Charloween (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
charloween) wrote2008-03-22 08:23 pm
charloween) wrote2008-03-22 08:23 pm
Entry tags:
Help me decide how to live my life: plans for the future
Plan one (or A): go to Glasgow next year, do a one-year MLitt in Television Studies, apply to direct-entry PhD programs in the US this fall before I head off. This plan is contingent on my getting any scholarship money. Required: $30K, gathered all in the next few months. I also won't be able to keep my current job this summer, as you have to be a returning as a full-time student in the fall to have this particular job.
However, it's totally critical that I find an awesome full-time job this summer that will pay me lots and lots. I'll have to apply for more OSAP, take out a line of credit of my own and pray-pray-pray that I can find a job when I get there so I can afford to live on more than instant ramen. It's possible to go, but I'll just be living on way tighter means that I have been.
Plan two (or B): stay in Toronto next year, do a two-year MA at York, apply to the US PhD programs for fall 2010, also apply to various UK schools' PhD programs for the same timeframe. This is attractive because I don't have to move, and will also mean zero financial issues. Getting a job this summer isn't that much of an issue if I do this one because I can keep my current one. I also don't need to scrape together that $30K for July.
If I stay for school in the fall, I don't need to do paid work at all, and could apply to an internship with the Toronto International Film Festival. Staying at York is probably a dumb move, because it looks really bad when I go to get hired some place, to see that I did multiple levels of degrees at the same school.
Plan three (or C): stay in Toronto, don't go to school, and work for the year. I can defer the Glasgow admission until September 2009, and use the time to work and save money to go away. This is the least attractive, because I'll have to start paying back my OSAP and will only be able to save about a third of what I need. At that rate, I'd probably keep putting it off and never go. I'll apply to the fall 2009 US direct-entry programs in this plan, too. I'll just probably never make it to Scotland.
Summary: three plans, all depending on different things. What kind of job I'll get in May, what kind of scholarship applications I wrote back in November, what kind of debt I'm willing to carry into my next degree, what impact I think this choice will have on my career and future hireability.
I visited my parents this weekend and talked to them both about this; they've offered to let me use as much as I can on their line of credit, as a loan. This may make it possible to get to Scotland. I'm just not sure how I feel about taking their money. I never have before - all of my education so far has been paid for by my wages, OSAP loans and scholarships.
I think the actual plan so far is to see how I do for scholarships (and seriously, there needs to be four digits minimum in this) and then decide from there. I've emailed Glasgow to ask about entrance scholarships, and to find out if I'm totally out of the running because I'm an international student. They may be waiting for my final grades to come through. I seem to be totally fucked, but once they get back from their Easter break I'll hear back for sure.
The results of the scholarship stuff won't be released until this time next month. The for-sure thing that I have to do now is to stop worrying about all this, apply to lots of jobs, hope like hell I get the RED Zone job at York because that would make life so much easier and (oh yeah) finish the five papers I still have left to write (one this week, one next week, the other three the week after that). And stop thinking (fretting, worrying) about what country I'll be living in this fall.
So.
[Poll #1158839]
The one certain thing out of all of this mess, though, is that Mum and I will for sure be going to England to see David Tennant and Patrick Stewart on stage in Hamlet. Whether this is a vacation, separate and complete, or the two of us taking a week to do tourist things before I go up to school, it's a locked deal. Maybe we'll see it twice! Bwahahaaaa.
However, it's totally critical that I find an awesome full-time job this summer that will pay me lots and lots. I'll have to apply for more OSAP, take out a line of credit of my own and pray-pray-pray that I can find a job when I get there so I can afford to live on more than instant ramen. It's possible to go, but I'll just be living on way tighter means that I have been.
Plan two (or B): stay in Toronto next year, do a two-year MA at York, apply to the US PhD programs for fall 2010, also apply to various UK schools' PhD programs for the same timeframe. This is attractive because I don't have to move, and will also mean zero financial issues. Getting a job this summer isn't that much of an issue if I do this one because I can keep my current one. I also don't need to scrape together that $30K for July.
