Help me pick classes?
I need to choose classes for the semester. Here's what I am required to take:
2-4:30 PM on Mondays: GNDR 600 "Concepts of Gender"
I'm required to grade GNDR 225, "Gender, Sexuality, and Pop Culture." It meets Tuesdays and Thursdays, either 9:30-10:45 AM or 1-2:15 PM, depending on which fits better with the rest of my schedule. (If I have no conflicts, I'll probably be assigned based on other people's schedules. This is fine with me, I'm used to being up and functional at 9:30 AM and even kinda like it.)
I can take either one other class and a graduate consortium (professional development, writing workshop, that kinda thing) or two other classes. Here are the classes I am most strongly considering, and I can't count on any of them being offered again (although AAAD 500 will be, I bet):
10-12:30 PM on Mondays: GNDR 598 "Feminist Theory: Classic Text and Founding Debates"
"Explores founding texts of contemporary feminist theory, asking questions about identity, knowledge, sexuality, and ethics. Such works have emerged in relation to a variety of theoretical discourses, such as Marxism, structuralism, cultural studies, and others. Examines the intellectual history of feminist theory and its resonance with more recent trends." This is appealing because I feel like my background in early work is really, really, really shoddy.
6-8:30 PM on Tuesdays: GNDR 701 / AAAD 500 "Intro to African-American and African Diaspora Studies"
Not many schools have a department in this at all; while they have other courses that are appealing (in particular one on Black Women in America that I think would build off of the Early African-American Lit course I took at UMB), again, I feel like my grounding is really poor and an intro class would push a ton of books and ideas at me in a structure that encouraged digesting and internalizing them.
5-7:30 PM on Wednesdays: "Transsomatechnics"
I had to look up what this meant too; basically it's "theories and practices of transgender embodiment," and so it brings together technology and technology of the body and trans theory and it's all oh my god hardcore. [0] It's also super theoretical, and I'm a smidge worried it would kick my ass. But in a lot of ways it's basically what I want to be working on. The only question for me about taking this course is "Do I want to dive directly into the really hard stuff I want to think about while still taking my intro core courses?," or, more simply, "Feet wet head first ?"
10-11:30 AM on Wednesdays: "Research Colloquium in Gender Studies"
I described this above, but basically it's professional development. Many people take it more than once, and I've been advised to take it my first semester, although told I don't have to if I really don't want to. I want professional development, so I'm probably going to take it, although I'm a little bit tempted by taking it the next semester...
For context, a student needs 20 classes for a PhD, likely 10-15 worth in my case because I am coming in with an MA. (It'd be 10 if my MA were in Women's Studies or something; I can probably get at least 5 classes of credit, but I don't know if they're going to transfer, say, fiction workshop, or that I want them to even if they will.) I'd like to be done taking classes within three years, which means I should take either two or three classes per semester. With the conservative estimate of needing 16 classes, that's 3/3/3/3/2/2 for six semesters assuming I don't do anything that gets me credit in the summer --- which I could, if I wanted, either independent study or a course in whatever my minor will be. [1] (Gender Studies doesn't offer coursework in the summer, but other grad departments sometimes do.) I'd feel like I was wasting my time using
the graduate colloquium too many times to get credits --- after all I'm here to take classes and learn things, not just to develop professional skills. But one fall and one spring colloquium, maybe a year apart, seems reasonable.
Next semester I will be taking two core courses, so I can only fit one elective in. I might want that elective to be something in minor, since I probably don't want more than one minor course per semester? And if my minor is something very different from gender theory, it would be nice to have something in an alternate context to go and do every week, aside from my job. [2] Or I could get more professional development and be done both with colloquia and with core courses after the first year.
I know the ways I'm leaning already, but I'm curious what other people think. Scheduling plays a small role in my decisions, but not huge; I can't avoid being on campus MTR and having Wednesdays off isn't really exciting. Having Fridays off is awesome and means more possibility for long weekend visits, but there's no schedule I might pick that threatens that. Nothing conflicted, which I guess isn't that surprising since most of the grad gender classes are in the same room, but is awesome. I'm sad I can't take everything! (I had to discard some awesome classes just to get my list this short.)
[0] For those who care I am pretty sure this is as close as it comes to "Postfurry Theory" in the academy.
[1] "Help me decide my minor?" will be a separate post. I'm really tempted to do something in on the tech/science side, maybe informatics. But I could also do American Studies, or History, or English, or... They're all so fun!!!
[2] Oh by the way MetaCarta got divested from Nokia to Qbase on Monday. I probably can't answer your questions about what this means other than "Rachel spending more time in Dayton." Anyone know anything exciting to do in Dayton, OH?
