librareality

Hi Professor!

I am in the process of applying to ____ and they require letters of rec. I sincerely enjoyed your classes, and felt that they gave me a particularly good chance to display my strengths, such as ____ [class participation, writing, etc.] and would love for you to write me a letter, if you’d be willing. The due date is ____, and I can send you further instructions for submission later if you accept.

Attached to this email is ____, the piece of work I did in your class which best showcases my abilities, as well as my current CV [or resume]. If you agree to write me a letter, soon I will also send you drafts of my ____ [statement of purpose, personal statement, application essays, other relevant material] for my application to aid in your writing. I am also happy to meet in person to discuss this with you.

I want to stress that this application is quite competitive, so if you feel you will not be able to write me a strong letter then I completely understand - but please let me know. Thank you so much for your time!

Sincerely, ____

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a few notes:

- you should have all your relevant materials (app essays, etc.) sent to them *at least* a month in advance to give them ample time to write the letter

- thus, your initial email asking them if they’d be willing to write a letter for you should be sent *over* a month in advance. professors are busy

- if you are applying for a really prestigious position/scholarship/fellowship, or grad school, it’s best to have at least a majority of your letter writers be professors (rather than adjuncts or post docs). ideally you’d want them to be full/tenured professors. in lots of cases, especially academic ones, *who* writes your letter matters - not just *what’s in* your letter

- the reason you send them the piece of work you did in their class that you are most proud of is to remind them of your abilities as a student and the quality of the work you produced for them. they have lots of students. sometimes they need a bit of help jogging their memory of exactly what you did in their class.

- the reason you send them your other application materials (personal statement, statement of purpose, CV) is so that they have information to draw from when writing your letter. they know what you’re passionate about, what you hope to do in the future, other experience you have, and can use this information when writing your letter

- on a similar note, this is also why you’d want to list the strengths you displayed in their class

- basically, you want to give them as much information as you can about your strengths, goals, and intentions - give them prompts they can use to write your letter

- the bit at the end about asking for a “strong letter” is important because some professors can only write you mediocre letters (e.g. “this student was always on time to class and gave their undivided attention during lecture” - what does this tell admission committees? well, it tells them that the professor has nothing positive to say about your *academic* abilities and so they’re resorting to other strengths. it’s a polite way of saying “this student was okay, but not spectacular in any notable way”. big red flag for admissions committees.) if all you’re going to get is a mediocre letter, you might as well not get a letter at all

- if the professor you ask accepts, then be sure to send them polite reminders as the date approaches. (i usually send a reminder at the 1-month-till-due-date mark when i send the other application materials, and then again at the 2 week and 1 week marks, and, if necessary, every day after the final 3 days leading up to the due date

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i know this was a lot, but i remember being in your shoes and being completely lost when it came to applying for stuff so i know how daunting it can be. i figured i’d just throw all this information at you to be of as much help as possible.

for reference, i’ve applied to graduate programs, fellowships, and scholarships. i have been accepted into several of the top 10 graduate programs in my area, as well as received multiple scholarships and a fellowship, and received honorable mentions for some of the most competitive fellowships in the US. i have also worked with the admissions committee at my graduate program to organize multiple informational events for those interested in applying to graduate school and, in the process, have learned a lot about what makes a strong application.

so while you should absolutely take my advice with a grain of salt (different circumstances call for different standards), i do have quite a bit of experience with applications and what makes a strong letter of rec.

an insomniac’s brain isn’t the same as a healthy person’s brain, it has altered to suit their toxic, obsessive lifestyle, and the alterations are no positive ones. 

the energy you get from caffeine, comes from it blocking the neurotransmitter adenosine’s receptors, and overtime that can cause irritability, anxiety, rapid heart rate, and even insomnia. 

i want you to remember that no amount of obsessiveness is going to guarantee you good results because at some point, whether you notice or not, it will become unhealthy, and you will lose sense of any standard for yourself, and you’ll only push further and further until you’re burnt-out and can’t take it anymore

take this from someone who started staying up past 3 am in high school and at 20 can go almost 30 hours without sleep. someone who’s struggling to give up stimulants like coffee even if i don’t get any energy boost from it anymore. someone who was so obsessed with earning a language certificate that studied non-stop for 18 months and now has been crashing for 4 whole months because they just can’t anymore.

you won’t get anywhere by hurting yourself, you’ll have many significant setbacks along the way because you did not learn what your studying style is, you don’t know how much time you need to learn a new concept, you don’t know at which hours during the day you’re at your best. you’ll have to actually sit down and figure these things out for yourself and that’s how you succeed by knowing how you tick, but in a healthy way. so please stop with turning bad habits into “aesthetics” i’m sure you’ll regret it later. 

If you feel like you’ve seen this alread, that’s normal. This list of recommendation has been previously posted on my first account @praestantias which has been deleted for some reasons. So here I am, reposting it. 

Hating how elitist and eurocentric the dark academia community became, I would truly appreciate that you leave some recommendation of book written by people of color, for I noticed that I am guilty of the eurocentric part, but I am really want to educate myself and read more non-white books. 

