History_Nerd

Give your programs a quick call to confirm. I was given an extension to April 17th because of the way my offer is working out, but the Prof. I spoke with about it apologized and said that other programs might not be able to do the same.

A few people study the history of museums, not many, but it is becoming a more popular field. I'll plug a really killer book called, Museums and American Intellectual Life 1876-1926 by Steven Conn. He teaches at Ohio State, is a total dude and a really amazing scholar. That's just one example of the kind of stuff I'd like to do.

Hey kids! This forum is finally alive! Mwah! To put what I do simply, I study the history of museums (hence why museums are the subject of my blog Museum Madness), with a focus on European and American history and the history of empire. I've narrowed it down to two choices, Berkeley and Cambridge. At the moment, I'm leaning towards Cal, but they have only told me verbally what they anticipate being able to offer me, so I can't say for sure. At Cambridge, one of the arguments they were making in favor of their program is that they allowed students to study anthropological and sociological theory (some hot interdisciplinary action). And a historian at U Cal told me that taking classes outside of your subject area is required, and I might be a good fit to take museum studies classes, art history courses, or anthropology courses (even hotter interdisciplinary action?). We're getting down to the wire here. . . I wanted to make my decision by my birthday, five days before the deadline, but since I haven't heard the final details from either program I can't decide.

Sadly, I have some lengthy periods of downtime at work right now, so I've been spending waaaay to much time looking at graduate school related stuff online. I'm sorry to hear about your rejections mhcrosefly311. I'm sure you will find a home after you get that MA, Latin American Studies is pretty sexy right now.

Dude. Geography has six pages on this discussion board. SIX pages!?!?! Where ARE my history people? Tell your friends!

That was, what we call, "low-brow" humor. I pretty much act like I'm 12 years old most of the time and still didn't find that funny. What about one year stipends? Anyone get offered that as a part of their package?

Send them a puppy. No, the thank you note sounds nice. I plan on writing about one million of them on April 16th. Then going to the beach . . . if Denver had a beach.

Wow. The above profiles are incredible. I feel lucky to have gotten into one school in the US. Less than 10 days until April 15th. Geesh.

History MPhil and PhD programs: Cambridge - Accepted St. Andrews - Accepted King's College London (KCL)- Accepted Berkeley - Accepted Harvard - Rejected Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) - Rejected Cornell - Rejected Wow, bombing the GRE's didn't help my case with the US schools, did it?!?!

Hello Alice, Ahh yes, Minnesota, born and raised. I'm living out in Denver now, and have spent time living in Chicago and Minneapolis, but my family is from Red Wing, Minnesota, which is an hour south of the Twin Cities (where I am now actually, before flying back to Denver). I love Minnesota, but it took me awhile to come realize that. I spent two years at the University of Minnesota, Morris and two years at the Twin Cities campus. I know all of the places you mentioned really well. I love Seattle too, actually, and while I was thinking about going into anthropology, seriously considered the program at UDub. Minnesotans "hate" Ioweeegans in the same way that we hate Wisconsites. We say nasty things about them, and they say nasty things about us but then when we see each other in pubs in Europe or whatever, we suddenly become best friends and talk about how much we love the Midwest. Figures. I have friends in Wisconsin and Iowa, and we can stay friends as long as they don't root for the Packers. Last year, I took a friend from New York to see Minnesota play in the Music City Bowl, where we played Virginia. In the middle of the game the fans started chanting, "Who hates Iowa? We hate Iowa!" she looked at me and was like, "I thought we were playing Virginia?!" It took some time to explain. I've never lived in a warm climate and so I hope my face will start to look like this: :oops: Anyway, drop me a private message on this board and I will send you my contact info. It would be fun to meet up with all the new Berkeley grad students on this board when we get out to sunny Cali.

I just heard that the grad contact in my department had to leave for a family emergency. I feel bad for her, this must be one of the crazier times of her year and she has to leave town. Looks like I'll be waiting to hear back about that fellowship a little longer.

Andrew, it depends what kind of SUV.

Andrewster tends to pull through, and he did it yet again on the above post. Those are all great programs. In archaeology it seems that having an advisor whose interests match with yours seems to be especially important. Take a look at where your favorite authors teach, and where they went to school. Also take a look at some of your favorite journals and see who sits on the editorial boards, and who is publishing articles you find interesting. That should give you a start.

