My travels across the pond went as smoothly as I could have asked (good karma after my rough travels back home?), I think because I managed to avoid the so-called "polar vortex" sweeping the Midwest and northeast United States by taking the southern route through Houston. I think I'm getting better at this jet lag thing, too, or at least the coffee and accumulated rest/sleep from the break has been on my side. Still, what was not reassuring was arriving back in Oxford to see how wet it is here! It's been raining in the UK since I left (big newsflash), and that has accumulated into a series of floods. Check out the link below:
This is what Oxford currently looks like, or at least the land immediately surrounding Oxford. The river near Christ Church meadow is huge, swollen, and flooded, and on the bus driving in yesterday I saw that Magdalen's deer park is now a deer pond (they better have evacuated those deer, or at least given them snorkels). I talked to someone today who lives in Abingdon, on the outskirts of Oxford, whose house is on the brink of being flooded, and heard of a few other people whose basements have filled with water or who have had to evacuate elsewhere for a few days. Fortunately, the area immediately in central Oxford and around St. John's and my usual part of town has been wet but relatively normal! What a jolt from New Mexico, whose skies were cloudless and impeccably, gorgeously blue when I left. It has stopped raining here, though, or at least spits down from time to time but not every moment…
I've gotten to catch up with some friends already (though only after getting myself caffeinated) and have turned my energy to those program apps, or tried to. My current program is a one-year MSt degree in English literature, but the Rhodes scholarships will pay for at least two years of study at Oxford -- and essentially everyone stays for at least that long. (Some people seem never to leave!) I knew when I started here that I'd face the challenge of deciding what to do after the first degree for the subsequent year(s). I more or less have two options: continue my studies in English literature and stay for three(ish) more years to get a DPhil, the UK equivalent of a US PhD, or change fields and get a second one-year MSt in a different subject. Current candidates for subject include US history, education, and policy. Each option has a few pros and cons:
Getting a DPhil would be a logical continuation of my current studies, which I'm enjoying. It would be paid for, and would give me the chance to stay in Oxford for three more years rather than just one. I would be able to focus on researching my thesis and pursuing my interests and wouldn't take any further classes, and would have the time to write and read and think for myself. Which sounds amazing. But I do sometimes want to branch out from English literature. If I do go into academia in the future, to teach at an American university, I've often been told that it would be better for me to get an American PhD rather than a British DPhil. Furthermore, it is an additional investment of time, even if getting a doctorate sometimes sounds unbelievably attractive to me (and sometimes sounds like an academic soul-sucking monster). I wake up each morning, still, and think differently about all this.
On the other hand, getting another MSt would give me the aforementioned opportunity to branch out, and to do so within a structured, taught master's program. I could complement my current interests with a different disciplinary perspective, and read/study something besides English literature for a change. Well-roundedness! Breadth! Employing the language and viewpoint of a different set of insular academics! Getting a breather before going on to either a job somewhere or more grad school back in the US! But my interest in the prospective academic programs sometimes flags (depending on the day; other days it sharpens), or I feel pulled in different directions, or don't feel qualified. We'll see what happens.
So, that's where I stand. Application deadlines are in two weeks (a little earlier for me since I'll be applying through Rhodes), and my plan is to pin down a set of prospective programs, crank out some personal statements, and see what options surface by the end of the year. Then I'll decide. And then I will, of course, expect that the future will magically clear up and with it I'll have my 10-year -- no, my 20- or 30-year life plan in hand.
Onward; send any clarity-inducing thoughts my way!
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