GEEK-OUT 2K6 ---> READ AT OWN RISK!
Tonight I've been running through my head over and over what I plan to say to the two professors I'm planning to ask for recommendation letters to graduate programs.
The first one, Hoover, has been a constant source of encouragement to me. She told me that a paper I wrote for her class was good at a point when I was really unsure of my abilities and was seriously reconsidering if I would be an asset to any program, aside from my general worry that I wasn't good enough. She also told me to keep working on it to use as a writing sample, and since then she has always treated me like a student that has real possibilities. I feel totally indebted to her, although she probably doesn't even know how much it meant/means to me.
The other one, Weitz, is the chairperson of the department, and is a much more important faculty member, and even though I know I'm one of the best students in his class, it's the third course I've taken of his, and I'm unsure whether he considers me to be a real candidate-type of student for graduate school. He's a pretty reserved, nerdy type of dude, so I just mean that he hasn't said anything outright that makes me think that he thinks that I'm a special student. That might sound dumb, a "special student", but that's what he needs to think if he's going to be willing to write me a letter at all. But it's not just what he thinks of me, this guy is who I want to BE LIKE as a researcher and teacher. He's one of the most amazing people I've ever met, he's incredibly smart, and really dedicated to scientific principles of research and instilling them in his students - and this is not so common in Bio Anthro, and oh-so-rare in anthropology in general. I don't know if I stand out to him, and if not so much, that's fine, but I want to ask him next week for a chance to do an independant study under him. I'm completely serious when I say that it would be an honor to have someone like him advise and critisize anything I'm working on.
I've got the speeches planned out. I'm going to ask both of them to CONSIDER writing a letter, but ask that they wait until the end of the semester when they can see my final projects, before they decide. Hoover has seen a ton of my stuff already, but I'm working on a project on a topic I know nothing about (Neolithic Britain burial practices), and involved two fields of research that I dislike very much (archaeology and cultural anthropology), and I want to impress her with a research paper that shows I can sit down, and make something great out of something that isn't neccessarily my favorite thing to do. Weitz' paper is a little tougher, because it's a data analysis paper, it's not really anything that can blow your mind, it just has to be perfect in form and function for what it is - which is why I'm also going to ask him if he would consider allowing me to do an independant study for him next semester.
Any suggestions? I'm nervous.
The first one, Hoover, has been a constant source of encouragement to me. She told me that a paper I wrote for her class was good at a point when I was really unsure of my abilities and was seriously reconsidering if I would be an asset to any program, aside from my general worry that I wasn't good enough. She also told me to keep working on it to use as a writing sample, and since then she has always treated me like a student that has real possibilities. I feel totally indebted to her, although she probably doesn't even know how much it meant/means to me.
The other one, Weitz, is the chairperson of the department, and is a much more important faculty member, and even though I know I'm one of the best students in his class, it's the third course I've taken of his, and I'm unsure whether he considers me to be a real candidate-type of student for graduate school. He's a pretty reserved, nerdy type of dude, so I just mean that he hasn't said anything outright that makes me think that he thinks that I'm a special student. That might sound dumb, a "special student", but that's what he needs to think if he's going to be willing to write me a letter at all. But it's not just what he thinks of me, this guy is who I want to BE LIKE as a researcher and teacher. He's one of the most amazing people I've ever met, he's incredibly smart, and really dedicated to scientific principles of research and instilling them in his students - and this is not so common in Bio Anthro, and oh-so-rare in anthropology in general. I don't know if I stand out to him, and if not so much, that's fine, but I want to ask him next week for a chance to do an independant study under him. I'm completely serious when I say that it would be an honor to have someone like him advise and critisize anything I'm working on.
I've got the speeches planned out. I'm going to ask both of them to CONSIDER writing a letter, but ask that they wait until the end of the semester when they can see my final projects, before they decide. Hoover has seen a ton of my stuff already, but I'm working on a project on a topic I know nothing about (Neolithic Britain burial practices), and involved two fields of research that I dislike very much (archaeology and cultural anthropology), and I want to impress her with a research paper that shows I can sit down, and make something great out of something that isn't neccessarily my favorite thing to do. Weitz' paper is a little tougher, because it's a data analysis paper, it's not really anything that can blow your mind, it just has to be perfect in form and function for what it is - which is why I'm also going to ask him if he would consider allowing me to do an independant study for him next semester.
Any suggestions? I'm nervous.