Graduate School Aspirations: Email from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

As some of you know, I have a broad range of interests for what to do after my sojourn in Korea is over. One of these is graduate school. I sent out a couple of feeler letters this summer to some history professors. One set of dialogues with Ronald P.T. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign has been particularly promising.

He says that, based on my honors thesis that I wrote for my senior year at VALPO, my writing and my abilities with critical analysis are "unusally" good for someone entering graduate school. These are the hardest abilities to develop, so he thinks I can do well in a Ph.D. program.

My main obstacle in doing history for graduate school, East Asian history in particular, is the language barrier. I was never required to learn Japanese or Chinese to study East Asia at VALPO, but graduate schools want me to be proficient at reading academic articles in at least one East Asian language in my field before entry. My obstacle is that I don't have any at this point. So, basically, I have to spend a couple of years out here learning Korean or start taking some classes. Having Japanese going in would be nice too, but optional. Same for traditional Chinese and random European academic language, say German or French. So, language goals if I go into Grad School:

Before Grad School:
Korean
(Japanese)

During Grad School:
Korean
Japanese
Traditional Chinese
(French or German)

Well, better get cracking. (SLEEPS and SNORES!) ^^