in the moment but great now because i didn't really have to choose what program to accept, lmaoooooooooooo.

careers that interest me:

i very much enjoy teaching (i was a teaching assistant this year) and i would really like to continue it. i could probably do that in most research jobs by mentoring others in a lab/research setting but also being a professor sounds really cool and appealing to me since i could do research and traditional teaching, lmao.

i'm kind of willing to give most astrophysics research jobs a try, i think? the only line i'd really draw is i don't want to work anywhere near the american military-industrial complex for moral reasons

thank you again for asking zesty!!!! sorry for rambling so much and i hope you have a lovely day as well!!! <33333

[alexistudies]

How'd you get into a PhD program?

here's the really short, not exhausting version of how i went about it:

I had a few years of research experience and lots of academic extracurriculars from undergrad but my GPA wasn't good. So the first time I applied, I essentially only applied to master's programs and post-bacc programs. I got into the master's programs but turned them down because I didn't wanna pay.

So, I took a year to do a post-baccalaureate research education program to prove that i could handle full time research in BME as well as other graduate level coursework & such, then reapplied only to PhD programs.

both times i applied, i cold-emailed faculty before applying and scheduled meetings with them to convey my interest and for them to get to know me before seeing my shit GPA, and both times it worked in my favor. Definitely more so in my favor the 2nd time when i got 6 PhD offers instead of 3 master's offers.

if you know about Josh Allen, the QB for the Buffalo Bills, he sent emails to THOUSANDS of recruiters while playing in junior college just to finally get an offer from University of Wyoming. And now he's the STARTING QB for an NFL team.

if you'd like me to make a post going more in depth about it, I can but it will take a few weeks since i'm swamped with school rn!!

[qqueenofhades]

Okay. So. I have a question about academia and completely understand if you’d rather set this one aside. It’s a bit of a long-winded one on my part.

I started a masters program abroad last fall but had to leave after the first term because of serious illness (compounded by homesickness and burnout of course of course). I’m so happy that I made that decision, despite it grating against everything I have been telling myself for years about what it takes to live a fulfilling life. In truth, my illness revealed that I’d thrown myself deeper into academia for the wrong reasons. I’m grateful to have that insight now.

However, I’ve also gained a lot of new insight now that I’ve been working a normal office job for several months now. It’s a good job, maybe a little too disorganized on the leadership side, but the pay is good and my supervisor is great.

But I’m also really missing my research and classroom discussions and academic library access. If I give grad school another try, I wont be filling out any apps until next winter. I definitely can recognize I need more time (plus I have an idea for a research paper that I’d love to use as a writing sample — my research interests shifted A LOT in the one semester I spent in school).

Of course, that’s also nerve-wracking, considering how poorly I handled grad school the first time around. In addition to that, there’s the frustration with how academia is treated both internally and externally, as well as the fact that the job market for professors is just.. not great.

All of this is to say, what would you tell a grad-school-dropout who’s thinking about making a comeback? Is it worth the money, the time, the job insecurity once the PhD is hanging on the wall?

Thanks so much for taking the time (and congrats on the new bed!!) <3

Welp. Hmm. As ever, I both deeply sympathize with your desire to return to academia and also want to stand on your shoulder as a little Kronk shoulder angel (and/or devil) going BUT ARE YOU SURE???

(Yes, as the most pathologically Eternal Academite possibly to ever, I have zero ability to tell anyone else not to do it, but just picture me as a Greek chorus of worms standing on the passage as your ship sails in, spookily singing BEEEEEEEEWARE.)

As you note, you have a reasonably fulfilling setup now, you're making decent-ish money (surely more than you would make as an academic, BUT LET US NOT TALK ABOUT THAT) and you crashed and burned the last time you tried grad school. Now, that is not a reason NOT to do it again, since as you point out, things have changed, you're in a better place, you know what you want out of the experience, you changed research interests, etc. All of that means that yes, it is possible that you can rejigger yourself and try again, but I would definitely advise taking it very carefully.

First of all, don't apply for a masters-to-PhD program directly, as that will put more pressure on you and lead to the feeling that you HAVE to finish it if you've applied for the terminal degree. Apply for a master's program in your new field, check out flexible or part-time options for attendance, see what the financial aid is like (I have by far the most student debt from my master's degree, not my BA or PhD, which is... not great) and everything else to see how you can best ease yourself back in and make sure that you haven't committed too much money, time, and irreversible changes if it all goes FUBAR again. Trust me, I KNOW that deep deep yearning for research, academic credentials, and library database logins; witness me singing to the heavens when I got this job and LO, ALL MY BELOVED ELECTRONIC JOURNALS RETURNED TO ME, I HAVE WANDERED IN THE DESERT. I'm researching a new book chapter now, 18 months-ish later, and I still get drunk with power over being able to JUST OPEN FULL TEXT PDFS and USE A UNIVERSITY LIBRARY TO ORDER OBSCURE ACADEMIC BOOKS. It really does just tickle some deep KNOWLIDGE!!! button in your brain, and I get it. I really very much do. So yes, if you still feel that itch despite all the Horrors of last time, it might be worth following up.

