A Birthday Present a Week Early
So even amidst all this horrible crap from last week which ended up being entertaining crap and amused my friends, something pretty awesome happened to me as well. I received a very good birthday present a week early.
I didn't tell anyone I was applying to this, just in case--you know. But I have been accepted to the Postbaccalaureate Studies Program at...
Columbia University.
I am going to be a student at Columbia University.
The PBSP is kind of a transitional program between your bachelor's (hence the name) and going for your Master's--it's a way to position yourself to apply for grad school. It's actually a pretty great program and I'm surprised more colleges don't have something like this. Its big advantage is its flexibility--I can take as few or as many courses as I like, and take as long as I like. Specifically my aim in this program is to prepare myself to apply for a Master's in History. Since I double-majored in English and music, and pretty much all my electives were in theater, I had no time for any history but certainly I am something of a self-taught (if not terribly well-rounded!--I do have a tendency to obsess aboutconcentrate on the Tudors and English medieval) history scholar. As they said in the Prospective Student talk, one thing you can do with this program is build another major, if your transcript doesn't reflect where you want to go--exactly the case with me. You can also take both under-grad and grad-level courses--you can already start the work toward you r Master's. As I told them in my Statement of Purpose (basically an application essay--you can use it to explain away black spots in your academic history or explain how you're going to apply the Program):
I’d like to start off with some history undergraduate courses, to “build another major” in the words of Tom Harford at the information session, and supplement them with grad-level courses in medieval English literature and music--the idea being to build up the history while still maintaining my English and musical credentials for when I am able to pursue the Ph.D. work.
I decided awhile ago I wanted to go for this--what a perfect way to amp up my application for my history master's wherever I decide to go. But I must say, Columbia has one of the top history programs in the country, and it can only help to have already worked with those scholars. So I filled out the application and sent them my transcripts from Sweet Briar and Mount Holyoke, and also sent them the Statement of Purpose. It started out:
This year I visited three cities in Italy. All had their unique charms--the decadent, serpentine beauty of Venice, infernal Naples with its buried poisons--but Rome, old, old Rome affected me the most. Walking along the banks of the Tiber up which sailed pirates and apostles and queens, standing atop Capitoline Hill and observing the Temple of Saturn where the ancients prayed, and the Coliseum where they died. Keats’s room overlooking the Spanish Steps, where he breathed his last. The ecstasy of Bernini’s fountains and plazas, culminating in the literal embrace of St. Peter’s Square. Every street was an epiphany, an occasion to close my eyes and realize-those people were here. These are the stones upon which they walked, this the air they breathed, the water they drank. We were here. We lived, loved, died here. We are just like you.
This is why I study history--to hear those voices from generations ago, millennia ago. People change so little; history teaches the same lessons again and again. The past illuminates the present. And the lessons are manifest in other disciplines; art, drama, music, philosophy, all contribute to this continuum. I performed the role of Helen in The Trojan Women in 2004 and in preparation I reread The Iliad. Afterward I thought--this work appeared 2800 years ago, and the story takes place some 500 years before that. And yet it could be told today. A wife runs off with another man. Young men are dazzled by the glamour of conquest. A father mourns his son. We were here.
Let me tell you, I slaved over that essay! There was a word limit and I did not want to go over by even one word--I just know if I hadn't been accepted, I would lie awake at night wondering "was it because I went over by 4 words? Was it that???" Anyway, those words express why I love studying history so much--to hear those voices, all those people, telling their story. The deadline for the spring term is something like January 3rd or 4th but I wanted to get it in sooner than that--they said a 2-3 week turnaround on the decision. I uploaded my application and mailed off my transcripts on November 30. I heard back in 4 days--yes.
*Squeeeee!!!!*
I called my Mom who naturally was thrilled--it took awhile for it to sink in and then she just kept saying "well, this is marvelous!" I said, "now both of your children are Ivy-Leaguers!" (Bart has an M.M. from Yale.) Yes, sibling rivalry is alive and well :) Those of you with siblings know how it is--of course you love them but one function of siblings is to ALWAYS keep you on your game. Our great-grandfather Metcalf went to Yale (where he was in Skull and Bones), and our grandfather Green went to Princeton (Tiger Inn) but I think I'm the only one so far who will have gone to Columbia. It's awfully iconoclastic for my family!--heck, Harvard is too liberal for my family! I know my mother sniffs a bit at Harvard, she doesn't think it's as "nice" as Princeton :)
So anyway now I'm filling out forms and signing things and looking at what I want to take. (*Squee,* I have a Columbia email address now! cbg2119@columbia.edu ) By necessity, at this point I can only take one course at a time, and I think I'm probably going to have to start off with a baby-level history course. No worries. It's wonderful just to get started. God, I loved college. I miss the ivory tower.
I'm also going to have to immerse myself in grant applications because as you can imagine, Columbia is certainly not cheap. Pell, here I come! But I think this week or next, I have to do something even more essential--hotfoot it over to the Columbia bookstore and buy a sweatshirt!