While there might be a few students faking mental illness, I doubt all of them were pretending to be mentally ill. Many mentally ill people are often bullied for their mental illness and face a lot of discrimination finding jobs. And there are mental health professionals who can tell if someone is faking a mental illness. So I doubt that most students claiming to have a mental illness are faking having mental health problems.

These are all my personal thoughts and experiences from reaching a proficient level in one language, and an intermediate in another!! Feel free to correct me or add whatever you wish<3

 1. A0 - Knowledge Level: Nothing

At this stage, you have absolutely no knowledge or very little knowledge about a language. My advice is to start out slow: the alphabet, pronunciation rules, basic pronouns, colors, etc. At this point, there’s not much you can improve on (Reading/Writing, Listening and Speaking) since you’ve got no actual knowledge to expand upon. Try apps like Duolingo, have fun with translating words such as your favorite animal, plant, or swear word. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself at this point, it’s all in good fun! Try starting a notebook in which you write down new words, (i.e. all of them) or watching a couple videos on Youtube, even if you don’t understand much.

2. A1 - Knowledge Level: Just a Bit

This is when you slowly exit the stage of “is this even a language” and enter the “beginner” world. You know a couple basic verbs (to be, to have, eat, sleep, walk, talk, etc) and some sets of basic nouns/pronouns. (weekdays, months, numbers, colors, objects you find around the house, and all that fun jazz.) You can string together a couple sentences you’ve heard twenty times on Duolingo! Regardless of the fact that “The boys drink milk” is not really something you’ll need in irl conversation, it’s good that you’re getting familiar. By this time, you should start looking into proper grammar rules such as verb terminations, tenses, noun declinations, pronouns, etc. Children’s books are a good way to learn a lot of stuff you’d need. The language is simple and it goes straight to the point, which is the only type of writing you understand, mostly. Right now, speaking is not really an option aside from learning to pronounce words right. Listening, on the other hand, can be done really easily! If you find that Youtube channels in your target language are boring or too hard to understand, music is the way to go. You’re especially lucky if you’re a Disney fan, because most of their songs are easy to remember and are dubbed in a lot of languages, so have fun with finding what fits you best!

3. A2 - Knowledge Level: Basic/Preliminary

Now we’re beginning to see some major improvements. You pick up words easier, you can read almost perfectly even if you don’t understand everything, and you can form really basic sentences by yourself. For speaking, by now you should be able to say your name, the place you live in, and maybe talk about your hobbies or your favorite stuff! It depends on if you’ve worked with a teacher until now or not, so don’t worry if you’re still struggling. As a stepping stone between beginner and intermediate, this level can either be the one when you slowly improve or make a really big jump in your skills. Listening to songs and youtube videos should be easier, but nobody is expecting you to actually comprehend everything. As for vocabulary and reading, learning new words should come more intuitively by now, but again, you’re still in the early days. Writing is still something that can be difficult, so try maybe linking a couple sentences together to make a short story and translating some simple texts. But it you don’t find it difficult, writing a hundred words once a couple days may be the way to go.

4. B1 - Knowledge Level - Intermediate

Finally, we’ve reached the intermediate stage! By now you should be able to hold very basic conversation and reveal information about yourself. You should be able to pick up words you know from the people around you, and understand mostly everything if spoken slowly and clearly to. Reading light books or magazines should be challenging but okay, while you should be able to remember certain words without making too big of an effort. By this stage, active learning is still essential, as you probably have a lot more ahead in your language learning journey. I encourage you to write short stories or several sentences about your day in a diary, depending on what works for you. Watching Youtube videos should be something you do often, because it improves listening skills greatly and gets you accustomed to informal speech patterns and filler words.

5. B2 - Knowledge Level - Advanced Intermediate

Yay! You have officially reached the advanced intermediate stage! You should be able to hold everyday conversation without too big of a headache, listening probably isn’t a breeze for you but still, if you watch a basic youtube video you can pretty much get all of it. YA books should be a regular part of your reading, since they’re not too hard to comprehend but still a good reading exercise. Vocabulary probably isn’t a bother anymore, since you know most of the words you need and the ones you don’t, you hear them once or five times and they stick to you. At this level you can probably write some basic fanfiction, or anything that doesn’t require advanced language skills but is still challenging. Congrats! You’re almost at an advanced level!

6. C1 - Advanced

If you’re still here, means you’ve got a strong sense of dedication. C1 is the advanced level, where you have pretty much everything that you need to comfortably live your life in a country which speaks your target language. If you’re already here and most of the above things seem far, far away to you, then maybe it’s time to get down on some serious reading. Look up local classics, or contemporary works that stimulate your mind. Writing essays, reviews, reports, etc, should be something you are able to do, as you have a good grasp on both formal and informal language, both literary concepts and idioms/phrasal verbs/slang. Listening should come easily, with the ability to understand everything that is spoken to you without worries, as long as they don’t have an alien accent. Speaking, too, should be a breeze by now, with everyday conversation being a piece of cake and more formal conversations not posing too big of a challenge. If you want to reach the next– and last– level, it can be done through thorough preparation of skills that are usually required by exams or for language-related jobs. If you don’t care about either of these, congrats! You learned a language! 

7. C2 - Proficient