I decided to go back to the domain of academical research in the last few months of being a fashion student. This year, I may need to say “thanks” to the pandemic because a few of the school had extended their deadline of the second application, made it possible for me to make my last-minute decision.
(p.s. applying French education outside from the EU countries is different from applying in the EU countries. For my case, since I’m living in Paris, I can directly apply from the eCandidat platform of each school.)
From the end of July to mid-August.》
Originally, my goal is to apply for a doctorate program. During summer, I spent a week to organize a contact detail of the professors and the laboratory in the relevant domain in Excel. I listed out all of the fields of research and their courses in the university of each professor. This allowed me to modify my motivation letter and research proposal easily according to which professor I was emailing to. Having a lot of organized forms like this, I usually called myself as a ‘task freak’.
My proposal raised the interest from several professors; though, the direction of my research aims at comparing the philosophy of Stéphane Mallarmé’s ‘L’Après-midi d’un faune’ and ‘ZhuangZhou’, which the latter is rarely researched among the French researchers. Thus, it was difficult for me to find a professor who is willing to direct this research.
After having a face-to-face discussion with the professors from Panthéon Sorbonne and Sorbonne Nouvelle, both of them agreed that since I’ve been pursuing the professional masters these two years, it’d be more realistic for me to strengthen my French academic skill with an extra two years of study in the graduate school. Furthermore, there aren’t much HDR professors (Habilité à Dirigier des Recherches) who can direct PhD thesis in France; hence, normally they receive the students that they’ve been supervising since master or introduced by other professors.
That said, I started a crazy and sleepless month to search, prepared and apply for the last minute graduate school.
From the end of August to the beginning of September.》
Applying for research university is completely different from applying for the professional fashion institution. The documents prepared for the latter are usually the CV, previous diploma, motivation letter, study proposal, certificate of the language and recommendation letter. However, the former requires:
- CV
- Bac or equivalent transcript
- Previous diploma
- Transcript of the previous diploma
- Motivation letter (one-page maximum)
- Research proposal (three to five pages)
- Agreement of the research from the supervisor (depends on the requirement of the school)
- Certificate of the language
Bac… mon Dieu, how long has it been since I took my Bac? In France, even if you are applying for graduate school, it is still necessary to provide a transcript of the Bac. I had no choice but to ask the favour from my parents to request a copy from the College Entrance Examination Center in Taiwan, urgently to be received within an hour. An hour? Why can’t I wait for a few days? Because I’m not in an English-speaking country, every foreign document needs to be translated into French and stamped by the national-certificated translator.
Research proposal
A benefit brought by the doctorate application previously was that I already developed a research subject with clear problematic, question, aim, objectives and bibliography; plus, I had a brief understanding of what the professors want to see from the proposal. Yet, to be more relevant to the field of research in France, I prepared a second proposal.
During my study in Istituto Marangoni, I wrote an essay for the course, Fashion Sociology and Mapping Culture: Theatre as a Catharsis for Feminist Fashion. That essay was based on the theory of Roland Barthes to discuss the relationship between the contemporary fashion industry and theatrical culture. This essay as inspiration, I modified the direction to research the semiotics and ideology behind a certain piece of opera. It saved me a lot of time from starting a new proposal from nothing.
I think what I learnt from the process of writing the research proposal, is that the content not only needs to fit the research domain of the professor (philosophy, literature comparison, prehistorical arts and so on), but it also needs to be relevant to the research flow in the local country (for example, choosing Roland Barthes or Hegel as a topic when studying in Europe, and choosing Confucius, ZhuangZhou philosophy while applying the school in Taiwan since which the information in the original language could be easily accessed locally).
Motivation letter
Having diplomas from London College of Fashion and Istituto Marangoni is a strong add-on during the job-hunt; however, it wouldn’t be the same when it comes to applying from a research university.