I would not recommend uprooting your entire life again to go somewhere else, unless you get a really gangbusters financial-aid offer and/or there's some compelling reason that makes it worthwhile. There may be a school nearer you that offers what you want and which may allow you to stay in your current place and work at your current job, even part-time. Or there might be an online option; plenty of reputable name-brand schools are expanding into online programs, so it's not just scammy diploma mills and the University of Phoenix in that arena. If you want to have the traditional campus in-person experience and don't feel as if a virtual degree is bang for your buck, that is something else to consider, but yes: do take it carefully, apply for only the master's first (as I have said before, if you can be happy doing anything other than a PhD especially in the humanities, please do that), see what your part-time options are, don't rush, reach out to faculty at some potential schools, reach out to the financial aid department, generally do your homework and make sure it feels right. I'm absolutely not going to say don't do it, since as noted that would make me a blazing hypocrite. Just take the hard-earned lessons of last time and put them to careful and thoughtful use, and I'm sure you'll discover what's best for you.

Good luck!

[szarolina]

intro

Witam! I had been lurking in the studyblr community before I left Tumblr a few years ago. Yet here I come again and hope I still fit since I'm not a student anymore. I hope we'll get along!

About

I'm Karolina and I'm 27 years old.

From Poland (with love ♡).

INTJ & 5w6 / 8w9

I'm a graduate of two Master degrees: 1) International Relations in Asia 2) Russian & Central Asian Studies. I'm currently writing two theses and hopefully finish them by December.

Next, I want to enroll in PhD program and focus on politics, economy and markets in East and Southeast Asia.

In the meantime I'm looking for a job in the field. I'm thinking of an analyst of the area (just Asia or better Eurasia so it would cover both my degrees), but mixing it with academic path, so while pursuing PhD degree.

One of my hobbies are foreign languages! Over time of my education I've managed to learn English, French, Russian and I'm still learning Japanese (currently at B1+ level). I used to learn Mandarin Chinese, but I intend to get back to it at some point. Also, I'm interested in picking Korean.

I like learning often just for sake of it since my mind needs to be constantly on the go (it gave me sleepless nights several times). It could be picking some textbook (I learnt bases of macroeconomics by myself), doing some online quizes on all seas, gulfs and straits or reading a popular history/science books (because of the Oppenheimer movie, I bought "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes and yes, that's my current read!). I just enjoy it.

I have a never-ending books list on my Goodreads account (2600+ and counting). I like nonfiction (history, biography, political science, business, economics, you name it) and catching up on classics. Also, a h u g e Nabokov fan.

I'm one of these people who need to write everything down, from day schedule, important dates and tasks to all kinds of lists, trackers and brain dump. My Filofax is with me everywhere I go.

In general, I tend to be super-organized and put together. That applies to my daily or at least weekly schedule, surroundings or appearance - otherwise I can't properly focus.

I can't live without good coffee and I'm very picky about it.

Blog

The plan is to make it more personal by posting original content: hopefully daily, realistically a few times per week - mostly covering my writing proccess and languages learning, but also other random things. I intend to reblog some posts too, but I wish to keep the balance between that and OC.

Tagging #szarolina and #karolinatalking

My inbox is always open! c:

[grison-in-space]

Hi. I am stuck in how to get a job I want. How did you do it? The little I know about it, sounds cool.

Ahahahaha. I'm not sure how great my job actually is, but it does give me the opportunity to chase down questions. It's also pretty good for adapting to my various neurodivergences because the hours are flexible and it's got a high tolerance for an absolutely batshit random scattering of skills.

On the other hand, it doesn't pay for shit and I spent eight years getting my PhD and making even worse money, so. And it requires so much moving. Traditionally, I should be done here within a few more years—I've already been at my current position two years but I'm doing a weird thing that is moving slowly—and then have to make an interstate or even intercontinental move. In practice, I may change careers again to avoid that: eight years of PhD in Texas left me with some pretty bad scarring, and I don't know that I have it in me to move again.

Anyway, you asked how I got here. I have a basically boring career progression for an academic: I started by working in a lab tech during undergrad, and then I applied for PhD programs during my senior year. I really should have taken another year or two to grow up some more and figure my shit out, but that's hindsight. My program was oriented around ecology, evolution, and behavior, with a distinct slant towards evolution; I worked with a behavior lab within that. I graduated in 2020, which was incredibly bad timing: normally, after you get the PhD you go work for a year or two in a lab under a senior scientist that heads the lab (a PI or Primary Investigator). Their grant pays your salary, right? But no one was hiring during COVID, because everyone good to work with I had been cultivating was hunkering down and not taking new people; they were busily sheltering existing postdocs or students in place, or the funding opportunities we had planned to pursue together dried up and were outright canceled in the wake of COVID. Not that I'm bitter. I wound up making a huge field move in order to stay in academia and keep doing work I cared about, which has meant leaving EEB and moving into neuroscience.

