dr. t

If you're a longtime lurker, you have been around long enough to hear three or four PhD-seekers state that they know what they're in for, push on through the advice they get, and then slowly become bitter, regretful, and burnt out. It's hard not to see a repeating pattern of people doing the second meme and thinking they're special.

I would put it differently. Every year, there's one or two people who understand that other people aren't special, but still think that they are special. Or they think "it's about the journey not the destination" as they go to a state school satellite campus where they're instructor of record after the first year for $18k/yr.

It means you need to think about what the PhD actually taught you to do, and how that experience can apply beyond the narrow scope in which you've deployed it.

Not many of those, no, and veterans get hiring priority in that kind of work. CCs are as nice or as terrible a place to work as any other job, and there's not an abundance of CC positions around, either. The key is to distill your skillset and then craft an argument that it applies. For example, I'm trained as a historian to work with linguistic nuance and an exceptionally close reading of texts while maintaining a mastery over the broader picture on both a historical and theoretical level; I work as an editor-in-chief. (My IRL identity, btw is not a secret on this forum, though I usually don't advertise it.)

The poster there is a bit of an idiot and not the best historian I've come across. They (and other "experts") posted enough wrong information that I got frustrated and then banned from that sub for calling them out on it... almost a decade ago now? There's a lot of hyperbole, and they don't consider that, if you apply to the right program, you can spend 5-7 years doing what you love with comp'd trips to Europe, as I did, which isn't a bad thing. But there is a kernel of truth there: there are no academic jobs, there will not be academic jobs, you will not get an academic job, and you are not special. The quality of your dissertation, number of publications, or prestige of your institution will not change that.

Hi All, This is getting quite tedious. The report feature is for actual spam, egregious personal insults, threats, and the like. It is not for posts with which you disagree, or which say things (true or not) which you are uninterested in hearing. You have a downvote button for that, and your own ability not to engage. Continued abuse of the reporting feature in the attempt to silence those with which you disagree, particularly under the flimsy and transparent guise of concern for the community, will, however, be subject to moderation. -T

Adam (I assume it was Adam) is one of the better humans I've encountered in academia.

As those of you with offers contemplate where (or if) to go, this is some food for thought: https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/december-2021/hustling-to-get-by-side-jobs-in-graduate-school

They usually do, since GSAS is basically a rubber stamp.

But did you like it

This is not a "my life sucks" competition, but I do want to caution that building coping strategies for this sort of stress will be super important going forwards. There's going to be a lot of it. Striking out on the job market (though I'm employed now!) last year gave me a literal midlife crisis at 35 this past summer, for example.

You're looking for maybe a public history degree, but really nothing.

No, the UK is worse. and this is not what a PhD in history will train you to do.

Yes, I will be there.

As @orchestraldreamersuggested, this would, to me, seem to be a call to practice your English rather than settling for an institution with lower standards. You might also email the Brown History DGS, Lin Fisher, and see how strict that cutoff is.

I agree. Wait and drink heavily.

Just wait until you go on the job market and are asked to upload your CV, and then the form auto-populates the field data from your CV except it gets it totally wrong and you have to delete every field and re-enter it. No, I'm not grumpy, why do you ask?

Holly Case at Brown would be a good fit.

Do you want to be a university professor? Otherwise, no.

Negative? No. Less positive? Maybe, but do you have other options? If not, is it really worth worrying about?

What was it @Sigabasaid way back when? "Resist the urge to pee into the cereal bowl of your happiness - your exam committee will do that for you"? Something like that. It is a neutral response, but also possibly an indication that your email had very little content to which they could reasonably reply.

It means "the thing we say to pretend like an entirely subjective evaluation is in fact objective."

There is no such thing as a safety school for PhD work. Don't go to a program just because it's the only one that will accept you.

My personal statement is already kicking around the forum. This was my writing sample: https://www.academia.edu/12320500/A_Cistercian_Copy_of_Eadmers_Life_of_Anselm_BHL_0526_from_Northern_England_and_the_Canonization_of_Anselm_of_Canterbury_by_Thomas_Becket (Whoops, this is lit, the above is history - personal statement should still be fine)