MFA Applications Will Kill Your Soul (But Don't Let That Stop You)

By Wahida Omar

Hey everyone. I know I'm way behind in the posting game. But my fellow Chroniclers have been doing such a great job! No shortage of MFA reading material here.

I arrived in Minneapolis on July 26th, and spent the first couple weeks house sitting and looking at apartments. I found a great little pad, and I just moved in this past Monday. My things arrived from Arizona on Friday. A few of my future classmates are here already too, and we've been having a great time hanging out and poking around the city.

So I've been super busy, but things should start slowing down a bit now---at least until orientation week starts, on August 31st. I have lots of ideas for stuff I want to talk about here, and my fellow first years keep inspiring me with all their awesome posts! I promise you haven't read the last of me.

Meanwhile, here's an excerpt from a post I wrote on my personal blog back in June. Some of you may have read it already, but I figure it's a good starting place for my posts on this blog. It's really, really long, so I'll just leave a snippet here and then include a link.

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SO, for months now I've been meaning to post a list of things I learned from the MFA application process. But I just didn't have the strength. Now that I'm safely far, far away from that soul-crushing process, I think I'm ready to give it a go.

Here's the knowledge-like substance I gleaned from the whole torrid affair.

1) MFA APPLICATIONS WILL KILL YOUR SOUL. But pleeeease don't let that stop you. It doesn't feel like it now, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Or insert uplifting cliche of your choice here.

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I go on quite a bit after that! You can read the rest of the post here.

I know some of our writers here have just arrived in their new cities, and some are about to start orientation. Good luck! I'm sending you all my very best settling in vibes.

Wahida Omar (U Minnesota Class of 2012)

Hey there world. I'm Wahida.

I'm just about 26, and I'll be starting an MFA in fiction at the University of Minnesota this September. Orientation starts at the end of August! I feel so lucky and grateful to be able to spend the next three years focusing on my writing. I'm still having trouble believing it's all real.

I arrived in the Twin Cities earlier this week, and yesterday I locked down a nice little apartment in Minneapolis. I'm moving from Tucson---I graduated from the University of Arizona this past December, with a BA in Creative Writing & Anthropology. I minored in Arabic.

I did my undergraduate thesis in creative nonfiction, but I'm doing my MFA in fiction. I love poetry too, and understand almost nothing about it. Someday I'd like to a) teach writing OR b) work for a writing/literature nonprofit AND c) write.

I spent my kiddie days (and my freshman year of college) in the Boston area, and grew up in northern Arizona. I never got along with the desert and I'm happy I've been transplanted somewhere wet and weathersome.

I have two blogs: Found in Fiction (about life, MFA stuff & reading/writing) and Multi What? (about life & being Somali-Armenian American.) I started blogging to try to distract myself during the nerve-wracking MFA decision season---let's see if I can keep up once school starts. Oh, and I'm currently battling a new twitter addiction.

I'll be teaching a workshop section of an Intro to Creative Writing class this fall semester. I have no teaching experience, so I'm a little bit nervous. But mostly I'm just really excited.

I'm interested in: my ridiculously random family, social justice/equality/less crappiness the world over, multiracial/multiethnic/multicultural/mixed issues, world literature, minority and underprivileged voices in fiction, nectarines, stuffed grape leaves, primates and humanism.

I'm totally unpublished, and somewhat (well, completely) terrified by writing. I hope to do something about at least one of those things during my MFA.