May_Flower

Hello All, I truly feel that more graduate history programs should offer classes or workshops that inform students on outside opportunities to enhance their CV's. Thus, I need some input when it comes to Fellowships, TA positions, presenting at conferences, grant funding... I am working on my second masters degree (first one was in American Studies, second one is in American Urban History with a concentration in Civil Rights) and I would like to know about how fellowships may be relevant to me? Since I am not a PHD student, would I be qualified for external fellowships? If I am and say I qualify for a Smithsonian Fellowship, what would be my obligation to the Smithsonian? Secondly, what is the process of finding out about conferences that may be relevant to my interests and possibly presenting my paper there? What is the format of these conferences - how much time is usually allotted to the presenters? Just curious if these conferences allow us to go into detail about our work or cover the general research only. Thirdly, how is grant funding relevant to my situation and how is it different from fellowships? I have been struggling to pay for tuition out of pocket so what options would I have to help me out with tuition...

Thanks so much for the input! Its much more concise than the way that I worded. But the way I worded it was just to give readers on GradCafe a better understanding of where I was coming from. The way I wrote it is NOT what I will submit in the personal statement. The example of July 4th is just merely an example of what I go through when I try to give the historical significance of a holiday and those around me would rather take it as a day to BBQ instead of a historically significant day. The analogy to Romeo and Juliet - again not something I'm going to use in the personal statement. Just an analogy to give readers an idea of what it felt like. I should have mentioned this before. In the actual personal statement I will have to eliminate and summarize into a much more dense paragraph. My main concern is that: will admission committees appreciate this challenge and consider me a strong, unique candidate based on the challenge I had to overcome? Will this story of mine make my personal statement stronger or weaker?

Hello all, I am applying for the PhD in History and what is hard for me is to pinpoint WHY I chose history and if that story is interesting enough. I want my personal statement to stand out: Studying history, contributing to historical scholarship, and teaching my passion to others is something I genuinely would love to do for the rest of my life! So here's my story as briefly as I can tell it... Throughout my education I have been an A student. In grammar school, the subject that stood out to me the most was Social Studies. I loved hearing true stories about the past especially of the country I was in. In high school, I began to learn more and more about history. At the same time,I come from a culture and an upbringing where I was expected to go to med school and if I did anything but become a medical doctor, I was considered a failure. And so, I pursued the path of medicine with a regret in my mind and heart of what could have happened if I pursued my true love of history. If I would ever mention how a historical place or a museum amused me, I would get that weird look from relatives. On holidays such as July 4th, I would get weird looks when i would tell the family why that day is bigger than just a day to have some BBQ (same for Thanksgiving). History and I were like Romeo and Juliet : the family and society would just not allow us to be together. They wanted Juliet to be with Paris (medical school). During college, I learned that as long as I took a certain set of science classes, I could major in anything I wanted. As a last chance to learn more about my passion, I majored in history and minored in Chemistry and Biology. It just made it worse for me because I wanted history more than ever before. Long story short - where there is a will there is a way. There was never a will for me to go to med school and so I never was determined enough to work hard to get accepted into the school my family thought was best for me. (And by family I mean parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles - we are a close knit family). I put my foot down after graduation and said I was meant to study history and that I could achieve the same amount of success they desired for me, but just through a less traditional route than what they had in mind. So thats my story....I dont know how well admissions committees are going to take this story into consideration of whether they should take me aboard but that was the complete truth. Can some of you please give me your opinion on this? Is my story something adcomms would like to hear? Does this story show them what they look for in a student?