I didn't tell anyone I was applying to this, just in case--you know. But I have been accepted to the Postbaccalaureate Studies Program at...
Columbia University.
I am going to be a student at Columbia University.
The PBSP is kind of a transitional program between your bachelor's (hence the name) and going for your Master's--it's a way to position yourself to apply for grad school. It's actually a pretty great program and I'm surprised more colleges don't have something like this. Its big advantage is its flexibility--I can take as few or as many courses as I like, and take as long as I like. Specifically my aim in this program is to prepare myself to apply for a Master's in History. Since I double-majored in English and music, and pretty much all my electives were in theater, I had no time for any history but certainly I am something of a self-taught (if not terribly well-rounded!--I do have a tendency to obsess aboutconcentrate on the Tudors and English medieval) history scholar. As they said in the Prospective Student talk, one thing you can do with this program is build another major, if your transcript doesn't reflect where you want to go--exactly the case with me. You can also take both under-grad and grad-level courses--you can already start the work toward you r Master's. As I told them in my Statement of Purpose (basically an application essay--you can use it to explain away black spots in your academic history or explain how you're going to apply the Program):
I’d like to start off with some history undergraduate courses, to “build another major” in the words of Tom Harford at the information session, and supplement them with grad-level courses in medieval English literature and music--the idea being to build up the history while still maintaining my English and musical credentials for when I am able to pursue the Ph.D. work.
I decided awhile ago I wanted to go for this--what a perfect way to amp up my application for my history master's wherever I decide to go. But I must say, Columbia has one of the top history programs in the country, and it can only help to have already worked with those scholars. So I filled out the application and sent them my transcripts from Sweet Briar and Mount Holyoke, and also sent them the Statement of Purpose. It started out:
This year I visited three cities in Italy. All had their unique charms--the decadent, serpentine beauty of Venice, infernal Naples with its buried poisons--but Rome, old, old Rome affected me the most. Walking along the banks of the Tiber up which sailed pirates and apostles and queens, standing atop Capitoline Hill and observing the Temple of Saturn where the ancients prayed, and the Coliseum where they died. Keats’s room overlooking the Spanish Steps, where he breathed his last. The ecstasy of Bernini’s fountains and plazas, culminating in the literal embrace of St. Peter’s Square. Every street was an epiphany, an occasion to close my eyes and realize-those people were here. These are the stones upon which they walked, this the air they breathed, the water they drank. We were here. We lived, loved, died here. We are just like you.
This is why I study history--to hear those voices from generations ago, millennia ago. People change so little; history teaches the same lessons again and again. The past illuminates the present. And the lessons are manifest in other disciplines; art, drama, music, philosophy, all contribute to this continuum. I performed the role of Helen in The Trojan Women in 2004 and in preparation I reread The Iliad. Afterward I thought--this work appeared 2800 years ago, and the story takes place some 500 years before that. And yet it could be told today. A wife runs off with another man. Young men are dazzled by the glamour of conquest. A father mourns his son. We were here.
Let me tell you, I slaved over that essay! There was a word limit and I did not want to go over by even one word--I just know if I hadn't been accepted, I would lie awake at night wondering "was it because I went over by 4 words? Was it that???" Anyway, those words express why I love studying history so much--to hear those voices, all those people, telling their story. The deadline for the spring term is something like January 3rd or 4th but I wanted to get it in sooner than that--they said a 2-3 week turnaround on the decision. I uploaded my application and mailed off my transcripts on November 30. I heard back in 4 days--yes.
*Squeeeee!!!!*
I called my Mom who naturally was thrilled--it took awhile for it to sink in and then she just kept saying "well, this is marvelous!" I said, "now both of your children are Ivy-Leaguers!" (Bart has an M.M. from Yale.) Yes, sibling rivalry is alive and well :) Those of you with siblings know how it is--of course you love them but one function of siblings is to ALWAYS keep you on your game. Our great-grandfather Metcalf went to Yale (where he was in Skull and Bones), and our grandfather Green went to Princeton (Tiger Inn) but I think I'm the only one so far who will have gone to Columbia. It's awfully iconoclastic for my family!--heck, Harvard is too liberal for my family! I know my mother sniffs a bit at Harvard, she doesn't think it's as "nice" as Princeton :)
So anyway now I'm filling out forms and signing things and looking at what I want to take. (*Squee,* I have a Columbia email address now! cbg2119@columbia.edu ) By necessity, at this point I can only take one course at a time, and I think I'm probably going to have to start off with a baby-level history course. No worries. It's wonderful just to get started. God, I loved college. I miss the ivory tower.
I'm also going to have to immerse myself in grant applications because as you can imagine, Columbia is certainly not cheap. Pell, here I come! But I think this week or next, I have to do something even more essential--hotfoot it over to the Columbia bookstore and buy a sweatshirt!