Procrastination
Must. Find. Discipline.
It's kind of strange how I manage to be the anthithesis of a procrastinator when it comes to classes and things that don't matter too much in the grand scheme of things, yet on much more vitally important matters, like grad school applications, I seem to have a slight problem motivating myself.
In fairness to myself, I have made significant progress in the past week. I went from having very littile done, beyond filling out some of the application information online, to developing a fairly detailed outline and write a full draft (1,008 words) of my statement of purpose. Heck, I've even managed to get comments on it from history grad student and assistant master extraordinaire Guy Ortolano and the incomparable U.S. historian and adviser Nancy MacLean, both of whom had high praise and similar recommendations for revision (principally that I remove my unintentional dissing of U.S. history and all wordiness). So really, I'm in good shape.
In fact, once I finish revising that esssay, I'll just need to tweak it a bit, maybe pare it down some, before uploading it and completing my application for Michigan, which is good, considering that the application is due December 1 and I realistically need to have it finished and mailed before I leave for Thanksgiving on Tuesday.
Likewise, I need to get my application for Berkeley done and submitted in the next few days. And, again, I've got the lion's share of the application done. Revising my personal statement is the main thing. Additionally, I need to write an essay of 8000 characters (that's a helpful guide to how long it should be, I know) to apply for fellowships at Berkeley. The essay prompt is fairly similar to the sort of things that need to go into the personal statement, except that it's explicit in saying it shouldn't duplicate the personal statement. Go figure. There's also a shorter blurb (2000 characters) I have to write to apply for a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship, just explaining what relevance the Czech language will have for my future career as a scholar of Czech history. That sounds really difficult.
But, actually doing all these things, revising my personal statement, writing the other two essays, requires a little determination on my part. Or rather, it means I can't continue to sit on the couch surfing the Internet and reading Al Franken's latest book. Plus, there are the other lesser, but still important tasks that accompany this. Chief among those being to tailor my senior thesis so that I use excerpts of the appropriate length for each school. (I can't tell you how maddening it is that every program requires a personal statement and writing sample, yet each one seems to settle upon a different length for how long it is. Maybe it's because they don't want people to write something once and send the same thing to half a dozen schools, as I'm more or less planning. But it's not like I'm going to write half a dozen essays when I'm going to be pleading the same case in each one, save for a small part where I tailor it to the program. Work with me, people!) All these things must be done, preferably by the end of the weekend, but they all require me to show more initiative than I've exhibited since finishing the draft of my personal statement late Monday night.
Anyway, stay posted for the tales of my application process. I'm just grateful that it all looks to be downhill from here, that I've gotten through the hardest part of it in drafting a personal statement and will just have to force myself to do the necessary tweaking of it for each application. Not to mention, I've also got all my recommenders lined up (and at least one of whom I know has already written and mailed the recommendations). So, I think I've got it all under control. I wish it didn't cost so bloody much ($380 total for six schools) to apply. Hopefully my work will pay off in spades as I'll have six schools banging down my door with generous offers of fellowships for me to give them the privilege of conferring a doctorate upon me.
Well, I can dream.
It's kind of strange how I manage to be the anthithesis of a procrastinator when it comes to classes and things that don't matter too much in the grand scheme of things, yet on much more vitally important matters, like grad school applications, I seem to have a slight problem motivating myself.
In fairness to myself, I have made significant progress in the past week. I went from having very littile done, beyond filling out some of the application information online, to developing a fairly detailed outline and write a full draft (1,008 words) of my statement of purpose. Heck, I've even managed to get comments on it from history grad student and assistant master extraordinaire Guy Ortolano and the incomparable U.S. historian and adviser Nancy MacLean, both of whom had high praise and similar recommendations for revision (principally that I remove my unintentional dissing of U.S. history and all wordiness). So really, I'm in good shape.
In fact, once I finish revising that esssay, I'll just need to tweak it a bit, maybe pare it down some, before uploading it and completing my application for Michigan, which is good, considering that the application is due December 1 and I realistically need to have it finished and mailed before I leave for Thanksgiving on Tuesday.
Likewise, I need to get my application for Berkeley done and submitted in the next few days. And, again, I've got the lion's share of the application done. Revising my personal statement is the main thing. Additionally, I need to write an essay of 8000 characters (that's a helpful guide to how long it should be, I know) to apply for fellowships at Berkeley. The essay prompt is fairly similar to the sort of things that need to go into the personal statement, except that it's explicit in saying it shouldn't duplicate the personal statement. Go figure. There's also a shorter blurb (2000 characters) I have to write to apply for a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship, just explaining what relevance the Czech language will have for my future career as a scholar of Czech history. That sounds really difficult.
But, actually doing all these things, revising my personal statement, writing the other two essays, requires a little determination on my part. Or rather, it means I can't continue to sit on the couch surfing the Internet and reading Al Franken's latest book. Plus, there are the other lesser, but still important tasks that accompany this. Chief among those being to tailor my senior thesis so that I use excerpts of the appropriate length for each school. (I can't tell you how maddening it is that every program requires a personal statement and writing sample, yet each one seems to settle upon a different length for how long it is. Maybe it's because they don't want people to write something once and send the same thing to half a dozen schools, as I'm more or less planning. But it's not like I'm going to write half a dozen essays when I'm going to be pleading the same case in each one, save for a small part where I tailor it to the program. Work with me, people!) All these things must be done, preferably by the end of the weekend, but they all require me to show more initiative than I've exhibited since finishing the draft of my personal statement late Monday night.
Anyway, stay posted for the tales of my application process. I'm just grateful that it all looks to be downhill from here, that I've gotten through the hardest part of it in drafting a personal statement and will just have to force myself to do the necessary tweaking of it for each application. Not to mention, I've also got all my recommenders lined up (and at least one of whom I know has already written and mailed the recommendations). So, I think I've got it all under control. I wish it didn't cost so bloody much ($380 total for six schools) to apply. Hopefully my work will pay off in spades as I'll have six schools banging down my door with generous offers of fellowships for me to give them the privilege of conferring a doctorate upon me.
Well, I can dream.
posted by Alexander Dubcek | 14:23
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