With a couple exceptions, I’m not particularly close with anyone in my cohort at York or its equivalent at Carleton. Most of the people I talk to were beginning their PhD when I was beginning my M.A. or, in the case of one of them, beginning his PhD when I was in fourth year. They’re all graduating. One, who defended on Friday, is taking up a post-doc at Max Planck in Berlin; another, who defends at the end of June, is moving to CLA position at Mt. Allison; another has already defended and yet another is scheduled to defend this later this summer. Anne (who I’m not particularly close to) will most likely defend this summer. (She’s in, if I’m not mistaken, the same cohort as the guy taking up the position at Mt. Allison.)
Part of the reason I’m closer to these people rather than those in my own cohort is that I’m moving through my programme much quicker than the rest of my cohort. I’m the only one who is A.B.D. Some still have coursework to complete. Some have finished one of their comps. One person has begun to work on his proposal, but he hasn’t defended it yet. Many in cohorts a year or two ahead of mine haven’t progressed as far into their programmes as I have. Additionally, only one other person my M.A. cohort continued to on to a doctorate – and I think he’s only in a doctoral programme because he did an internal transfer. (I don’t think he would have moved to another school; not even sure if he applied elsewhere.)
In other news, writing/updating C.V.s is the most artificial task imaginable. All this work and massaging only to get to have the privilege of teaching second year students about Marx, Weber and Durkheim!
2 Comments
Hi Craig,
How are things going? Your not alone in moving quickly. Tara is finished her thesis already after three years. Agnes and I were ABD in December and I think a couple others are by now. So whiel I think you are righ to some extent about it being difficult when people are at such different stages, I think the problem with being close to others in the cohort (and I have the same concerns) is that there is absolutely no community at York.
Hi Ian, nice to hear from you. Being at York was always strange, either you joined an existing group of people with similar interests (I wonder if it was different for you and Agnes given your association with Engin’s research center?) or you didn’t. I didn’t – and still don’t – care much for either York or Toronto as a place. I found York to be a rather stark and depressing place while Toronto was excessively expensive, noisy and dirty. Putting them both together results in a somewhat unhappy situation. I’m glad to have left the city and to rarely come into campus, but I’m worried about being too close to Carleton. (I’ve applied to teach a course at Queen’s to get away from Carleton.)
Ultimately, the problem from where I am was that there was a community of graduate students at Carleton doing work that I was interested, there was a group of involved and interested faculty members, and we were able to relate beyond the particular situation of being a graduate student in the same programme.
Maybe that will change if Mike ends up moving to Ottawa in the fall.
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