This entry was originally posted at http://rax.dreamwidth.org/40564.html.
2-4:30 PM on Mondays: GNDR 600 "Concepts of Gender"
I'm required to grade GNDR 225, "Gender, Sexuality, and Pop Culture." It meets Tuesdays and Thursdays, either 9:30-10:45 AM or 1-2:15 PM, depending on which fits better with the rest of my schedule. (If I have no conflicts, I'll probably be assigned based on other people's schedules. This is fine with me, I'm used to being up and functional at 9:30 AM and even kinda like it.)
I can take either one other class and a graduate consortium (professional development, writing workshop, that kinda thing) or two other classes. Here are the classes I am most strongly considering, and I can't count on any of them being offered again (although AAAD 500 will be, I bet):
10-12:30 PM on Mondays: GNDR 598 "Feminist Theory: Classic Text and Founding Debates"
"Explores founding texts of contemporary feminist theory, asking questions about identity, knowledge, sexuality, and ethics. Such works have emerged in relation to a variety of theoretical discourses, such as Marxism, structuralism, cultural studies, and others. Examines the intellectual history of feminist theory and its resonance with more recent trends." This is appealing because I feel like my background in early work is really, really, really shoddy.
6-8:30 PM on Tuesdays: GNDR 701 / AAAD 500 "Intro to African-American and African Diaspora Studies"
Not many schools have a department in this at all; while they have other courses that are appealing (in particular one on Black Women in America that I think would build off of the Early African-American Lit course I took at UMB), again, I feel like my grounding is really poor and an intro class would push a ton of books and ideas at me in a structure that encouraged digesting and internalizing them.
5-7:30 PM on Wednesdays: "Transsomatechnics"
I had to look up what this meant too; basically it's "theories and practices of transgender embodiment," and so it brings together technology and technology of the body and trans theory and it's all oh my god hardcore. [0] It's also super theoretical, and I'm a smidge worried it would kick my ass. But in a lot of ways it's basically what I want to be working on. The only question for me about taking this course is "Do I want to dive directly into the really hard stuff I want to think about while still taking my intro core courses?," or, more simply, "Feet wet head first ?"
10-11:30 AM on Wednesdays: "Research Colloquium in Gender Studies"
I described this above, but basically it's professional development. Many people take it more than once, and I've been advised to take it my first semester, although told I don't have to if I really don't want to. I want professional development, so I'm probably going to take it, although I'm a little bit tempted by taking it the next semester...
For context, a student needs 20 classes for a PhD, likely 10-15 worth in my case because I am coming in with an MA. (It'd be 10 if my MA were in Women's Studies or something; I can probably get at least 5 classes of credit, but I don't know if they're going to transfer, say, fiction workshop, or that I want them to even if they will.) I'd like to be done taking classes within three years, which means I should take either two or three classes per semester. With the conservative estimate of needing 16 classes, that's 3/3/3/3/2/2 for six semesters assuming I don't do anything that gets me credit in the summer --- which I could, if I wanted, either independent study or a course in whatever my minor will be. [1] (Gender Studies doesn't offer coursework in the summer, but other grad departments sometimes do.) I'd feel like I was wasting my time using
the graduate colloquium too many times to get credits --- after all I'm here to take classes and learn things, not just to develop professional skills. But one fall and one spring colloquium, maybe a year apart, seems reasonable.
Next semester I will be taking two core courses, so I can only fit one elective in. I might want that elective to be something in minor, since I probably don't want more than one minor course per semester? And if my minor is something very different from gender theory, it would be nice to have something in an alternate context to go and do every week, aside from my job. [2] Or I could get more professional development and be done both with colloquia and with core courses after the first year.
I know the ways I'm leaning already, but I'm curious what other people think. Scheduling plays a small role in my decisions, but not huge; I can't avoid being on campus MTR and having Wednesdays off isn't really exciting. Having Fridays off is awesome and means more possibility for long weekend visits, but there's no schedule I might pick that threatens that. Nothing conflicted, which I guess isn't that surprising since most of the grad gender classes are in the same room, but is awesome. I'm sad I can't take everything! (I had to discard some awesome classes just to get my list this short.)
[0] For those who care I am pretty sure this is as close as it comes to "Postfurry Theory" in the academy.
[1] "Help me decide my minor?" will be a separate post. I'm really tempted to do something in on the tech/science side, maybe informatics. But I could also do American Studies, or History, or English, or... They're all so fun!!!
[2] Oh by the way MetaCarta got divested from Nokia to Qbase on Monday. I probably can't answer your questions about what this means other than "Rachel spending more time in Dayton." Anyone know anything exciting to do in Dayton, OH?
This entry was originally posted at http://rax.dreamwidth.org/40564.html.