Experts Call M.A. Exam Committee “Group of Death” (Spring 2006)
Experts Call M.A. Exam Committee “Group of Death” (Spring 2006)
The M.A. dreams of second year student Owen Braithwaite may have ended before they even began. Beckham has been seeded into what analysts agree is this year’s toughest draw: Vicki Silver, Dina Al-Kassim. and Michael Szalay.
“This will be a challenging run at the M.A. exam,” admitted Braithwaite. “I knew, going into the draw that I’d wind up with [advisor] Szalay, but I’d hoped I’d luck into a Goble or a Lazo to balance that out.”
The numbers achieved by this terrible trio tell the whole story. Between them, they have a record seven qualifying exam victories in international competition, a Rhetorical Question average of .884, and three MVP (Most Volatile Professor) awards - all in the last four years. “To advance to the next round, Braithwaite would have to defend his dubious claims about Hemingway’s politics, develop his personal statement to give a clearer idea of his long-term goals, and somehow improve the wing game to overcome the offside trap, and I just don’t think he has it in him,” said analyst John Stablemore, author of The Qualifying Exam: Academia’s Beautiful Game. Added fourth-year Calvin Verde, who could not resist the temptation to read Owen’s “personal_statement.doc” left on the desktop of one of the computers in Murray Krieger Hall, “Unlike other forms of competition, the M.A. exams are played on paper. Judging from what I’ve seen, Braithwaite is lucky he even made it this far.”
Still, Braithwaite is doing his best to remain optimistic. “I’ll just have to go out there, give 110%, and display some fundamental analysis,” he said. “It’ll be an honor to walk into 341, the Humanities Instructional Building’s greatest stage, with all the Americanists counting on me.”