[nabs-l] Career: Academic

[Karl Martin Adam]

Hi LeSholom,

I imagine this varies a great deal based on the country that you 
would want to get your Ph.D. in.  I can't tell you much about 
being a Ph.D. student because I'm not starting my Ph.D. until the 
fall, but I will say that at least in the U.S. in most academic 
fields it's better to skip the MA if you can and get straight 
into a Ph.D. program because you will not be able to transfer 
more than a semester or maybe two (if anything) of your MA 
credits and because MA programs are usually unfunded while Ph.D. 
programs are usually funded.  Generally what I've been told is 
that admissions committees primarily care about the quality of 
your writing sample and the quality of your letters of 
recommendation with GPA and your GRE scores being secondary 
factors--though many schools set cut off points and only look at 
applications with GPA and GRE scores above a certain threshold.  
In your case, your English proficiency test scores would also be 
important.  Of course your letters of recommendation will mean 
more if they're by well known scholars in your field, and if they 
can say good things about you (the latter is harder in an online 
program since your professors won't really get to know you in 
person).  Committees are really trying to find out whether you 
will be able to do well in their program and do research that 
will look good for the school, so any evidence that you have of 
conducting good research (things like publishing articles or 
presenting at conferences are good here) or any evidence that you 
have that you can work hard and deal with the stress is 
important.  I imagine you will get a lot more advice from people 
more knowledgable than me on this list, but you might also try 
the blind academics list.  I don't know the website off the top 
of my head, but I can try to find it later.

HTH,
Karl

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Leye-Shprintse Öberg via NABS-L <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 16:47:39 +0200
Subject: [nabs-l] Career: Academic

BS'D

Good afternoon everybody,

I've started to ponder if a career in academia would be something 
for me. I'm preparing my B.A. in Comparative Literature and after 
that I'll do my M.A. in Comparative Literature, I'm doing my B.A. 
online and I'll probably do my M.A. online as well, will it be 
seen negatively if I'll apply to a Ph.D. program in the future, 
the online program has the same curriculum as the campus program. 
In my country of birth1 it"s very uncommon for student to do 
Ph.Ds., so I've very little knowledge of what a Ph.D. program 
includes. Would a Ph.D. student be willing to give me the insight 
of how a life is for a Ph.D. student, I would be very thankful.

LeSholom,
Leye-Shprintse Öberg
E-mail: leyeshprintse at ymail.com
Blog: http://leyeshprintse.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/leyeshprintse
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeyeShprintse
Sent from my iPad Pro Mini

_______________________________________________
NABS-L mailing list
NABS-L at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info 
for NABS-L:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/kmaent1%40gma
il.com