Grad school with unrelated bachelors?

katzegato
Wed, 30 Dec 2020 02:46:53 +0000

Hello all,

I realize this is partially covered in the FAQ but I did have some additional questions. Here’s a brief rundown of my situation; graduated last year with an engineering degree, working as an engineer. I also have a social science BA from an online (accredited but completely unknown) university. Within that degree, I was only a few classes away from finishing an English double major (I would have had to stay another term and spend a lot more in tuition and fees, so I didn’t finish). Unfortunately with the online (and ten years ago) nature of that university, I couldn’t even begin to contact any of those professors.

I really want to apply to English/Literature PhD programs (for 2022). I’m signing up for some related undergrad classes for this spring and summer in the hope that I can get both of those professors to write recommendation letters. I know it’s not ideal because they will have only had me for one class (and likely both online for obvious global reasons). I also have a couple professors who could write recommendations from my STEM degree - I was a TA and a grader in undergrad. I worked with a technical writing instructor on a curriculum project as well.

I plan to work on my writing sample and statement of purpose extensively over the course of this year and hopefully will be able to find a professor willing to review it, but other than that I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed about how to tie all this together.

I want to research literature and the environment, ecocriticism, etc., and I feel like my combination of experience actually does lend itself to this but I’m nervous about how to not appear as if I’m just jumping from thing to thing and “why does this engineer think they can just jump to English without any background.”

I’d appreciate any and all advice, thank you!

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