Less specifically, if you want to know how I got into a job I liked? I did (and do) a lot of yelling on the internet, both pseudonymously and under my real name, about the things I think and feel strongly about. One of those things went moderately viral back in 2017, and my now-boss saw it and loved it. I approached her about a potential job when my other opportunities fell through, and she had money and she made space for me. I'm extremely grateful.

In my experience, the best way to get a job you like is to talk a lot and compliment all the people you genuinely think are doing cool things. Even if you're shy—and I am, I have leveraged the hell out of the internet to do this because it takes so many fewer spoons for me than making friends in person—you gotta take the risk and spread out friendly communications with a real wide net.

Focus on finding people doing stuff you think is interesting and give them honest compliments, then ask questions. Lots of low grade positive interactions, and you want to invest more in talking to people who also talk back to you. I have had good luck with mostly approaching other low ranking new folks like me; they tend to be more surprised and delighted by compliments and then they're willing to give me a little more attention. If people don't respond I shrug and move on: the important thing is that I try to make the people around me whose work impresses me feel good about that. I am a really critical person by nature, so I work hard at deliberately looking for things to praise in the work of people around me.

Anyway, you asked how I got here, and the short answer is, I made a lot of good friends and that saved my ass when I wound up in a tight place.

[wetcatspellcaster]

hello! i have a question about finding time to write because i have an idea for an astarion fic but it's my first year in my ph.d. program and i am DROWNING IN WORK AND READINGS. how did you do this AND work on your dissertation? (also congrats on that!!! that's massive!!!)

hello, anon, congratulations to YOU on your phd programme!! many felicitations on the continuing of your education.

I took a while to reply to this, bc I'm not sure if I'm the best person to ask this question. my personal answer is 'hyperfixate on the dopamine source so, so hard until you burnout, and then feel guilty bc you haven't updated in ages (I'm currently one week since an update), and then let that guilt become your new motivator! :D'

...which doesn't seem very healthy. and definitely impacts my ability to answer the question in a way that is actually helpful.

so i don't have an answer, but my honest pieces of advice are below the cut.

idk what kinda PhD you are doing, but if it's a humanities, in my experience, there are dips and lulls. first year is always a bit hectic bc the imposter syndrome is high and you feel like you're treading water to stay afloat. but things will get so much easier, and will in fact go through peaks and troughs! in 2nd and 3rd year, i had months without any work at all. wait for a trough to do some drafting. if you're currently really struggling, then just sketch as detailed an outline as you can in a document when the idea is fresh, and then you can return to it in dribs and drabs when you have a spare moment. [if you're a scientist, apologies in advance, you have a much harder life than me!] .

this one isn't very burnout friendly, but i am introverted and treat writing fic like a hobby for when i have no social battery. then my fic battery runs out, i go be social. yes, this kinda just spreads the burnout around. yes, i also know writing is still work! but it doesn't feel like it, to me. so I guess make your fic idea as much about fun, and as least about work, as possible. make it into the catnip that will make you come back to it. treat it as an escape rather than another magnum opus, or god forbid, a second dissertation. .

this also applies to PhD work - again, if you are a humanities student, you'll inevitably hit a writing block in your thesis. these are normal, and though they feel like the worst thing at the time, they will inevitably shift. thesis writing block when i was often very productive with fic, bc my thesis wasn't taking up my brain power and/or taking time away from my thesis was exactly what i needed. If you're burned out on the thesis, maybe spend some time just playing around in your brain for a bit. my friend told me about how she used fic as a way to build 'mastery' - when she was depressed or feeling down about her thesis, she would do something she knew she was good at (fic), and this would lift her mood. in the self critical world of academia, sometimes a little fic positivity goes a long way (at least for me, but that's bc both my supervisors are very very harsh, the exact opposite of the AO3 comment box). .

find an update schedule that works for you. i used to write a whole fic before i published any of it, but that's become more untenable as my wordcounts get bigger and i need motivation. now, comments fuel me when i'm drafting. so honestly, if you think posting will add pressure, don't post. write it just for you. if you think posting is the only thing that will keep the idea alive, do it and then don't feel guilt if there's a large gap in updates. people will still read it when it eventually goes up! :)

Honestly, I don't really have an answer. I wrote a lot these last few months bc I was feeling very depressed with the endgame of my thesis, and writing distracted me and made me feel better. I try to keep two nights a week free for fic, but that works for me bc I'm an introvert who lives alone. I don't think you can force it, but what I can tell you is that the PhD does get much, much easier (and that first year is also a perfectly legit time to faff around a bit and commit some time theft if you want - at least in the humanities, bc you'll still have so much time in your project).

