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New M.A.s and Ph.D.’s on Why They Chose Graduate Studies in English at OSU
Acceptance letters have gone out, contracts have come back, and the incoming class of M.A.s and Ph.D.s are looking forward to the new school year. Clare Simmons, Director of Graduate Studies, said that the program received, for the second year in a row, an increase in qualified applicants. In total, forty-four students accepted offers into the English MA and Ph.D. programs.
Why I Chose OSU: Four New Students Respond
Tom Armistead, DePaul University:
"Many top English departments have gotten ‘too big for their britches,’ as my father would say. OSU seems like an excellent program that is continuing to improve, and that still prioritizes providing the best education it can to its students, without the attitude associated with resting on past laurels. I was impressed that faculty and current students reached out to me to advocate for OSU." Armistead, who confessed to being obsessed with Robinson Crusoe and Daniel Defoe, also enjoys running, and recently ran the Cleveland Marathon.
Meghan Burke, finishing her M.A. at Florida State University:
Burke, whose interests range from the Gothic to constructions of motherhood and maternal sexuality in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century British Literature, was drawn to the "nationally recognized strength of the program," and the various professors whose interests "reflected my own." Burke, who is the recipient of the Susan L. Huntington Distinguished University Fellowship, has lived in Florida for the past several years and is excited about the change of scenery: "I’ve heard you have seasons up there!"
Melanie Yergeau, DePaul University, M.A. in Writing:
Yergeau, who also attended a technical school, and has Web design background, was attracted to OSU for its strong commitment to Digital Media and Composition. "Everyone seems very connected digitally," she said, "and has a good deal of Web presence." She wants to study how the "two worlds" of digital media and composition meld in the classroom. Her "side interests" include Calvinism and rhetoric, and "investigating the influences of grace and total depravity on postlapsarian language." A New Hampshire native, she collects "anything and everything Electric Light Orchestra."
Arthur Camara, Western Michigan University:
Camara chose OSU because of the number of professors who work in his field of interest, African and African American literature. "Most institutions have one professor as a resource in that area, but OSU has demonstrated a strong commitment to scholarship in this area." He's interested in looking at the ways "that literature and folklore reveal communal efforts of resistance." He and his wife, Leesha, are expecting their first child in November. His wife is a professor of Communications at Northern Kentucky University, and he wants to become "the second Dr. Camara in our family."
