Graham V. Crookes

“The general burden of taxation is so directly felt that there is widespread demand for drastic curtailment of educational services. There is an actual, not merely theoretical, danger that the most significant expansions of the last forty years in school activities will be seriously impaired. In some cities they are already undermined and eliminated. Under the plea of economy, there is already going on a reversion to the curriculum of the three R’s. This is a question which affects education as education and not merely the fortunes of teachers and administrators within the school system.”

Guess the year? 1933…

(John Dewey, with J.L. Childs, in The educational frontier. New York: The Century Co.)

There’s plenty to be said about applying to our MA program, of course, but one thing that doesn’t seem to happen as much as it used to when I was an MA student is, establishing local residency first.

Hawai’i is a great place to live and work and study…. it’s the kind of place that if you are young (wait – what am I saying here!) ok, if you are young at heart, you could really enjoy spending a year here just bumming around, waiting tables, doing a bit of part-time teaching and paying taxes! (Yay!) And that way, if you’re not from here, you get your Hawai’i residency status, and then you only have to pay in-state tuition. Obvious, huh?

Here’s the official story on establishing residence: http://manoa.hawaii.edu/admissions/undergrad/financing/residency.html#7

Lately I find myself explaining the following point quite often to people who clearly haven’t thought about it much….

Where you go for doctoral studies depends on a number of factors, obviously, and one of them is “fit”. Are you really interested in the specific current research interests of one or more faculty at the place(s) you are going to apply to? And is there evidence of that in your application? For that matter, have you been in touch with these professors? For you, and for them, it’s probably better that you go somewhere where there’s a researcher whose work you are really interested in, than go somewhere because it’s cheaper, you have family there, or the weather is nice. So not only check out those faculty webpages, but read, correspond, and try out some of the ideas you have in common with a professor, even before you apply…

This Fall semester I will be teaching a new undergraduate course, SLS 150. Its title (ok, a bit cumbersome, but explanatory) is

Learning Languages and Communicating in a Globalized World.

The course description is here (with our full set of course descriptions) and the draft syllabus is here.

For a good introduction to the basics of being a student here at the level of costs, accomodation, coursework, and much more, check out our Department’s student association pages, especially this one. (All the bureaucratic details are in the main departmental pages, but the student pages are a more pleasant way in!)