I'm sorry I don't have a clear answer! Fic is important to me, so I make time for it, sometimes to my own detriment. If your PhD is what is important to you rn, fic can wait! Similarly, if you want to take some time away from that treading water, maybe microdose an hour or so of fic to start building mastery :) xx

[bettsfic]

Hi Beth! I’ve tried to get a couple essays/poems published in literary magazines, but it is always so painful to get rejected, and I’m wondering if it is even worth it to continue pursuing publication. Do people even read the stuff that comes out in literary magazines anymore? There are a few that I read occasionally, but honestly, it feels like a waste of time and emotional energy to read and submit to magazines that in the long term won’t really change anything for me.

Should I just keep writing and posting stuff to my own social media/blogs instead?

that's a great question! the answer depends on your goals.

if you want to get into an MFA program...

lit mag publishing is helpful but not necessary to get into a good program. moreover, part of what you'll be doing in the MFA is learning about publishing, so you'll be doing that work there anyway. the MFA is also for exploration, so if you don't really have your own aesthetic defined yet, it makes sense to wait and focus on your writing sample for your grad application.

if you want to become a creative writing professor...

hands down, if you want to be in academia, you need to be well published. submitting is more or less a part-time job. rack up those CV lines.

(for this you'll also need an MFA, so that's the first step regardless.)

if you want to get an agent and publish a book...

lit mag publications can be helpful when querying agents, and once you sign an agent, those publications will help them pitch your book to editors. it shows that you've been through a formal editorial process on a smaller scale before venturing to one on a bigger scale. in some ways, if it helps, you can see lit mag publishing as practice for book publishing.

if you want to be read...

write fanfic.

what i mean is, you're right, other than like The New Yorker and Granta and whatnot, lit mags don't tend to have a wide distribution. if you have a greater readership and more meaningful interaction on social media, then it makes sense to share your work with the audience you've already built.

however, if you get published in an online magazine, you can have the best of both worlds: it's a formal publication *and* your existing readership will have access to it. also, if you're publishing poetry, a lot of my poet friends screencap the poem from the publication and share it on social media. but i'm not a poet, so i'm not sure what exactly the etiquette there is.

if you want to make money...

hard stop, you won't make significant money publishing in lit mags. you could make significant money pitching articles to news outlets and regular magazines, though. a lot of writers make a career on that.

if you want to live the writing life...

what i mean by "the writing life" is the big picture of things. it's not about publishing, it's about everything. when you choose the writing life, you're choosing to put your writing above all other things (professionally, i mean. lots of writers have families and a social life).

the writing life is a gamut: you get an MFA, you maybe get a PhD, you teach, you publish, you edit, you apply to grants, you keep up your CV, you get some awards, you go to residencies, and so on. and once you get a book out, you get ARCs, you blurb, you mentor, you do readings, you go on book tours, you do interviews.

and if that's your goal, lit mag publishing becomes occasional but eternal. you're settled in for the long con and so you don't have to push so hard. for me anyway, i only submit when i come across a magazine i like. i spend most of my submission and rejection energy on residencies and grants.

i went to a talk by Mary Gaitskill once and someone asked her if publishing ever gets easier. she said that book publishing gets easier because you can become established and gain an audience, but lit mag publishing is always hard. she's one of the most lauded living American writers, and she said she still gets lit mag rejections.

if you've finished something you're proud of and want to find a home for it...

this is why most writers publish, i think. it's less about clout and prestige and whatever else, and more about putting your work on a shelf and being able to say, "this belongs somewhere that it can be seen and appreciated." i have a folder in my drive called "homeless stories" and it's full of pieces that i either tried to publish and gave up on, or stories that i didn't feel like sending out. i have probably 10x more original work that hasn't seen the light of day than work that has.

if you hate the idea of sitting on a story or a poem, then keep looking for a home for it.

if you want to avoid rejections...

there's no way to avoid rejections. they're inherent in any pursuit where your work has to go through a gate of approval. but i promise you, rejections are meaningless. your favorite author has received a thousand of them. a rejection means your work didn't suit the taste of the editor, and when you receive a rejection, it's helpful to remind yourself that their taste probably sucks. a rejection means your work met a slush reader who had a headache that day and wasn't reading closely enough. a rejection means a magazine got hundreds of submissions and maybe you made it to the longlist or the shortlist but you'll never know because not all mags tell you that. a rejection means that maybe one of the editors fought hard for your piece and lost.

handling rejection gets easier as you accumulate acceptances. every acceptance you get means some editor somewhere read your piece and vibed with it, and values the work you're doing.

in short:

stop submitting if you feel like you're not ready to publish, or

keep submitting if you're ready to and you're in it for the long con

and in closing, i'll tell you what every professor and mentor i've ever had has told me (and which i hated to hear): publishing will always be there for you. there's no hurry.

