I looked into the MFA programs of three New York City colleges. When I graduate from Rowan next year with both my BA and my MA, I want to move to the city to work in publishing so I figured, if I want to get my MFA as well, it'd have to be around New York. I Googled the top MFA programs in Creative Writing and found that NYU, Brooklyn College, and Hunter College had prestigious programs and were all in New York City.

I checked NYU off the list almost instantly when it said I would need to send in GRE scores (I didn't take them to get into the 4 + 1). I was also unable to find the tuition fees for the program and that kind of clinched it for me: no NYU.

Secondly, I looked at Brooklyn College because my mom went there and I got excited when I saw that they had a good Creative Writing MFA program. They don't go into depth about the classes that are required for the program and the tuition seems a bit steep, so I kept looking.

Finally, I looked at Hunter College (where my cousin goes so it's still kind of in the family!) Out of state tuition is similar to Rowan's in-state, but I would hopefully be living in NY long enough at the time I start going back to grad school that it wouldn't be too bad. Another reason I really liked Hunter's program is there is a fellowship every semester for four or five students to work with a celebrated writer as a research assistant. I think that would be so cool to do. So, of all the MFA programs I researched, Hunter's is my favorite.

I really enjoyed the articles "Glossary of Writing Careers" and "Author Day Jobs: 7 Authors Who Worked on the Side." The first article kind of gave me a little bit of hope because it helped me to realize that, just because I'll have a degree in Writing Arts when I graduate doesn't mean I'll be completely unattractive to potential employers. I was also interested in a lot of the careers listed so that gave me even more hope that I'll be able to find a job that I'll enjoy.

I was so surprised to read that all these famous and influential writers had worked at completely different jobs their whole lives.  I guess I always assumed that they spent every day at a desk, writing and philosophizing about the human condition. But, apparently, that was not the case. I was especially surprised to see that they worked at jobs completely unrelated to writing, like as doctors.

Unfortunately, after having read the article "MA and MFA: The Final Word," I still am not completely sure the difference between the two.  From what I gathered from the article, if someone has an MFA they wouldn't necessarily need to get a PhD.  On the other hand, if someone has an MA and want to either further their education or teach at a university level, they would still have to get a PhD.  Why this is (and if this is even true), I'm not sure.  Also, the article said that MFA programs are more "writerly" (whatever that means).  So would an MA, then, be more theoretical?  I'm still not certain of the distinction but I'm looking forward to class today where we can discuss this.

As for the articles "How to Write a Great Statement of Purpose" and "Writing A Convincing Personal Statement for Grad School," I really wish I had read them before I applied to Rowan's 4 + 1 program.  Even though I still got into the program, now I'm afraid I might have embarrassed myself by writing a statement of purpose without fully understanding what it actually was. But, after reading these articles, I think I wrote a pretty good statement of purpose in spite the fact that I was going in blind.  I wrote about my experience in the program, my life as a writer, and my hopes for the future with the degree -- all with a level of tongue-in-cheek humor that I like to think is very "me."  So even though I was writing a document that could have essentially decided my future, my voice was still apparent.

Weebly's changed a bit since last semester so this is just a test for now aw yeah.