Dear Family, Friends and Colleagues:
While I am certainly owe many of you individual emails and phone calls, I wanted to take a moment to update everyone en masse on Jordan and I's PhD decisions.
We have had a very busy academic year. I spent last summer writing a grant to establish a European Union Center of Excellence (EUCE) at Georgia Tech with four other women. We were thrilled to be selected as grant recipients, and were charged with the monumental task of realizing our three-year event schedule. To see what the EUCE has become and to learn more about past and upcoming events, please visit www.euce.gatech.edu. Over the Fall semester, I had the privilege of serving as the Center's first Graduate Research Assistant, which provided me with invaluable tools for my future career path. In addition, I returned to work at Banta Immigration Law as a Case Coordinator (Part Time July to January, Full Time February to July). I have continued to teach for Kaplan on a part time basis. Academically, I completed my coursework in December and my Thesis (Normative Power Europe: Europe's New Neighborhood and Energy Policies) in February. Jordan spent the last academic year working primarily on his masters project (a qualitative investigation of deviant behaviour on Wikipedia) as well as completing his coursework. We both graduate on May 1st at the Georgia Dome (Jordan will receive a Master of Science in Human-Computer Interaction and I in International Affairs).
We have, however, had the opportunity to travel and spend time with family throughout the past year. Since my last "state of the family" email (June 2008, I believe) we have been to the beach with my family (July 2008), I have been to Scotland (October 2008), we went on a cruise with my entire family (March 2009), and we have visited Pittsburgh (March 2009). Upcoming, we are going to London and Aberdeen in May (with BA tickets that I won -- yes won -- in a Christmas raffle -- our graduation gift a la British Airways!) and we will head to Savannah and Hilton Head with Jordan's family to celebrate his Mema's 80th Birthday (also in May).
Compounding our workload over the academic year was the monumental task of applying to PhD programs. We essentially made a list of the programs to which each of us wished to apply and filled out applications for those that happened to have a corresponding program. In the end, I applied to 16 programs and Jordan to 11. A short deviation and a word to the wise: those considering graduate school in the near future, beware. On the whole, we have been told that the economic climate has encouraged more applicants than normal AND that the academic programs can afford to accept fewer students than general. While this scenario certainly affected our applications, we are pleased to announce that we will both be attending our top choice programs in the fall of 2009. It is fair to say that Jordan had two favorite programs (Carnegie Mellon University and the University of California at Irvine), each had its strengths and either would have been a great fit: he received acceptances and generous funding packages to both, among other offers. Each of these programs have a strong focus on Online Communities, and specifically on Jordan's subject of interest -- Online Games. Among my offers was an opportunity to study at one of the strongest EU programs in the US and another to study at one of the top pure political science programs in the country (The University of Pittsburgh and Georgetown University). That being said, in August 2009, we will move to Pittsburgh where I will matriculate to the PhD Program in Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh, specifically, I will study Comparative Politics and International Relations with a geographical focus on the European Union. I am looking forward to being involved with the EUCE at Pittsburgh. Jordan will matriculate to the PhD program in Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University, focusing on Massively Multi-Player Online Games. If you are interested in following our journey and acclimation to Pittsburgh, please visit our blog at sarah.jordanpatton.com (I am not sure this is running yet -- hopefully it will be on the go once Jordan's exams are over!)
Jordan and I really appreciate all of your support throughout the past year; many of you have helped us personally and professionally and we look forward to sharing our future and academic journey with you.
With Love,
Sarah
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