I want a Phd.

[Cornfed]

This is a longtime life goal. I want to be called Dr. Cornfed, and I believe I’ve earned it, or at least I could earn it. As to the subject, it doesn’t really matter. Science involves boring lab equipment and isn’t really going anyway anyway, so perhaps Classics, or more likely, History. I obviously can’t do this through the normal process but if I understand correctly there are some universities that are internationally accredited that will let us older guys in. Any advice? I want what will be accepted as a real degree, not a fake one like Mr. David Duke’s.

[gsjackson]

It's very doable in the U.S. American grad schools don't really age discriminate. The PhD program in mass communication at the University of Wisconsin let me in at age 50. Tuition completely covered and the annual stipend back in the early aughts was $14,000, so basically cost-free if you can live on the stipend. Available subsidizing money like this is the big advantage of American grad schools. You would be able to do this since your English is good enough to be a teaching assistant. We had several Korean students in the program whose English wasn't good enough to be understood by American undergraduates, so they paid full freight. But of course they all got tenure track jobs upon graduation, being minorities who help protect against discrimination suits based on the number of minorities you have.

Just take the GRE and submit it along with your undergraduate transcript and an application, all of which can probably be done online now. You would even have an advantage with American universities, being a foreigner and thus a diversity candidate. You'd have to get a masters first, then the PhD. So the initial application would probably have to be into the masters program.

You would have to hold your nose at the PC culture. Be careful about what sort of department you get into. Look for ancient white men as department heads -- there are a small handful left.

[HappyGuy]

According to this you can get a Bachelor or a Masters using a correspondence school:
https://learn.org/articles/What_is_a_Co ... chool.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_education

I doubt you'd want a Phd from an unknown school anyways. If others are going for the same reasons you are then you're going to graduate with a lot of insufferable people.

[yick]

Think of all the shit you have written on here, you could have got a PhD instead! They weigh the PhD dissertation - is it 100000 words? You have probably written quadruple that in your time here. You can do that man - jiayou!

[Cornfed]

It's very doable in the U.S. American grad schools don't really age discriminate. The PhD program in mass communication at the University of Wisconsin let me in at age 50. Tuition completely covered and the annual stipend back in the early aughts was $14,000, so basically cost-free if you can live on the stipend. Available subsidizing money like this is the big advantage of American grad schools. You would be able to do this since your English is good enough to be a teaching assistant.

Yes, I do speak a little English. But why would they do this for foreigners? It just seems too good to be true. Please tell me more if you know more.

[Cornfed]

It's very doable in the U.S. American grad schools don't really age discriminate. The PhD program in mass communication at the University of Wisconsin let me in at age 50. Tuition completely covered and the annual stipend back in the early aughts was $14,000, so basically cost-free if you can live on the stipend. Available subsidizing money like this is the big advantage of American grad schools. You would be able to do this since your English is good enough to be a teaching assistant.

Yes, I do speak a little English. But why would they do this for foreigners? It just seems too good to be true. Please tell me more if you know more.

Actually that is lame. I'm going to do just what you said and see what happens.

[gsjackson]

It's very doable in the U.S. American grad schools don't really age discriminate. The PhD program in mass communication at the University of Wisconsin let me in at age 50. Tuition completely covered and the annual stipend back in the early aughts was $14,000, so basically cost-free if you can live on the stipend. Available subsidizing money like this is the big advantage of American grad schools. You would be able to do this since your English is good enough to be a teaching assistant.

Yes, I do speak a little English. But why would they do this for foreigners? It just seems too good to be true. Please tell me more if you know more.

Why would they do this for foreigners? Diversity is our strength. Diversity is our strength. Diversity is our strength. Except for white nationalists. You know, of course, that you would have to rein in your politics when interacting within the department. Never, never, never say an unhateful word about Trump -- but you shouldn't have a problem with that. One word about the ZOG or racial distinctions, though, and you're toast, a pariah.

It really is doable, since I assume you would do well on the GRE and your undergraduate grades are OK. Prep a little for the GRE. Research prospective departments to make sure they have the money available. It varies. Some history departments have straight out fellowships available, meaning you wouldn't have to be a teaching assistant (which in my case involved meeting three seminar classes from the large introductory lecture course each week, conducting the seminar and grading all the papers -- 45 students in all).

[gsjackson]

More advice, which assumes that, as you say, you have a little cash on hand. As I mentioned, you'll have to get a masters before you can get into a PhD program. You can get the masters at the same place you get the PhD, though not necessary, but the money is mostly available to people in the PhD programs. Not always -- there were a couple of masters students in our department who were TA's -- but usually it's not available to masters students, and even more unlikely in your case because you propose to be studying a subject you don't have many if any undergraduate credits in. And if you get a masters in an American university it's going to cost big bucks, even if completed in a year.