Is anyone else still waiting to hear back about fellowships from Berkeley?

I bombed the GREs . . . which is never good. My letters were great, and I had a good writing sample because it happened to be a piece I had published. I think my main problem was how I picked programs. Looking back on it, I applied to Harvard not because it was good in my program, but because I wanted to say I got into Harvard - which is a stupid reason to spend all that money to apply. Rather than applying to prestigious programs like Harvard and Michigan, I should have considered some smaller up and coming programs where there are faculty members I really would have liked to work with. All this said, I think my research interests and focus have kind of solidified and I ended up getting in to the two programs I'm really excited about. If I had to give anyone advice, it would be to turn in an application to a school in the UK, even if you think there would only be a one percent chance of actually attending. The application process is much earlier and in a lot of cases it is a rolling admissions process. With the exception of Oxbridge (Oxford and Cambridge) most of the applications are free and you hear back from them within a few weeks, rather than a few months. I heard back from all three schools in the UK before I heard back from my first school in the US and it really put my mind at ease. Now I just have to choose between those two programs. Ugh.

Ok guys, New topic as we get down to the wire here, how much debt is too much to have coming out of a graduate program in history? Anyone have any thoughts or ideas?

Ok, You win the bizzaro award for the week. That is very odd indeed.

I had a great experience in Minnesota's history program. GM runs a cool thing called the Center for History and News Media, which runs a website called the History News Network (HNN) http://www.hnn.us/. If you like history, you have to check out that site. Maybe I've just been spending waaaay too much time online.

I can sort of understand not letting me know if I didn't get a job I applied for, but, geesh, I paid you a lot of money for a rejection letter. Come on.

Yeah, in the words of my sister, "I didn't like walking through Riverside alone at night, but I've done it . . ." Sometimes, you will be able to find some very cheap housing in and/ or near Riverside, but there is a reason for that. Riverside isn't the most dangerous area in MNPLS but it isn't the best place to live either. You should be able to find a similar space in a safer neighborhood with just as much or more personality. If you want to be close to campus, try Dinkytown or Stadium Village. Even if you are going for the Social Sciences and will be spending most of your time on the West Bank, there are shuttles running all the time across the river and the walk is only a few mins. and in the bridge is covered (for those cold winter days and nights). All of this being said, Minneapolis, unlike most other Big Ten cities is a major metro area and you should be self-aware and careful. I've never had any sort of problem living in the Twin Cities, and I think it is a far nicer area than a LOT of other places in the country. The standard of living is high, the art is fantastic, and the people are friendly. It is good to be a Gopher!

I have to admit, I am more than a bit jealous of the Sociology students. They are a dime a dozen on this board . . . jeesh. Where are my brethren in the study of history?

Ja, I have a feeling most people that apply for graduate school think that they have to make a ton of really difficult decisions to make, and then, come April 15th, most of the decisions are made for them. After I was accepted to my first graduate program, I started to view each rejection as another tough decision I didn't have to agonize over. One month. . . wow. . . . then maybe I won't think about this constantly.

We will have to get together for coffee sometime, because I study the history of museums and collecting in Europe and the United States. One of the archaeology courses I took at Minnesota was with Peter Wells, the famous, bow-tie wearing, archaeologist who studies Germanic peoples during the Roman occupation of Europe. I also worked on a dig in the city of Minneapolis with another archaeologist who was mainly interested in faunal populations in villages in Ireland. Good stuff. Anyway, send me a private message and we'll talk. Anyone else hoping to join us in Berkeley?

What program are you joining Andrewster? I've been trying to sort out the car situation . . . since I am a huge fan of travel (whenever I can have the chance to go, whenever I can manage to get time to do it) I'm leaning towards bringing "Susan" . . . the clunky old Ford.

So. . . damn close . . . I'll decide as soon as they let me know on the fellowship they are waiting to finalize. . . Are you as excited as I am? I'm a little nervous about the cost of living, I grew up in Minnesota for crying out loud (though I've lived in Chicago and slummed it a bit), and whether or not I should bring a car.