[asrisgratitudejournal]

Ku lagi stres banget apa PMS ya (nggak sih kayanya, masih lama) atau gimana ya, buka linked in dapet mesej terus emosi:

"Mohon maaf sebelumnya, saya ingin bertanya perihal admission di Oxford. Berdasarkan pengalaman sebelumnya, kira kira dokumen apa saja yg perlu dipersiapkan selain IELTS dan pastinya Visa Study ya? Apakah mba Asri sebagai scholarship awardee?"

Terus irritated banget??? Bukan salah dia sih dan ku betulan bisa banget gak jawab/ngacangin; tapi ku sangat ingin jawab sesuai kebutuhan dan yang ada malah ku harus balik nanya: 1. Dirimu mau apply program apa? Master? PhD? PGcert? PGdip? Dari tipe degreenya aja dah beda.

2. Mau apply course apa? Karena tiap course, heck, bahkan course yang sama 1 dept tapi tiap spv/lab/PI/tipe research beda funding (NERC DTP, lepasan kek aku, atau mode funding lain) aja udah beda juga jalur admissionnya, apalagi document yang disubmit.

3. Visa study baru bisa keluar setelah dapet LoA dong... gabisa kita buat sendiri...

Yaudah sebetulnya instead of ngabisin energi nulis dan marah-marah di sini, bisa ngetik dua kalimat buat reply dia... Tapi betulan please teman-temanku kalau nanya ke orang bisa tanya google dulu yah...

Selain question ini, pernah juga belum lama masuk dm linkedin: "Hi Kak, I'm XXX, a freshgrad from ITB aiming to get a Scholarship. I'm impressed w/ ur experience, both intra and extra-curricular activities. Do you mind to share more abt your experience?". Kayak... where do I even begin... Jadinya cuma ku-reply: "Hi! I rarely open LinkedIn, so it would be better to email me at qwerty@gmail.com. I can share with you a lot about my scholarship, but I don't know where to start. Just email me specific questions, and I'll answer! Maybe you can start by telling me what stage you are right now in the application, and we can start talking from there!". TERUS literally silence from his part & the email never came... Barusan jadinya sudah kubalas sesingkat mungkin literally sharing apa aja yg kusubmit dan bilang "iya aku jardine awardee".

Sekian dulu rant hari ini, mungkin memang waktunya makansiang.

[corruptedplaylist]

act iii: final notes

edit: 4/9/2024: added some more stuff!!! i'll put this emoji 🫧 next to the new things so u know where to scroll.

AHHHHHHHHHHHH I FINISHED MY FIRST FULL LENGTH FIC HOLD ON LEMME JUST THROW UP IN THE CORNER REAL QUICK

i am sooooooo normal rn anyways let's get into it thank u for having me on the show, mr. kimmel. i've had a raging headache all day so the content underneath each sections will be kinda short. i'll go through and add more to it once i recover but i wanted to get this up before the week got too busy!

krolia

guys…. im so sorry for the angst….. it was necessary for the plot…….

maybe it’s just me projecting but in the actual show, i kind of wish we had seen more of the emotional fallout that occurred after krolia revealed that she was keith’s mom. because let’s be real here, there’s no way that keith’s traumatized ass would just willingly accept her back into his life. he’d have questions. he’d be in disbelief. it’s hard for him to open up to others and he carries a lot of hurt from being abandoned.

it was crucial in the course of this fic to have that confrontation between krolia and keith. it's not always going to be rainbows and sunshine, and even though they both missed each other deeply, you don't just automatically connect and forget everything that's happened. even if keith hadn't gone into the foster system, he definitely would have carried a lot of anger and hurt towards krolia when she shows back up. i'm sure that things won't just be smooth sailing and they'll need to hash things out multiple times as they rebuild their relationship but that first fight was a big hurdle to get over.

if you’re curious, i have a whooollleeee backstory for what happened with krolia and why she couldn’t get back to her kid. i couldn’t really fit it into the fic but i’ll put it right here for those who are interested:

2000: krolia in the US on student visa, first year of of PhD program

krolia meets heath and they fall in love

2003: krolia gives birth to keith

2008: krolia finishes grad school/PhD program/doctoral degree and applies for a work visa 

2009: she and heath and baby keith are living their life but krolia’s parents find out and are like girl you need to come home NOW or we will disown you 

krolia’s family are really wealthy and powerful 

krolia: i’ll come back for you guys idk how but i will 

krolia goes back to the states

2009-2011: she and heath write letters but then the letters start getting intercepted by the family and eventually peters out

krolia in arranged marriage and thinks her partner forgot about her or didn’t care

meanwhile heath doesn’t know what happened to krolia but can’t do anything about it bc she’s in a diff country and he doesn’t speak korean

