WTF?!?
I am fucking pissed off right now.
As I posted about earlier, I am applying to the infant mental health program at Wayne State for next year. As part of that application, I asked my former professor to write me a recommendation letter. She chairs the specialization in infant mental health here at MSU, which I had applied to and later decided to decline because it would have required me to take a second internship with young children (since my first was at Head Start). I wanted to take a family/older child based internship to increase my job marketability. I thought I had made the appropriate thanks and apologies for my decision and that we had a positive relationship.
Well, I got a response from my professor, declaring that she "rarely declines to write a letter for a student and never writes a negative one" but basically saying that I wasted her time and effort by applying and later deciding to drop the specialization and therefore she will not write a letter for me. It was very brief and terse and flat out rude in my opinion. I took her classes for two semesters and always did well, and we had a relationship outside of my applying for the specialization.
Her attitude just strikes me as very immature and un-social worky (for lack of a better term). SERIOUSLY. Isn't it more important to help along a qualified student and further the field of IMH than to hold a personal grudge over something distinctly impersonal? I wrote her back what I consider to be a very professional and classy response, but god damn I am pissed off.
I guess I really am glad that I didn't take the specialization here, if someone like that was going to be heading up my committee. Turns out you don't have to be mature, kind, OR emotionally stable to earn a doctorate in social work. That scares me.
As I posted about earlier, I am applying to the infant mental health program at Wayne State for next year. As part of that application, I asked my former professor to write me a recommendation letter. She chairs the specialization in infant mental health here at MSU, which I had applied to and later decided to decline because it would have required me to take a second internship with young children (since my first was at Head Start). I wanted to take a family/older child based internship to increase my job marketability. I thought I had made the appropriate thanks and apologies for my decision and that we had a positive relationship.
Well, I got a response from my professor, declaring that she "rarely declines to write a letter for a student and never writes a negative one" but basically saying that I wasted her time and effort by applying and later deciding to drop the specialization and therefore she will not write a letter for me. It was very brief and terse and flat out rude in my opinion. I took her classes for two semesters and always did well, and we had a relationship outside of my applying for the specialization.
Her attitude just strikes me as very immature and un-social worky (for lack of a better term). SERIOUSLY. Isn't it more important to help along a qualified student and further the field of IMH than to hold a personal grudge over something distinctly impersonal? I wrote her back what I consider to be a very professional and classy response, but god damn I am pissed off.
I guess I really am glad that I didn't take the specialization here, if someone like that was going to be heading up my committee. Turns out you don't have to be mature, kind, OR emotionally stable to earn a doctorate in social work. That scares me.