(no subject)
Hello everyone,
I'm new here and have a few rather annoyingly general questions with which I hope I am not burdening you. Please excuse me if I am.
I have my BA in French Lang. and Lit. and Int'l Relations from BU. My undergrad GPA was not stellar, but not awful. I am currently finishing a Masters plus teaching certification in Early Childhood and Special Education at a state school in NJ. My GPA there is 3.9, which is great, but it isn't particularly hard to accomplish a high GPA at the school I'm currently attending, so I don't think it's worth much. I work as Assistant Manager of the Instructional Department for the US for a major chain of language schools. Now, the ten-year plan (ten years if I'm lucky) is to pursue a PhD in Linguistics. What I'd ultimately like to do is apply theories of language acquisition to educational reform. Linguistics has always been the dream, and I've studied independently for years, BUT I have no Linguistics to speak of on my transcript, no research, and no publications. I think my work and academic experience is relevant to linguistics, but it isn't linguistics per se.
I'm looking at different schools, and the forerunner at the moment is the CUNY grad center for their focus on language acquisition and syntax (that's where I get really nerdy), though I'm open to other programs, as well. I'm studying for the GRE, since I last took it over three years ago and my scores could be better. I'm reading every bit of linguistic research I can get my hands on, attending meetings of the Linguistic Society of America, and otherwise trying to immerse myself as much as possible in this world. What I do not know how to do is network, research, and publish, particularly now that I am working full time. Any suggestions? How does one go about contacting professors without sounding like a complete idiot/brownnoser/ leech? Anything else I should be doing now to bolster my application? I have about two years to get my act together, but time flies when you work full time and go to school at night, so I'm already getting quite nervous....
I'm new here and have a few rather annoyingly general questions with which I hope I am not burdening you. Please excuse me if I am.
I have my BA in French Lang. and Lit. and Int'l Relations from BU. My undergrad GPA was not stellar, but not awful. I am currently finishing a Masters plus teaching certification in Early Childhood and Special Education at a state school in NJ. My GPA there is 3.9, which is great, but it isn't particularly hard to accomplish a high GPA at the school I'm currently attending, so I don't think it's worth much. I work as Assistant Manager of the Instructional Department for the US for a major chain of language schools. Now, the ten-year plan (ten years if I'm lucky) is to pursue a PhD in Linguistics. What I'd ultimately like to do is apply theories of language acquisition to educational reform. Linguistics has always been the dream, and I've studied independently for years, BUT I have no Linguistics to speak of on my transcript, no research, and no publications. I think my work and academic experience is relevant to linguistics, but it isn't linguistics per se.
I'm looking at different schools, and the forerunner at the moment is the CUNY grad center for their focus on language acquisition and syntax (that's where I get really nerdy), though I'm open to other programs, as well. I'm studying for the GRE, since I last took it over three years ago and my scores could be better. I'm reading every bit of linguistic research I can get my hands on, attending meetings of the Linguistic Society of America, and otherwise trying to immerse myself as much as possible in this world. What I do not know how to do is network, research, and publish, particularly now that I am working full time. Any suggestions? How does one go about contacting professors without sounding like a complete idiot/brownnoser/ leech? Anything else I should be doing now to bolster my application? I have about two years to get my act together, but time flies when you work full time and go to school at night, so I'm already getting quite nervous....