It's probably too late to apply for American programs that begin in the fall, but what you might consider doing is getting a masters in Europe, where many schools have rolling admissions and will admit students as late as July. While they typically don't have scholarship money available, European universities charge considerably lower tuition than US schools, even being free in some German universities.

So let's say for example you enter a European masters program in history this fall (which you wouldn't need the GRE for). You could pick up all the history credits you'd need to satisfy American PhD programs, take the GRE at your leisure, and if you did well at both, coming in strong with the diversity card with degrees from both New Zealand and Europe, I think you'd have a lot of opportunities.

Yes, you can be Dr. Cornfed, degreed by a reputable American university, but don't forget about the PC minefields that have to be navigated.

Edit: Oh yes, start studying a language as soon as possible. My PhD program didn't require one, but any history program would. And all of the above is assuming the academic environment in the U.S. is roughly the same as it was 15 years ago (but with even more egregious PC, of course).

[Cornfed]

Edit: Oh yes, start studying a language as soon as possible. My PhD program didn't require one, but any history program would. And all of the above is assuming the academic environment in the U.S. is roughly the same as it was 15 years ago (but with even more egregious PC, of course).

You mean like Latin?. Well I'm rolling, assuming my brain can function like it is 15 years ago.

[Neo]

I used to care a little bit about the respect of strangers. Now I just want to live my life, and I am not so concerned about whether they like me or hate me. Why burn up years of life just for an impressive title?

[gsjackson]

Edit: Oh yes, start studying a language as soon as possible. My PhD program didn't require one, but any history program would. And all of the above is assuming the academic environment in the U.S. is roughly the same as it was 15 years ago (but with even more egregious PC, of course).

You mean like Latin?. Well I'm rolling, assuming my brain can function like it is 15 years ago.

I guess it depends on what you propose to study. Typically it's German or French in American history grad programs. You'll be tested on it at the end of your program, to what level of competence I don't know

The 'diversity is our strength' mantra is, of course, nonsense, and more or less the opposite of the truth. But Americans feel obliged to pay it lip service, and it will work to your advantage in getting into an academic program. It won't, however, in getting a tenure track job in an American university. As a middle-aged white male you would be at a disadvantage there because you can't provide any butt covering against discrimination suits, like the brain-dead Koreans who couldn't make themselves understood in English in my program. You can always get a job as adjunct faculty, but they pay little more than being a grad student and without the free health insurance.

I'm assuming, though, that you have your own reasons for wanting a PhD that don't necessarily involve getting a job at an American university. The Neo question above is pertinent. But you're going to burn up those years doing something, so why not spend them studying and acquiring a credential that might enhance employability? And American academia needs substantial leavening by the non-woke.

[Cornfed]

Would it help if I said I was part Maori? Unlike with Elizabeth Warren, this might have the virtue of actually being true, but like Elizabeth Warren I look as white as all get out. It might be a good time to get a really good tan.

[gsjackson]

Would it help if I said I was part Maori? Unlike with Elizabeth Warren, this might have the virtue of actually being true, but like Elizabeth Warren I look as white as all get out. It might be a good time to get a really good tan.

Winner! Winner! Winner! Absolutely it would help, again in the admission into an academic program. The dynamic would be a little bit different in the job seeking process. After your interview they would gather and the conversation would probably go something like this: "This honkey ain't gonna help us none." "But wait. His application says part Maori, a certifiable ethnic minority. And he's a mild-mannered little fellow who won't make any waves or intimidate us. Sign him up."

And little would they know that they are letting the fox into the chicken coop. A fully tenured Professor Corny emerges a few years later to bring the righteous wrath of White Male Nation down upon the godforsaken university, backed by his suitably indoctrinated student minions.

[E Irizarry R&B Singer]

Part Maori and hates niggers. Interesting. Maoris do descend from Africa tens of thousands of years ago as an FYI. Ask your well-versed, well-educated anthropologist. Just like most of the Asian subcontienent of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh...just like most Malays, Filipinos, and people from Papua New Guinea. What would have been of planet Earth if the sun had not finally set on the British Empire? Maybe America would have finally kowtowed to the UK and become a Commonwealth despite the outcome of the U.S. Revolutionary War. Either way 2/3rd of the planet would have still been Anglicized. Re-hell-come to the Anglosphere; I had enough of it and countries that U.S. tourists and expats frequent.

[gsjackson]

And of course, if you can get something into all applications along the lines of your struggle to reconcile the primitive world view of your Maori origins with the irresistible lure you're feeling of modern Judaism and its intellectual rigor ......... well, write your own ticket through academia. A top-shelf useful idiot will have been identified and noted. Or a top-shelf whore. Both equally useful.