#1: Seek out focused employment experience

The minute you have the faintest inkling regarding your desired general area of graduate study, start orienting your employment and volunteer work decisions toward that area. Working jobs that relate in some way to your desired field will not only make your application more attractive, but will also likely help you to narrow your interests as you journey toward the application process.

After I completed my MA, I planned to eventually get my doctorate in some interdisciplinary field related to art, writing, philosophy and feminist studies. Having waitressed, catered and retailed my way through art school (and realizing in retrospect that I had no coherent résumé of paid employment to show for it), I swore to myself that I would refuse any job that failed to enhance my knowledge base in one of these areas. Realizing that this vow would almost inevitably put me far below the poverty level, I seriously buckled down and prepared for a miserable yet essential experience. Unbelievably, I actually managed to uphold the vow to this day, as I’m preparing to start my Phd.

Even before my MA, I understood the importance of volunteering in my field(s). I’d already worked as a phone counselor for domestic violence, a researcher on transgender issues and violence, and a magazine assistant for a transgender networking group, all part-time and unpaid. After making my post-MA pledge to only accept disciplinarily relevant jobs (and spending months in financial desperation,) I started babysitting to pay my bills. After all, I told myself, I did arts and crafts and homework with the kids, which could only help me to eventually become a better teacher of any subject, and would probably give me insight into issues of expression, representation and development.

My breaking point with babysitting eventually arrived, and I hit on the idea of teaching art and writing in summer camps. I used my experience “teaching” art to babysitting clients to land a job teaching comic book design at a local high-end camp. The administration expected your standard Marvel superhero curriculum, but I managed to effectively teach the kids about experimental narrative and book design. This authentic teaching experience helped me to get jobs tutoring literature and French, teaching art in the Philadelphia public schools and in community centers, and teaching creative writing, art and graphic design to gifted children at a prestigious summer program. All this combined experience, along with my conference work (see Step #2 below), my MA thesis being published, and some extensive and quite desperate networking, helped me to land a graduate-level teaching job at a small women’s college, which obviously enhanced my doctoral applications enormously.

Point is, do everything you possibly can to gain experience relevant to your field. Even if, as a die-hard women’s studies scholar, you volunteer at Planned Parenthood once a month while holding a ‘normal’ day job, your application will be the better for it! And remember, you can start small with, say, literally wiping the asses of vaguely artistic children, and gradually build up to teaching classes of your own.