dr. t
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Everything posted by dr. t
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Sounds like you need to streamline your reading and note-taking methods, not throw money at the problem.
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Man do I not miss middle school.
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Alas that I don't have answers, just more questions. What would a successful (or failed) outcome look like? That is, what do you imagine you learning about yourself at the end of a MA program that would let you know what to do next? What do you think a MA program will do that you won't encounter in the first year of a PhD program? Are you afraid you'll continue even if you don't like it without the need to reapply?
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In a word, yes. If you find yourself at Harvard, visit Santouka. You'll see.
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Need advice- thinking of leaving graduate school
dr. t replied to Luis_981741's topic in Officially Grads
Oh yeah, this too: -
Need advice- thinking of leaving graduate school
dr. t replied to Luis_981741's topic in Officially Grads
You're not good enough to be in graduate school. No one is good enough to be in graduate school. There is no great platonic abstract of "good enough" which, if obtained, opens the path to tenure with a choir of angels. Everyone's a failure. Everyone is faking it. No one knows what they're doing. Usually, we call this "adulthood". Others have given pretty good advice already, and mine is fairly simple: being shit at something is a necessary first step towards being good at something. "Talent" and "natural ability" are bullshit terms that mask the absurd amounts of hard work and/or social conditioning of people assumed to have them. Failing isn't an indelible stain on your character. It's a starting point. -
Ok, that's what I understood. But, if you already really want to go back to something academic (I'm not sure how else to understand "my true passion is history") after a year outside, I'm not sure what exactly a MPhil is supposed to get you. You'd learn methods and historiography in your first year at any US PhD program (which usually grants you an MA anyway), and from your rough sketch of your undergraduate career, you'd already be a competitive candidate for one of those. And why Oxbridge? There are a number of US MA institutions that offer much the same education for a lot less. To put it a different way, there are basically two reasons to take a terminal MA: to shore up a weak application (refine language skills, improve GPA, change fields from ugrad) or to focus your research agenda. You don't really seem to fit in either category, so what exactly are you looking for, and why do you think the MPhil is your answer?
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Nothing at all. Let me rephrase: what is your purpose in getting an MPhil?
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So if you're already in the work force and still really want to go back to academia, what is it that you're going to pay Oxbridge $40k for?
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No, but there's a better and cheaper way of seeing if you actually want to go to grad school: go get a job. You don't need any real boost to your application, so just work for a year and see if you still want to apply.
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I would differentiate between theories of history, methodology, and theoretical frameworks. A theory of history is how you view the framework of the discipline - how does it work, what its goal(s) is/are, and the relationship of academic claims to objective truth. For example, my own answer to the "objectivity crisis" of the past three decades is that each of the diverse frameworks (more below) provide a vision of history that is objectively true, even it contradicts the findings in another framework. That is, we need to reframe our understanding of truth away from judging between truth-claims and instead focus on why and how truth-claims are made. Theoretical frameworks are the lenses by which you approach your subject - class (i.e. Marxist theory), race/gender, network theory. These provide both a frame of reference to other historical works (does this history match up with similar histories?) and provides a way to justify the scope of inquiry while limiting it to something manageable. Methodologies are the technical means by which historians exploit their sources. They're the tools which we bring to bear: network analysis, microhistory, anthropology. In my case, philology.
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As I understand it, the adviser has to specifically fight for their student to transfer as part of their hiring package if they want that.
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You can get good everything in Providence. Except ramen - I've only found OK ramen. If you cook yourself there are some absolutely excellent butchers around, too.
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I don't think UMinn does interviews - few places do, these days. But if you say you can speak Afrikaans, French, and Italian, you should expect a professor to test that (though they might not).
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I have no idea about religious studies - they seem pretty small, and I'd guess no more than 10. I love Providence! It's a weird little city, and often feels like a big town; running into your students at the movie theater never gets less strange. The food scene is absolutely off the charts, particularly given the relatively small population. Coming from Boston, housing is pretty cheap, say $500-800/BR.
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I'm in the history dept, but feel free to hit me up with general questions.