If I stay for school in the fall, I don't need to do paid work at all, and could apply to an internship with the Toronto International Film Festival. Staying at York is probably a dumb move, because it looks really bad when I go to get hired some place, to see that I did multiple levels of degrees at the same school.
Plan three (or C): stay in Toronto, don't go to school, and work for the year. I can defer the Glasgow admission until September 2009, and use the time to work and save money to go away. This is the least attractive, because I'll have to start paying back my OSAP and will only be able to save about a third of what I need. At that rate, I'd probably keep putting it off and never go. I'll apply to the fall 2009 US direct-entry programs in this plan, too. I'll just probably never make it to Scotland.
Summary: three plans, all depending on different things. What kind of job I'll get in May, what kind of scholarship applications I wrote back in November, what kind of debt I'm willing to carry into my next degree, what impact I think this choice will have on my career and future hireability.
I visited my parents this weekend and talked to them both about this; they've offered to let me use as much as I can on their line of credit, as a loan. This may make it possible to get to Scotland. I'm just not sure how I feel about taking their money. I never have before - all of my education so far has been paid for by my wages, OSAP loans and scholarships.
I think the actual plan so far is to see how I do for scholarships (and seriously, there needs to be four digits minimum in this) and then decide from there. I've emailed Glasgow to ask about entrance scholarships, and to find out if I'm totally out of the running because I'm an international student. They may be waiting for my final grades to come through. I seem to be totally fucked, but once they get back from their Easter break I'll hear back for sure.
The results of the scholarship stuff won't be released until this time next month. The for-sure thing that I have to do now is to stop worrying about all this, apply to lots of jobs, hope like hell I get the RED Zone job at York because that would make life so much easier and (oh yeah) finish the five papers I still have left to write (one this week, one next week, the other three the week after that). And stop thinking (fretting, worrying) about what country I'll be living in this fall.
So.
[Poll #1158839]
The one certain thing out of all of this mess, though, is that Mum and I will for sure be going to England to see David Tennant and Patrick Stewart on stage in Hamlet. Whether this is a vacation, separate and complete, or the two of us taking a week to do tourist things before I go up to school, it's a locked deal. Maybe we'll see it twice! Bwahahaaaa.
no subject
I want to do an MA somewhere but I'm too poor, so option 3 is for me: work, save up, and eventually get educated somewhere new. Definitely do the abroad thing through, it must be so fucking cool, especially for an anglophile like yourself. Plus we could hang out!
no subject
#3 would be the no-brainer if a Film BA had more earning power than it does. As it is, man... I'll be lucky to make rent and loan payments, let alone all the rest of it.
On the money thing: check out US schools. They're hellishly competitive, but if you get in they waive tuition and give you a nice stipend. That's why I'm looking at heading there eventually.
But yes - we could so hang out! And it's not that I'm an anglophile, it's just that UK television is superior in every way to the American stuff. I can't help it. :)
no subject
I guess compared to the States (not sure about Canada), we do have a better deal, in that the maximum any uni can charge you (as a home student) is ~£3000/year, so you won't pay more for an education from, say, Oxford, as opposed to Grimsby Polytechnic, as long as you have the skillz to get in.
The UK is just superior to the US in general! It's that simple.
no subject
The inverse kind of happened in Ontario: the government changed how it assesses financial need, with the changes being brought in the year after me. Some kids are getting up to 75% of their tuition ($5500/year) essentially waived. Alas, not me. But I think even if you die, your parents have to pay back your loans. Also, pure madness.
Canadian tuition is a bit lower because all our schools get cash from the government to keep it capped. American students sometimes find that paying international fees up here is cheaper than staying at home.
North America does have a lower cost of living. But that's about it. (And - if I can be political for a second - after 5 years in Iraq, most of the world can feel superior to the US.)