In the following interview, Kino Zhao and Yong Xin Hui discuss their work with Wonder Philosophy, a workshop series intended to provide students with information and guidance related to philosophy graduate school applications. The workshops especially seek to serve first-generation students who may be at a disadvantage in the application process. Workshops cover topics ranging from deciding where to apply, putting together an application package, assessing programs, attending campus visits, and understanding job prospects.
Applications for the May 2022 Online Workshop close May 13, 2022. Applications and more information can be found on the Wonder website.
When did this program/workshop begin and what motivated its inception?
Kino: The idea of Wonder came to me when I was helping undergraduate students with their application materials as part of my job at the graduate writing center. I found that students often downplay their accomplishments, or have trouble highlighting the important parts of their record. They did not need writing help; they needed clarifications of small and simple facts about academia that are obvious to us who are on the other side. Talking with graduate students revealed that many of us received little advice, or even what we now recognize to be wrong advice. This is especially true for first-generation college students who face more of an informational barrier, as well as students coming from universities without a graduate program, where professors are less equipped to supply a graduate admission’s perspective.
The initial idea is to present information that should be obvious to anyone who has gone through the graduate applications process to those who are just starting, so that they don’t have to figure it out on their own. I pitched the idea to the Southern California MAP network and received a lot of encouragement and suggestions. The first workshop was hosted by me, Jingyi Wu, and Stella Moon, in 2019. It was funded by UC Irvine and the APA. From 2020 onwards, UCI has hosted the workshops online, and will be hosting it again from Aug 20-21 2022.
Xin Hui: In 2021, Pittsburgh started a branch of Wonder led by Conny Knieling and me, with Nikki Ernst and Natalie Runkle leading the presentations. Both the May 2021 and May 2022 iterations of the Wonder Workshops (applications due May 13!) are held online and funded by MAP Pittsburgh, and the May 2022 iteration (held over two weekends from 21-22 May and 28-29 May) will also have help from the University of Rochester’s MAP chapter.
In addition to the workshops, we also have a website containing pages of resources about the graduate admissions process, from spreadsheet links to writeups about whether to pursue a terminal Master’s program and how to navigate graduate school with disabilities.
Who will be participating in the program/workshop?
Kino and Xin Hui: We welcome any student who 1) is seriously considering philosophy graduate school, and 2) is in a position to apply within the next 2 years. In cases where there is more interest than room, priority will be given to first-generation college students.
Students do not have to have made up their minds about going to philosophy graduate school, or major in philosophy. Part of our goal is to provide information that would help students make that decision.
The application process should take 5 minutes; we do not require students to provide us letters of recommendation or a writing sample in the application process, since that by itself can be a barrier. All we’d like is for you to tell us a bit more about you and what you’d like to get from the Wonder Philosophy workshop!
If you can’t make the workshops, we have plenty of similar resources online on the website!
What does a typical program/workshop look like? What sort of activities do students do?
Kino: The workshop consists of presentations and panels. Presentations cover topics such as how to understand grad school rankings, how and from whom to ask for letters of recommendation, the real costs of applying for and attending graduate school, applying with a disability, and job prospects of philosophy PhDs. Panels take a closer dive at certain topics with people with relevant experience. For example, we always have a panel with faculty members who have served on PhD admissions committees to share their perspectives. We also have current graduate students share what they find enjoyable or challenging about graduate school. Recently, we’ve added a career panel where philosophically trained people who work in different kinds of careers (research-focused, teaching-focused, outside academia) share their experiences. In 2022, both workshops will be held online over Zoom.
Xin Hui: It is important to flag that the workshop aims to disseminate information that is primarily useful to those seriously considering philosophy graduate school! The workshop is not designed to help students strengthen their applications or develop philosophical skills. There are some wonderful workshops that aim to do the latter – Daily Nous has a comments section with a list of different undergraduate summer institutes.
What value does it bring to the discipline as a whole?
Kino: One way to diversify academic philosophy is by improving access for those who have historically lacked it. One central aspect of gaining access is having enough information to adequately evaluate academic philosophy as a viable option.
Xin Hui: Currently, many fantastic undergraduate diversity institutes also aim to plug the gap by providing resources to underserved groups in philosophy, but because of understandable resource constraints they often require an application process that picks out students that might be better prepared for applying to graduate school than students who would otherwise not be able to apply because of a lack of a letter of recommendation etc. We believe that we are helping to plug the gap in a different section by helping students understand what resources are available to help them make the most informed decision about academia, and also help them succeed should they choose to apply for graduate school.
What advice would you give to an institution that wants to create its own program like this?
Kino and Xin Hui: One thing that was very important to me when I started Wonder was that it was a well-defined, manageable project – we only talk about what we already know. The more tractable a project is, the more likely that people will be able to keep doing it in the long term, and therefore the more sustainable it will be. Over time, small improvements can be made to the project to make it better, but sustainable progress with programs like these are often an accumulation of low-effort changes by multiple people from different institutions at different times.
If anyone is interested in starting a branch of Wonder or a similarly-themed project, please feel free to contact us via the Wonder website contact form. We have lots of resources to share.
How can readers of the Blog of the APA help Wonder Philosophy and similar projects?
Kino and Xin Hui: First of all, encourage your students to apply! We particularly welcome those who are at the very early stages of the application process and still beginning to learn about how graduate admissions and academia work; they would benefit the most from our workshop.
Another thing that would really help us is for philosophy professors who have served on PhD admissions committees to fill out this survey. It contains questions we are frequently asked by prospective students and which we have no way of answering. If you are also interested in panelling, please let us know!
We are also always looking for pointers to resources and topics to cover. If you’d like to write for us, or would like us to cover a particular topic, we’d love to talk; please get in touch with us using the website contact page!
Kino Zhao
Kino Zhao recently completed her PhD from the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science at University of California, Irvine. She will soon join the Philosophy Department at Simon Fraser University as an assistant professor. Kino co-founded Wonder Philosophy, with Jingyi Wu and Stella Moon, in 2019.
Yong Xin Hui
Yong Xin Hui (Xin Hui is their first name, pronounced Sin-Hway) is a 2nd year PhD student in Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, where they work broadly on models of sociopolitical epistemology. She started Wonder Philosophy Pittsburgh with Conny Knieling in 2021, and is running Wonder Philosophy again in May 2022.
Maryellen Stohlman-Vanderveen is the APA Blog's Diversity and Inclusion Editor and Research Editor. She graduated from the London School of Economics with an MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy in 2023 and currently works in strategic communications. Her philosophical interests include conceptual engineering, normative ethics, philosophy of technology, and how to live a good life.