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Accepted! And for my part, I really am sorry for causing offense - I just don't know how to communicate what needs to be said here otherwise. Suggestions are certainly welcome on that front! And, as I stare down yet another Christmas with my financially-obsessed in-laws, let me tell you that it is apparently the season for being told your PhD is nothing. I didn't really want to say that what you've worked for is nothing. Instead, I'd tell you about my old MA adviser (he of the devastating writing feedback), who always says: "Why do we go to grad school? To get a job!" This is how I understand that: the PhD isn't - or shouldn't be - your goal. It's not what you're working for. It's just a signpost to others that you've done a certain thing, and that you're prepared to keep doing similar things in the future. The actual goal is to spend your life in a way you consider to be productive and worthwhile. A PhD may (or may not) be a step on that path, but always remember that your goal is a process, a way of living, and not a point.
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I do a bit, actually, because it means I need to work on my communications skills. I grew up as an internet troll, you see, and as @hats has matured over time, and I like to think that I have, too. So while I understand that unpalatable advice often triggers aggressive rejections, I don't think that excuses me from trying to figure out better ways of giving that advice. To address some other points, I don't think it's a bad thing to have hesitations when it comes to grad school, and I think that untempered enthusiasm only sets you up for failure. I think that with respect to grad school, if you receive advice which is not in some way, major or minor, discouraging, it is not actually good advice. Above all else, I don't think plotting your life and centering all your meaning around a singular goal, be it a PhD or anything else, is in any way healthy. As Freamon said to McNulty, the job will not save you.
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This is a construction I see fairly often, and it worries me a bit, since it feeds into the fetish cult of work that dominates academia, and into the idea that if you're "right" for PhD work you should go for it, come what may. I think it's better to say that a PhD is something you should consider if you find that research is something you genuinely enjoy and continue to do even when not forced to it. This is why I would encourage everyone to take time off from the academic world before applying to PhD programs. But at the same time, it should never be your only possible option. Based on the current status of academia, it is a flat-out bad idea to go to the vast majority of PhD-granting institutions; the neoliberal university - particularly state schools - sees graduate students as a cheap way to cover teaching load and couldn't care less what happens to them after, by and large. There are very specific things that define a good program - a program that produces PhDs ready for the job market - and they are all structural: money, support, and a low teaching load. Every school that has these also has the intellectual chops. This is totally true, and I wouldn't hide behind that sort of system! But it's worth keeping in mind that the 'snarky' people here tend to be the more experienced (and thus more jaded) members of the forum. I myself go back and forth on how best to approach what we might call unwarranted enthusiasm. On one hand, I don't want to step all over an enthusiastic potential colleague, but letting misconceptions go without direct and obvious correction has its own problems. In a personal interaction, it affects only the individual. Here, however, it resonates with those who will read these threads for however long they exist, and so I see silence as the worse choice. But we have a concrete example before us: a person with little (no) experience has provided information which is flat-out wrong. What would you do? I'm not saying you have to agree with the approach, but hopefully it makes sense.
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It's funny because this is the opposite of what my life's actually been, as one can find through a cursory glance at some of the posts stickied in this very subforum. If you too had an academic career spanning fourteen years and five different universities (I failed out of my state-school undergrad... twice), plus six years stocking grocery store shelves, you might obtain a more cynical (I would say more realistic) view of the way things actually are. But you were saying something about enforcing one's own perspective on other people?
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Nah. Americanists need French, usually, but that's often a superficial requirement. Europeanists usually need French and something else (usually, but not always, German). If you talk to German historians, one of their constant complaints is that very few Americans are conversant in German-language historiography. Similarly, unless it produces academic research or you are specifically applying to public history programs, a museum internship is unlikely to provide a substantial return on the time invested with respect to grad school apps. I don't know how to say this more nicely, but perhaps you should wait until you get into grad school before offering others advice on how to do so?
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If you claim conversational ability, you shouldn't be surprised if a professor attempts a conversation.
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Two immediate problems: Harvard doesn't offer an MA in history. UW and UVA are not "top tier universities", even relatively.
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Alas that journals insist on submission in Word.