One of the most important things graduate students need is funding for professional academic events. One of the central events in the academic community is conferences. So if you're to succeed as a graduate student, you need funding to attend important conferences in your field. Texas A&M offers very generous conference funding for its graduate students.
 
This past weekend, I attended a Shakespeare Pedagogy Conference organized by the Strode Renaissance Center at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. And the funding for the conference came from the department of English conference travel support.
 
My presentation went wonderfully well. Even though there were full professors with years of experience, I did quite well in my presentation. One older professor who had been teaching for 20 years came up to me to ask for advice on how to teach certain Shakespeare plays (Titus etc). I felt quite proud of myself explaining to this more qualified academic how to approach certain texts.
 
Also, in my section of the conference, we had three presenters, and one was almost done with her dissertation (she's from University of Massachusetts, Amherst), the other is a full professor with about ten years teaching experience. My presentation garnered the most conversation in our section and among the top 3 conversation starters and interest at the conference overall even though there were professors from places like Harvard etc. So the conference went really well.
 
I also got to meet a lot of interesting scholars and have actually exchanged numbers and business cards with about 5 of them for future possible collaboration. But the most interesting and possibly most exciting contact I made was a woman from the American Shakespeare Center in Virginia. She was really interested in my project and said she's really interested in working with me. She gave me her business card and asked me to contact her later. She thinks my work could be useful in their preparatory materials for new teachers. So, I'm really looking forward to that. Will be interested to talking to you about how to approach this one.
 
I think I'll apply to a few more conferences this year because I really did enjoy this one. My host, a professor at the theater department who also teaches in the English Department and directs a production at the University of Alabama, who also presented at the conference, told me this evening (after I came back with dinner with the younger participants) that many people really did like my presentation. So, I was grinning inside from ear to ear. This has been a pleasant experience.
 
If you're applying to graduate school, Texas A&M is definitely a good choice for you because other than conference funding, the school also offer funding for other professional development programs like book history or rare books school events, funds for research travel etc. I actually had professional development award to go to California two summers ago for a Rare Books school workshop and a couple of my friends went to Canada for humanities computer school last summer. Texas A&M is definitely a great place to develop as a professional even as you study for your graduate degree.

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Umar Mohammed
Umar is a Ph.D. student in the Department of English