2011: heath and keith move to texas for job or whatever

heath tells keith all about krolia and how she loves him but can’t be there and obvi that fucks keith up bc he misses his mom but where tf is she? how does he know she loves him if she’s not even there? he's a little kid

2013: heath dies and keith is put into the system

heath has no other family members

krolia put her english name on the birth certificate and so ofc she doesn’t exist in the US

texas social services try to reach out to krolia along with some friends but letters are intercepted

2016: someone reaches out to krolia after she finally gets facebook 

friend: thinking of you. miss you. so sorry about heath

krolia: …. what the fuck about heath?

friend: uhhhhhhhh

krolia goes on rampage to her family like wtf u mean u didn’t tell me that the father of my child is dead

cousin shows up with the intercepted letters (official notice from social services, heath’s letters and pictures, keith’s little notes and drawings)

krolia starts the process of legally and financially emancipating herself from her family (she basically was Britney’d)

2017/2018: finally is free and able to get a job in the states

starts tracking down heath (they only had a forwarding address for krolia so they’re like wtf who is this bih)

at this point, keith has already met the shiroganes and changed his name

krolia is in a different state and can only do so much 

spends the next few years trying to find him, hires P.I., again keep running into blocks bc social workers and case managers are NOT going to budge on giving up keith's personal information

2023, winter break: krolia reaches out to keith through facebook but it goes into his spam since they’re not facebook friends

allura

what better allegory for sacrificing yourself to save the universe is there than graduating college? in all fairness, i felt like sticking to the notion of allura saying goodbye and leaving the group had its merit, just y’know, i wanted to take a step down from the whole dying thing. i tried to pay homage to the canon material as much as possible while also providing my own spin on things.

one thing that’s been important to me is depicting allura as a college student. sure, while i think most iterations of allura as a kind and a great leader and intelligent are great, even in modern au fics, i just wish there had been a bit more... silliness? outside of her being like the girlboss, the hell yeah supporting character or love interest or bone-tired leader, i always wonder what she would have been like if she hadn't had to save the universe and was just trying to heal on her own terms. yeah, i nerfed her parents in this universe but i tried to showcase her doing normal college things as well, like presenting at research conferences, getting a bit messy drunk, having pizza nights and group hang outs. the funny thing about grief is that life does not stop for it, so you have to just figure things out along the way.

i also didn't want to elaborate too much on her relationship with lotor. she didn't magically heal from that one conversation with lance in chapter 8 but i wanted the readers to get a taste of what was going on in her head through their dialogue. plus, it was a little moment to show how she was allowing herself to open up to other people like lance. no one woman is an island, no matter how much of a bad b!tch you are.

🫧 also, i wanted to include it somewhere but basically, keith knew allura and romelle were hooking up since chapter 14! keith caught romelle sneaking out of allura's room early one morning and he just kept it to himself because snitches get stitches.

pidge

they are so precious to me. they're an amalgamation of 2 of my closest friends, and well, me.

i always knew that pidge was going to be a super important piece in klance development. while lance and keith are great friends, i think pidge played a crucial role in bridging them together in the beginning, before the two of them had cleared up their misunderstandings and made that truce. sure, allura asked them to be on the paintball team but pidge really forced the two of them into close quarters. lance might have extended the offer to keith to hand out without pidge or he might not have. honestly, i'm not really sure. but pidge inviting keith to hang out in chapter 4 was a quiet but big moment because both keith and lance are friends with pidge and will set aside their differences long enough to tolerate each other's presence in a shared space. pidge just has #babyofthefriendgroup privileges.

🫧 i honestly think that after the main two, pidge has undergone the most growth (physically and emotionally) throughout the fic, even though they're a supporting character. we can all benefit from community and friendship but i think pidge needed it a little bit more.

🫧 i partially wrote pidge to represent my younger self, especially when i first attended college. i was scared and alone and i had never been away from home and it was a struggle to form new relationships (and figure out my gender identity. mannnnnn fuck that). it was nice to see pidge find their place and niche among the greater social fabric of college, kind of like comforting my younger self for all the loneliness and uncertainty i endured.

hunk

i love hunk so dearly. ngl, i wanted him to have a bigger arc than he did but hopefully i did a decent job at making feel more well-rounded as a supporting character. i decided to actually kind of lean into this distance in the later chapters as well, esp from lance's pov, as they both got busier. at the end of the day, though, i knew that those two would come back together. hunk is a kind and sympathetic friend and his and lance's friendship will persevere because they're good communicators. their little talk in chapter 17 was me talking to myself and to anyone else who has went through a similar thing where they find themselves drifting a little farther from a friend.

