persephassa
roxanne carter
Jan 2, 2010, 3:45 PM
Post #1289 of 2090
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i like it very much.
yes, three years of funding. there are a handful of 4th year funding options, but they are competitive. most people in the creative writing track graduate in 3 years; i plan to because i want to move away (i love denver but my partner is on the market now so we are hoping to be elsewhere). i haven't taught at DU yet - i teach in the spring, and then 2 courses in my 3rd year. we do TA; my assignment for this year is with laird hunt (that is for one quarter). i love the faculty here... bin ramke, selah saterstrom, laird & eleni sikelianos, brian kiteley, etc. they are really lovely people and workshops have been grand. the faculty on the lit side is a bit dry and weird and i don't think that most of the lit classes offered are very interesting (for instance, i have a class on modernity and everything we'll read was written by a man, whatever). hmm experimental writing; if you read the faculty's books you do get a sense of what they are into which extends and merges with our interests... well, you should come to the student readings! i am in charge of setting them up for this year - i haven't set the exact dates for winter/spring yet but i think they will be on the school's website soon.
they used to make us work in the university writing center for our first year (i had to do it). that was horrible and they have finally ceased that requirement. it was like 12 hours a week (reduced from 20 the year before) helping people with their grammar. i don't mind helping people but the type of work was not what i wld consider proper for someone pursuing their phd. anyhow that is over with, except they offer it to you still for a bonus on top of yr stipend - DON"T DO IT!!! the amount is so tiny compared to the agony of working there. now they give people administrative assignments, which is much better.
pros: everything is paid for and you can live on the stipend without borrowing (i do)
they have a good health services place on campus
the library is great (better than the library at brown, although i do miss the rare books libraries there, which DU has none of)
you can take tutorials after your first year, which is meeting with a professor perhaps alone or with a couple other people - you can propose a tutorial, so this way you can study something of interest to you not offered by the department
our department has a big tree and a skylight in the lounge
you get to live in denver and there is a lot to do here. when i was on the east coast i really missed being outdoors but here we can go snowshoeing & hiking & all sorts of stuff we never did in RI
con: the school overall (not our department) is very conservative and has many, many MBAs and law school students and you can tell this because of how it is run as an institution (for instance, we can only take 2.5 courses a quarter; you cannot take more without paying $$$. at brown or where i did my undergrad (UCSB) i could have taken as many classes as i wanted without a penalty like that)
also, yr ability to take courses outside the department is severely limited... i miss a more interdisciplinary atmosphere; everyone in yr classes will be from your department - very rarely is there anyone form another department
i owe the library late fees which never happened at brown (not that i wasn't late)
there isn't really anywhere good to eat around campus, except now they do have illegal pete's and everyone gets coffee at kalladi's which is passable
the building our department is in is terrible, like a prison
that's all that comes immediately... i hope that helped :)
# www.persephassa.com
(This post was edited by persephassa on Jan 2, 2010, 3:48 PM)
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