Re: "The Good Girl" and Graduate School

I think the atmosphere at the diff U's you list may vary from department to
department. I've heard negative things about the atmosphere at Texas A&M in
English, but that was years ago -- and may not have anything to do with the
department you'd be in. I've heard recently that Penn State U. is really tense
because everyone is so...aware...that they're at an Ivy League school, but
aren't considered in the same class with Yale and Princeton. But these are
huge institutions. Thousands of people. You just don't know what you're going
to find until you get there and see for yourself...heck, you may not even know
until after you've committed.

What you want to watch out for are grad programs where senior faculty consider
teaching and their students a nuisance. I had a friend who was accepted to
Columbia and was being toured around by one of the top grad students there (had
published quite a bit, etc.) and she tried to introduce him to a faculty member
walking by...who expressed annoyance and blew them off. He wound up attending
a smaller and lesser known institution instead. It may have just been a quirk
-- maybe the guy had had a real bad day -- but that was still the impression it
left on my friend.

Good luck. I've heard good things about Berkeley and will should be able to
tell you about Colorado State :). Drivers in Conn. are real jackasses. That
would be enough to make me stay away from there :).

Jim

"Raley, Amber" wrote:

> Meghan et al.,
>
> You statements seem to almost describe the Holden character (Tom is his
> slave name) from the film "The Good Girl." Did anyone else see this movie
> and have any thoughts about the strong Salinger connection? It was a bit
> overboard in my opinion. Maybe that was the point?
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Amber
>
> P.S. Non-Salinger material to follow. I will (hopefully) be going into an
> Industrial/Organizational Psychology PhD program next year. To all of the
> resident academics are any of you familiar with the 'atmosphere' of any of
> my top 10 choices for Graduate school?
> 1. Pennsylvania State University
> 2. Bowling Green State University
> 3. Saint Louis University
> 4. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
> 5. University of Connecticut
> 6. Colorado State University
> 7. Portland State University
> 8. Texas A&M University
> 9. Rice University
> 10. University of California, Berkeley
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: m e g h a n
> To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
> Sent: 9/3/2002 8:53 PM
> Subject: Re: intelligence of the author vs. intelligence of the characters
>
> >I actually feel the same way you do about Catcher and the Glass stories
> (I
> >get a lot more out of the Glass stories). . .just, if you want to judge
> >Salinger's influence, there's just no getting around or beyond Catcher.
>
> I agree also. What gets me about "Catcher" is that (this may be
> selfish)it's
> not Salinger's best work, yet it's taught in high schools, which gets it
> a
> lot of exposure. Then you have kids full of real or imagined angst who
> are
> like, man that book is me! I can relate! And they then credit Salinger
> as
> their favorite author.. without ever reading any of his other (better)
> work.
> It's just given too much credit. The selfish part comes in because I
> first
> read Catcher when I was 13, I had seen it in a bookstore and made my mom
> buy
> it. Fast forward three years, it's being taught in english and there's
> 100
> kids or however many in my class saying how much they love it.. when
> they
> probably never would have read it on their own. I guess I should hope
> that
> someone reads Catcher in english class, and then reads Salinger's other
> work
> and falls in love with it like I did, and then I can thank Catcher for
> that.
>
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