What's everyone doing for it? Mine is happening now! I'm doing submittals and I'm also committing myself to writing for at least 2 hours every morning this week. Also, I need to work on my abstract & bibliography for my 20 page lit paper. I know if I don't make some sort of a commitment, I'll just chill on the couch all day.
I know I mentioned toward the beginning of our first semesters that I was finding meeting with professors for one-on-ones to be one of the most fulfilling experiences of being in an MFA. Now, I'm in this new semester with a different professor and I've only met with her once because I'm intimidated. So I vow after Spring Break to fully take advantage of the opportunity to meet with her. How about you guys? Are you all taking advantage of the opportunity to work more closely with professors? How's that going?
OH! A few of my classmates and I met with the program director to talk about the thesis process and what we hope to get out of it. It was a great meeting! He asked what the process was like at other schools, so I'm curious how you all go about thesis preparation. When do you select an advisor? How often do you meet with that advisor? How do they judge it? I know some people are in 3 year programs and aren't even thinking about this, but please share if you know what the process is going to be like for you.
I was surprised to find out that the minimum requirement for our thesis is 15 pages (or is it poems?). Personally, if I ended the program and 15 pages is what I turned in, I would fail myself. My goal is that full-length manuscript!
I don't know what the process is at all. None of the first years have even been thinking about theses, as far as I know.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, Raina. I have no idea what the process is like. It's coming up fast, though! Can't believe how quickly this first year has flown by!
ReplyDeleteI'm in a two-year program as well, and when I talked to the director this past week, he said that we'll be starting the process later this month, at least in terms of selecting our advisors. And the recommended length is at least 50pp for poetry and 150-200pp for fiction and nonfiction (i.e. a full length book). That is pretty much all I know right now.
ReplyDeleteFor us we choose our primary and secondary readers (aka advisors) in the middle of our second year. We actually start off with advisors and basically have the opportunity to stay with them or switch. Poetry has a minimum manuscript length of 48 pages. I heard (from U Washington's Linda Bierds no less) that two year programs tend to ask for shorter manuscripts. There are also thesis fellowships for outstanding / promising third years that pay them just to work and not to teach. You have to have some serious pub credits to get those though. That's all I know so far :-P
ReplyDeleteOh and I am going to San Diego for Spring Break! Whoo!
ReplyDeleteduring our third semester (out of four) we picked out an advisor and two readers for our thesis. for poetry we were expected to have about 48 pages :) I was low res at Queens.
ReplyDeleteBeing in the 2 year program at GCSU, I've been working on my thesis since the first semester of being here! It's really reduced the thesis stress for me compared to my MA last semester rush to finish.
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