Thursday, June 7, 2007

Moving / Meeting Professors

I am extremely sorry for the all-of-a-sudden lack of posting. In the last few weeks I've : Taken exams, started my summer classes, moved from my house to a new townhouse in Wake Forest, etc. Needless to say, I've been quite busy.

I don't particularly care for blogs that are all autobiographical (dear diary and such), but I figure this blog was set up to show you (or remind you) what it's like being an undergraduate who is considering graduate studies. So:

Today I have a meeting with a Professor at UNC to discuss their graduate program. Duke is my top choice now (is there a better faculty for New Testament studies?), but UNC is a great school. One of my concerns is that they don't have an M.A. or Ph.D in "New Testament", but rather you get it in "Ancient Mediterranean Religions" with a concentration on New Testament. I wonder how this differs from receiving a degree in just New Testament.

The professor with whom I'm meeting today has drastically different interests than my own and I really like that. When I visited Southern Seminary in Louisville, I ended up speaking with a professor who was a church historian, specifically focusing on the Reformation (he did his dissertation on Theodore Beza). However, generally when I visit a school, I speak with one of their New Testament professors. This professor is more of a church history type, with an emphasis on 20th Century Catholicism in America. I'm reading a book that he co-wrote with some other professors and it's pretty fascinating. It challenges me to meet people who have completely different research interests than my own, because it challenges me to be somewhat familiar with their field so that I can atleast dialogue with them.