people get busy and that's okay! there will be ebbs and flows in every relationship. even though shared history is a crucial part of a friendship but it can't be the only thing that will keep it going. you need to nurture it and tend to it in order for it to keep it alive and flourishing. hunk understands this and he and lance will be just fine after their talk. hunk is probably the most emotionally intelligent person after adam in the group, and i'm glad he was there to help both lance and keith out when they needed it.

adam

this man!!!!! got i have gotten so fucking attached to adam throughout this fic. he is so dear to me. i know in chapter 10 i wrote from adam's pov and he's a goofy guy in his twenties who's just trying to be a good dad friend but somehow he ended up being a voice of reason and comfort for klance in this fic. lance misses his family a lot and i think adam can not only relate to lance with the homesickness but also lance has started to rely on him a bit like he would with his siblings.

i wanted to try my own spin on adam and keith's relationship. i've seen fics where adam and keith hate each other, don't interact much, or adam takes on a parenting role towards keith as a kid. i wanted to look at keith and adam in the context of two people who both love shiro and then grow to be good friends/surrogate brother-in-law? idk. long story short, adam is very emotionally intelligent and i think he genuinely wanted to get to know keith outside of his connection with shiro and was patient enough to coax keith out of his shell. i tried to write in small ways adam takes care of keith like giving him LactoJoys because Keith likes the taste better than Lactaids, being there for him for his panic attack, adding food to his plate. things that won't draw too much attention, because we all know how keith is about receiving acts of kindness.

i mentioned this in a comment under one of the chapters but all of the advice adam gives keith is either advice i personally received myself or something i wish i could tell my younger self. i hope those words bring you comfort as well!

shiro

i had a lot more planned for shiro but goddammit i had no fucking time or space at this panned out. it's more so klance's story than shiro's.

look, there's a small moment in chapter 18 where shiro is very pleased (and a little surprised) that keith has talked about him with krolia. it has less to do with his faith in keith and more with how he sees himself. shiro has already acknowledged that he has heavy imposter syndrome and deals with his own struggles with self image. it's just always a jolt to your system when someone (could be your own family or your partner of years) validates your relationship.

shiro loves keith very much and just wants to be the best big brother. he has such eldest child syndrome, where he tries to pretend that everything is fine even though things are actually crumbling around him. the thing is, though, you can't build intimacy— real, lasting intimacy and depth in a relationship— without being vulnerable. shiro understands that even though he wants keith to work on opening up, he has to do the same and reciprocate the actions, or else neither of them will really get anywhere and be stuck in that loop of "are you mad at me/i feel like you're hiding something from me/i don't really know who you are."

i tried writing a bit from shiro's pov but i quickly realized that that would drastically change the tone of the fic so i had to scrap it. i might post a little oneshot in the distant future with adashi, though.

keith

🫧 i've talked about this before but although i think keith grew the most as a character in the canon show, that shit was WAY too fast and off-screen. also, i know that the whole found family trope is what drew a lot of fans to voltron in the first place (like me) but is the found family in the room with us rn? i felt like they all started to fall apart or at least weren't as close as the show wanted us to believe. it felt a lot like telling with no showing. other than some occasional moments in the show, the whole #teamasfamily felt hollow.

🫧 i wanted to build on this potential found family for keith's character. he's never had a support system before and he's used to pushing people away but now he has a whole ass friend group that's ready to fight for him if he gives the word.

🫧 initially, when i was writing keith's pov and trying to get a feel for his voice and tone, i struggled a bit. keith is one of those characters that i liked and sympathized with, but getting into his head was a whole different story. i'm more of a lance kinnie but once i got the hand of keith's voice, it was a lot easier. some of my best pieces of writing are from keith's pov! i tried to be as cognizant of keith's development as much as possible as i wrote (think me having various checkpoints for his journey whereas with lance i could just coast on vibes), and i'm pleased with how far he's come.

🫧 although both keith and lance's progress can showcased through their consciousness and thoughts (like duh ur reading from their povs), i leaned into keith's behavior as a way to portray his progress a bit more than lance. things like him being more open to physical affection, not sitting on the outskirts of group dynamics and sticking to shiro, and allowing himself to collect things, which by the way:

🫧 i like the idea of keith's room, once being so empty and ghost-like, is now full of stuff, mementos of his relationships that he's built. i tried to sprinkle in some relics from past chapters (paintball flag, polaroids, ticket stubs), as well add some new tidbits, like shiro giving him a cacti and that korean cookbook!

proud of u, keith bby <3

lance and marco

no i did not just torture lance for the sake of torturing him i would never do that to my boy.

i know this is a fanfiction, but from the start, i wanted to ground this fic in reality and breathe some life into it. lance's little arc with his brother having a substance abuse problem was loosely inspired by events in my personal life.

