Hello, all!

I'm currently an undergrad English Major/Creative Writing Minor, and I'm on the Master's track at my school. However, my school doesn't offer a PhD. program in English. There's another school I'm looking at that offers both Master's and PhD programs. My questions are:

Should I continue at my current school, get my graduate degree, THEN transfer to this other school?
OR should I transfer to this other school as soon as I have my BA, and continue my Masters and PhD. at the transfer school?
OR should I transfer to this other school as soon as I have my BA, and get right on the PhD track, earning my Master's in the process?

Basically, is there any gain to getting my Master's degree separately from my PhD? Or should I just go straight for the PhD.? I'd like to earn my PhD. as soon as possible, so that I can teach English literature on the university level before I'm ninety.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

One of the things you may want to look at when comparing schools is where their PhD English lit graduates end up working. If a school has a good alumni services network, that's a good sign! My graduate school has a great career services department that includes an alumni mentoring program, frequent job fairs, job announcements via listserv, proofreading services for your curriculum vitae and employment application essays, etc.

I would also recommend researching professors with whom you think you would like to work. You don't have to decide your dissertation topic now, of course, but you probably have a general idea of where you want to specialize. Read their articles. If you find someone who seems to be a good match with your interests, if possible, stop by her or his office for a brief chat.

It's just my opinion, but these are two things to consider when making your decision. Good luck!

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If you can get to a PhD without the masters, then do it.

In my opinion there is little point taking a year just to end up at the same place as you can end up now... some people say there are experiences in your masters degree that are important and skills that you gain there which are useful for your PhD, but I don't think there's anything there that's absolutely essential that you can't pick up "on the job", as it were.

I went straight from bachelors to PhD and I'm doing just fine - no better and no worse than my PhD colleagues who started with Masters degrees, etc.

Basically, a graduate school wouldn't accept you if they didn't think you were capable of completing a PhD. That means if they accept you with a Masters degree, then they expect you not to be so disadvantaged by your lack of a Masters degree that you will struggle with your PhD.

Certainly, once you HAVE your PhD, whether or not you did a Masters is irrelevant - most employers and academic institutions take the view that you are only as good as your last degree.