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Kylie Kinley chose Kansas State University (K-State) to build a career based on something that’s universal to the human experience: storytelling.
“Humans have been telling stories for thousands of years. We use stories to teach our children, pass down our heritage, entertain our friends, and learn from people and places we don’t understand or even fear,” says writer Kylie Kinley. “I wanted to enter into the storytelling tradition and use written communication to bring people together through stories.”
Today, she has written for newspapers, magazines, books, blogs, social media, and advertising campaigns. She has indexed scholarly nonfiction, edited peer-reviewed articles, and ghost-written a book about aeroplanes. She has done it all, thanks in large part to the English master’s degree she earned at K-State.
At K-State, specifically in the Department of English, you learn how to think critically, reason carefully, communicate effectively, and appreciate excellent writing and thinking. All these life skills for not more than US$1,100 per credit hour? It’s a bargain for any international student seeking to excel in the English language, whether it’s Literature, Children’s Literature, Creative Writing, Cultural Studies, or Composition and Rhetoric.
The department offers a Master of Arts in English programme with five tracks. The Literature track focuses on the best of Anglophone work in any time period. More interested in the written works for young audiences? The Children’s Literature track is for you.
Meanwhile, Creative Writing is best for those preparing to be poets, novelists, essayists, short story writers, reviewers, editors, and teachers. The Cultural Studies track looks at pop culture materials and their significance. Finally, the Composition and Rhetoric track explores the many issues, approaches, and theories that are part of the English language as it exists in social, cultural, educational, professional, and literary contexts.
The department offers students a carefully structured but individualised programme that encourages creativity, promotes innovative scholarship, and fosters close working relationships. Source: Kansas State University
These programmes are taught primarily face-to-face in small-sized classrooms by faculty members who have received teaching awards from the department, college, or university. It’s personalised, focused, and inclusive – like being part of a PhD programme but for master’s students. These classes are also flexible. You can go for hybrid classes or do it entirely online. If you opt for the latter, tuition fees are only US$551.14 per credit hour for graduate programmes.
K-State offers numerous financial aid options so you can focus on your studies without any monetary burden. One of them is the Graduate Teaching Assistantships (GTA) which award stipends, a tuition waiver, and health insurance as well as some scholarship monies as they perform instructional duties for their own students, including lesson planning, leading discussion, and assessment of student writing.
At K-State, financial support is made even easier for you with the university’s Powercat Financial programme. This free programme will provide you with financial education that does not only apply to your time here but also in life. Topics cover budgeting, savings, credit, student loan repayment, and transitioning to work.
As a K-State graduate, you can expect to land various roles. According to the university, recent K-State alumni with an MA in English have reported salaries ranging from US$40,000 to US$70,000 with a median of US$48,000 across several professional fields like university administration and advising, professional writing, journalism, information services, librarianship, law, marketing and PR, publishing, medicine and health, accountancy, and arts administration. Many have ended up in education, as 30% are currently teaching at the secondary or post-secondary level, while 40% have earned or are on their way to completing another advanced degree.
“I went on to complete a PhD in autobiography from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, where I have been teaching creative writing and literature since 2015,” says graduate Lamees Al Ethari. “I am currently examining the ways in which migrant women tell their stories in a forthcoming autoethnography, titled ‘Patterns of Telling: Women’s Autobiography in the Diaspora.’ I also added my own voice to these narratives through a collection of poetry, ‘From the Wounded Banks of the Tigris’ (Baseline Press, 2018) and a memoir, ‘Waiting for the Rain’ (Mawenzi House, 2019).”
All graduate faculty members go above and beyond to empower students. Source: Kansas State University
There’s something else K-State English graduates are qualified to do: making a difference.
“Whether I’m writing academic progress appeals to help students on academic warning who need a second chance, creating an email to explain their options for classes, or coaching my students through the resume and cover letter writing process, I am using writing for the greater good,” Kinley says.
K-State alumni have found successful careers with the help of the university’s career centre. The centre benefits graduate students by identifying job opportunities where they can engage with employers and industry leaders in annual workshops held there. There is also the programme’s annual Alumni Connections Career Panel, where past students from different stages in their post-graduate careers share their personal experiences and their professional pathways to give you an inside scoop of what to expect as in the world of work.
Other graduates, like Shaunte Montgomery, pay it back differently. After holding lecturer roles at Howard University and Anne Arundel Community College, she’s now an Associate Dean at Brown University. “I also continue to develop student success and retention programmes in my dual appointment as a Transfer Studies Program faculty mentor,” she says. “What motivates my work is a strong desire to help students see beyond their current trajectory and to know that it is possible to surprise even yourself.”
Contact K-State’s Director of Graduate Studies, Dr Cameron Leader-Picone and visit the department’s website for more information.
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