I’m applying to fourteen universities for graduate philosophy this year. Last year I applied to around eight US institutions and this year I’m applying to nine US universities and five UK universities. The US applications are mostly just a repeat filling-out of forms, but the UK applications required a great deal of editing of my writing samples for length to fit their much tighter word limits. Here are some observations from doing this.

(1) I found my writing from my final two terms as an undergraduate, when I assumed I was on the top of my philosophical game, to be in many respects crap. Maybe my opinion now is delusional but there were a lot of words wasted and a lot of rambling. I was able to make my essays rather more streamlined when I cut the words out. The sweet spot for my 5000 word essays was 3000; the 2000 word versions that I had to produce were a little too tight. Why have my writing skills apparently improved in the past year? I have barely done any writing and none that has been carefully thought out. Is it just the effects of time having passed since I looked at these particular essays?

(2) This weekend I thought I’d try to blitz all my applications and have it out of my life. I realise that this was a mistake. For those universities which have deadlines in February and March, I shouldn’t rush. This is because all the projects in our lives can extend beyond the time we think they will take, and we need to be prepared for unexpected things making them take longer. If I get used to blitzing things before they need to be done, I weaken my ability to deal with unexpected extensions. A better attitude is to accept that life requires having a bunch of things on the go at once and we’ve just got to chip away at each of them when we can.

(3) I enjoyed editing my essays for length and doing the philosophy that editing them required (thinking through the arguments again). It has me thinking again about how much philosophy I’ve not done while I’ve been in Korea. It’s still very possible that I’m not interested enough to do graduate work, but here are two other reasons that are certainly significant contributions. Firstly, when I have the undefined “do some reading” I suffer continually from intrusive thoughts about whether I’m doing the right reading, whether I’m understanding as much as I should be, whether I’m enjoying it as much as I should be. When I had to edit my essays for length I had a set project and a set time limit and it was easier. Secondly, editing the essays was something I set aside time for in the early mornings when I’m at my best. And it was something that could be chipped away on. Reading papers that I want to read isn’t like that. I need to read the whole paper in one sitting, at least the first time I read it. I haven’t been having regular blocks of time to do that in Korea. I should keep trying to make that time.