The first four sentences in the first paragraph, I directly started with my Bachelor of Arts in Law, the graduate school that I am applying for and the intention of pursuing the doctorate study later on.
I only mentioned the study in Istituto Marangoni briefly in the second paragraph. The most important thing was to describe two relevant research papers that I had written since undergraduate. I spent one paragraph to write about these subjects, aims and the theories that were applied.
The third paragraph, I restated the goal for the doctorate study by mentioning the meeting with the professors this summer of how they encouraged and advised me to start from the graduate study; plus, to emphasize how can this study benefit me in the future of doctorate application.
Last, in the fourth and fifth paragraph I developed my short-, middle-, long-term goal in two, ten years and after education.
To point out consistency and the relevance, the establishment of my goals surrounds the academic research and how I am going to utilize the school resources. Compared to other students, my study experience might be slightly unique, so I need to convince the professors that I’m capable of the changing from the professional master to the strict academic research, and what I learnt in the professional institution can bring benefits to my research.
Searching for the supervisor
I had applied for the Philosophy, Theatre research and Literature in Paris III (Sorbonne Nouvelle), Paris VII (Université de Paris/ Paris Diderot) and Paris Sorbonne for my last-minute application. Among these universities, Paris VII requires the applicants to find a supervisor in the university to agree on the dissertation beforehand to fulfil the application. But, at this moment, I was already having no hope for my wish to continue the academic research because it was already four days before the deadline. Plus, a lot of professors had rejected me due to having too much of the supervised students or being unfamiliar with opera.
Nevertheless, the next afternoon, I received a phone call from a professor who is in the field of researching Roland Barthes that he is highly interested in directing my topic and invited me to the back-to-school reunion. It was pretty much a miracle happening within three days, I would say. Before even receiving the school admission, the professor had already skyped with me for the discussion on the topic and assigned me for the research progress before the school starts.
School admission
At last, after a sleepless month, I had finally received three admission:
- Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle, Théâtre
- Paris VII Diderot, Lettre Générale Comparée
- Paris VII Diderot, Lettres, Arts et Sciences Humaines
I can finally rest a while one and a half week before school starts. These days, I had been waking up at 11 AM, and even if I get up, I don’t have the energy to work, either.
Recommendation for the handy tools
- EndNote
This was installed by my elder years ago and there is already version X9 this year. The student plan costs about 180 euro for the one-time payment; it’s quite an amount of money, for sure; yet, once installed, it’s a life and time saver. This application could organize and categorize the bibliography according to different research that you are working on, and it presents the author, year, title and the type of research clearly on its interface. The PDF files saved could also be stored, read and highlighted inside EndNote.
At the end of the document, the reference list will be generated automatically according to the referencing system that you are using, Harvard referencing, for example. It’s also possible to define your own system by writing a new guideline.
- Streak (only compatible with Windows and Android system)
Besides contacting professors, Streak is also useful when applying for jobs and internships. After installing this plugin to Gmail, it will track when the mail was read by the receivers, as well as how many times they reopen it. By having this information, I can plan when I should follow up or if I should reach out to another professor/ manager.
Postscript.》
The application this time was way too last-minute; especially, I still have classes to attend during the daytime. While at nightfall, I need to busy applying for jobs, internships and graduate schools. I couldn’t sleep before 3 or 4 AM every day. For once, I thought I couldn’t be able to keep going as my brain and energy was entirely drained. But whenever I thought about the National Library of France, I was able to refocus on my goal of pursuing further academic research.
I can surely spend another post to describe my love for the National Library.
Especially my major is fashion communication and media, during the study in Istituto Marangoni, we emphasize the future of the industry. Thus, except for briefing the research background is the only time when I might need a few of the theories and bibliographies published decades ago, most of the information required is, ideally, published within five, or even two to one year. To be honest, there aren’t many chances to utilize the physical resources in the National Library.
Looking at that researcher’s pass to the National Library, if I leave the academic research just like this, my heart is filled with reluctance.
