I still have two years to go in school. I'm incredibly bitter about that; if I hadn't switched educational systems between high school and uni, I'd have graduated already. However, the upside is, I have plenty of time to prepare grad school applications.
The truth is, I'm still not sure what I want to do after I graduate. There're so many things I want to do, like work in a variety of places, both abroad and in Egypt; I want to go to grad school, and I want to enrol in another undergrad program (in biochemistry! It'd be so much fun! I love biochem!). But hey, I'm gonna start with the most obvious, right? So I'm looking at grad school programs.
Holy shit. Too much choice.
No, really. So far, all I know is that I want to study something to do with the relationship between literature and other arts/society/culture. Or with arts/cultural management, but I'm hesitating on that, because while this is the career path I most likely want to get into, the MA programs are chock-full of law, business and economics courses and I've never taken those, and what's more, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna end up hating them. So I'm looking at Comparative Literature MA/PhD programs, French Lit MA/PhD programs and Cultural Management/Arts Management/Cultural Policy MA or MBA programs. TBH, so far the most attractive programs are in Comp Lit, and I think I could handle those, despite Comp Lit being a notoriously difficult field. They have language requirements; I love language requirements. And most of them have Latin among those requirements, and I've missed studying Latin so much omg. <3 And they allow me to choose Arabic as my 'cross-cultural language'.
So my current plan of action is:
1. Contact people at each of those programs, explain about my background/education/work experience, ask questions, get to know each program better - ASAP
2. Study for and take the TOEFL iBT - Next winter/spring
3.
Really study for and take GREs (General and Literature Subject Test) - Next spring/summer
4. Study for and take the IELTS - Fall 2010
5. Maintain a GPA of over 15/20 at uni, and try to raise it to 17.5/20 (so it'd be 3.5 on an American scale)
6. Look for scholarships: contact Chevening, Fulbright, Ford Foundation, British Council, various Sawiris-owned organisms... - Fall 2010
7. Ask for recommendation letters and start preparing applications - Spring or Fall 2010
8. Get a job in an arts-related entreprise other than my current workplace (which makes up 90% of my CV!)
9. Any more suggestions? I'm really improvising, because I have no idea what to do.
Now I'm wondering if I should travel next summer, or save my money for the application/testing/mailing fees. Because, um, I'll basically be applying EVERYWHERE EVER, so we're talking 15+ applications. I'm... kind of really set on getting accepted
somewhere. Basically, I know I've gotten really sucky undergrad education, and I want to make up for it.