{"id":186,"date":"2017-03-27T14:22:35","date_gmt":"2017-03-27T21:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewritersscrapbin.com\/staging\/7882\/?p=186"},"modified":"2017-03-27T14:22:35","modified_gmt":"2017-03-27T21:22:35","slug":"stephanies-masters-degree-adventures-introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thewritersscrapbin.com\/staging\/7882\/stephanies-masters-degree-adventures-introduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephanie&#8217;s Master&#8217;s Degree Adventures: Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As you might know from the &#8220;About&#8221; page, I started a postgraduate program in creative writing this past September. For months I&#8217;ve been frantically keeping up with deadlines, reading feedback, and making friends with fellow writers from around the world. Along the way I have realized that this opportunity, although stressful, is the best thing to have happened to me as both a person and a writer. I can&#8217;t imagine what my life would be like right now without it. Then I realized that other writers, both established and aspiring, could benefit from my new insights. And thus starts &#8220;Stephanie&#8217;s Master&#8217;s Degree Adventures.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The best introduction to these adventures, I believe, would be a description of the program. There are a lot of details that I can&#8217;t cover here, but here are the highlights:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s online distance learning, so you don&#8217;t have to move to attend.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s through the University of Edinburgh, the sixth oldest university in the English-speaking world. Fun fact: Edinburgh was once home to renowned authors J.M. Barrie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Robert Louis Stevenson, and is the current residence of <em>Harry Potter <\/em>author J.K. Rowling.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s a three-year, part-time program, which leaves room for work, family, and other commitments.<\/li>\n<li>The first two years of the program involve a mixture of literary study and creative practice. The final year focuses on the dissertation portfolio.<\/li>\n<li>The final year incorporates a biennial online colloquium called &#8220;Virtually, The Business,&#8221; which includes information on the publishing business. Sometimes the staff arranges similar presentations for the first and second years, too.<\/li>\n<li>Most importantly, the program directors and personal tutors are published authors and poets.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That&#8217;s about all that I can provide in this first post, but you can learn about the program by following <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ed.ac.uk\/literatures-languages-cultures\/english-literature\/postgraduate\/taught-masters\/creative-writing-online-learning\">this link<\/a>. For more information about the university overall, be sure to visit the University of Edinburgh&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ed.ac.uk\/\">homepage<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I realize that these straight-up facts may not be very helpful right now (unless they&#8217;ve helped the program peak your interest). They may not even be all that interesting. However, tune in to future installments of &#8220;Stephanie&#8217;s Master&#8217;s Degree Adventures&#8221; where I will give you my advice for successfully applying to a master&#8217;s program, tips for surviving grad school rejection, and the most important lessons I learn during the program.<\/p>\n<p>For those of you who are already in a Master&#8217;s program or will be starting one soon, e-mail me your stories and wisdom and I will try to include them in my posts.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_392\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-392\" style=\"width: 159px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewritersscrapbin.com\/staging\/7882\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/logo.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-392\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewritersscrapbin.com\/staging\/7882\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/logo.jpg?resize=159%2C140\" alt=\"\" width=\"159\" height=\"140\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-392\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Designed by Stephanie Hoogstad circa 2011<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As you might know from the &#8220;About&#8221; page, I started a postgraduate program in creative writing this past September. For months I&#8217;ve been frantically keeping up with deadlines, reading feedback, and making friends with fellow writers from around the world. Along the way I have realized that this opportunity, although stressful, is the best thing &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thewritersscrapbin.com\/staging\/7882\/stephanies-masters-degree-adventures-introduction\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Stephanie&#8217;s Master&#8217;s Degree Adventures: Introduction<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-introduction","category-masters"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Stephanie&#039;s Master&#039;s Degree Adventures: Introduction &#8212; The Writer&#039;s Scrap Bin<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thewritersscrapbin.com\/staging\/7882\/stephanies-masters-degree-adventures-introduction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stephanie&#039;s Master&#039;s Degree Adventures: Introduction &#8212; The Writer&#039;s Scrap Bin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As you might know from the &#8220;About&#8221; page, I started a postgraduate program in creative writing this past September. 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