New_Englander

Hmm, okay. The writing things up was the main problem in my last class...in any case, though, you're right in saying a grad student conference isn't all that prestigious. Another thing I was thinking of doing was reworking one of the research papers I did last semester--would it be a better demonstration of skill, to try and publish for something like The Journal of Southern History rather than a conference?

Thank you very much for the advice, fuzzylogician! I really appreciate it. I'm wondering, would presenting a paper at a graduate student conference be evidence of progress that might impress my advisors? I ask because I literally just got an email yesterday about a conference very much related to my scholarly interests, so I thought it might have been a stroke of luck at just the right time, hehe.

Hey everybody! As you might be able to tell from my name, hehe, I go to graduate school in New England, though I'm currently on a leave of absence right now and enjoying myself in New York. This leads me to the trouble I'm in, though, for which I'd like a bit of advice. Here's the backstory, which I'll try to keep short. I'm a Ph.D student in the History department of a university in the Northeast who just finished my second year there. My uni has a pass, high pass, honors grading system, and for my first year, where I had to do coursework, I got all Honors (with one high pass) and thought I was doing great. I got a bit complacent, which led to my second year being much worse--for my first semester, I barely managed to get high passes in two of my classes due to poor final research papers, while for my third course I barely managed to pass for a variety of reasons--poor writing and poor class participation, mainly. My advisor and the registrar informed me that unless I picked it up for the second semester, I'd get kicked out. So I buckled down and worked my hardest. The result? I did really well in terms of class participation (in fact, one of my profs said I was almost too enthusiastic, hehe), but unfortunatately, in terms of my writing, I didn't do that well for the last few papers I had to hand in. They were a small improvement, but not good enough to really impress my advisor. So now here's the impasse I've come to. Back in May, my advisor told me that since my performance had improved, they weren't going to kick me out of the program entirely. However, since my writing hadn't improved that much, he told me that he didn't want to serve on my dissertation or orals committees (he would have been a great fit for both) and instead encouraged me to take a one-year leave of absence from the graduate program. That's where I am now. So I'm wondering, has anyone else been in a similar situation? I'm wondering if I should email my professor to see if he might be willing to take me back after a year off, or if this sort of "recommended year of absence" is more of a passive-aggressive, academic way to get rid of a student they don't want anymore but who hasn't done poorly enough to flunk out entirely. From what I've been told, this situation isn't entirely unheard of, but not that common either, so I would greatly appreciate any advice, alternative perspectives, or insights. Thanks very much for your time!