🫧 i'm not saying that everyone goes through something as drastic as a loved one going to rehab, but as young adults, when we leave home for uni, jobs, other opportunities, etc, there's this worry that something bad will happen while we're away. and often times it does. someone gets sick, a beloved pet passes away, it's all bound to happen. your childhood becomes a thing of the past, and things that you thought would stay the same just won't.

i projected a lot of my feelings onto lance ngl, and writing him work through his own grief and guilt over not being able to be with his family when they're going through a crisis helped me process a little bit more.

although lance had a happier ending than a lot of families might get in reality, i still wanted to show lance having a support system at college and realizing that he has a second family to lean on, and people who love and support him. he doesn't have to pretend to be okay for anyone and that's okay.

black paladin lance or as close to it as i could get

it was so important for me to make lance the new captain of their paintball team, as a stand-in for the black paladin arc he could have had in the show. he’s always been a selfless guy who puts others first and really pulls up when he needs to. he deserves to be recognized for that. not only did every single one of his friends validate him, but the person he looks up to the most literally endorsed him. lance struggles with his inferiority complex and the election scene was a little feel good moment for me, personally, so that he could receive the acknowledgement he deserves, especially with his growth. he's gonna be an awesome team captain (he'll be shuffling down to shiro's room at 2am covered in hickeys and talking about paintball strategies).

wrapping up loose ends

i tried to wrap up as many loose ends as possible and give all the characters a proper send-off. originally i wanted lance and hunk to also move into the house in castle street, like repurpose the basement or something but i realized that that just wasn’t possible because most college basements don’t even have heating or like,,,, a livable arrangement.

ultimately, i think it makes sense for pidge to be the one to take up allura’s room at the house. pidge has lived a single during the academic year but they also had lance and hunk right fifty feet away so it’s not like they REALLY lived alone that year. there was also the logistics of the house having a vacant room, and as much as i would have loved to have all of voltron under the same roof (hunk and pidge sharing a room, keith and lance sharing a room), i think they would kill each other. pidge filling in the gap felt like the right move. and lance and hunk are gonna be over a lot anyways, so it’s not like much has changed in the trio's group dynamic.

🫧 what was your favorite chapter to write?

i think i have different chapters in mind for different reasons, even if it's a copout answer. here are the chapters that are dearest to me:

chapter 4: recalibration this is the chapter where i really got to play around with character interactions. keith and lance's worlds were beginning to integrate in chapter 3 but in this chapter, i got to explore different friendships, like keith & pidge and lance & hunk, and the dynamics they entailed. you can see how important these friendships are to both lance and keith, and how their connection with others eventually helps them to reflect on their previous feelings toward each other, like "hmm maybe i've been too harsh with the other."

chapter 10: let's go to the beach the group dynamics were so solidified to this point, and it was so fun to write. i loved writing from adam's pov and being able to zoom out and showcase klance's relationship progression.

the winter break interludes i waxed poetic about these in a previous faq but to reiterate: i'm really pleased with the way each individual chapter turned out. i love a good character study, and it was a great challenge to my writing and characterization to dig deeper into their home lives and see how the past confronted the present, where their respective childhoods were brought into the light, and how long-held notions of belonging, home, and identity were challenged and remolded.

chapter 17: warm and light my beta reader drunkenguac said that this was some of my best writing and i've been coasting off of that validation for the past 4 months. keith's reunion with his mother was especially cathartic for me. as an adoptee, writing this chapter honestly helped me work through some of my feelings about my adoption as i pictured what it would look like if i was ever reunited with my birth mother. i'm very fortunate that i didn't have to go through the same experiences keith did, but i tried to imbue as much humanness as possible into his section.

chapter 18: moving on it just felt like a proper send-off, the one that we never got from s8 of voltron. i wanted the last chapter to basically have this vibe of "hey, things won't be the same but it's going to be okay because we have each other." when shiro tells matt in the end, "we'll still be here," that's me as the author, telling you, the reader, that this fic will still be here whenever you want to revisit it. it was a comfort to write and i've heard that it's a comfort to read, which is so so so gratifying. when i set out to write this fic in august of 2023, i didn't have any plans of grandeur or even expect like more than 100 people read it— it was just a passion project that i decided to share, and i'm glad that others have sought safety in it. outside of fandom, this fic is a love letter to my own college experience. i remember reading a college au fic when i was still in high school and lonely and closeted and repressed and wondering if i would ever be able to get out of my hometown and find a community as tightly-knit as the fic portrayed it. in a way, i got to reflect on my college experience by writing looking out for you. i find solace in this fic when i read back over it, and i can see aspects of my adventures throughout my freshman and sophomore and junior and senior years, waving from behind a thinly veiled curtain. this fic is dedicated to all the people who made my college experience.

anyways that's me rambling for now! thank you again to everyone who has tuned into looking out for you. this is the first piece of creative writing i've done in a long time, and i never expected to actually finish it. i'm so happy with the way it turned out and the love it's received. until next time!