dr. t

I have heard people advising against conference presentations "too early". They are wrong. The more practice you get at communicating your ideas, the better you will be at it. This will pay dividends quickly.

I didn't apply based on stipends, but the fact that one of my two choices was offering about $10k more was a significant factor in my final decision. Money is an incredibly important factor in success, and we shouldn't pretend it isn't. As to how schools can afford larger stipends? Take on fewer graduate students; the market is bad enough as is.

A lot of this has to do with cultural norms. The lit review in English-language works is usually substantially less comprehensive than in French. Also, the apparatus to simply publish massive dissertations does not exist in the US or the UK; PhDs are expected to pare down and generalize their dissertations if they want to publish them.

I want to know what that one person in natural resource sciences and management did...

My graduation's not until Thursday, but I just picked up my wizard's robes! If you're going to charge me $80 to rent them for a week, you're damned sure I'm going to wear them every day.

I had forgotten them as they're in America's Hat. Yes, I would second UoT as a good option.

Don't Philippart and Trigalet have a fairly complete database? Or is that just early Medieval? The type of DH you describe is incredibly useful (the link to the mapping project I run is in my signature), but I would encourage you to think of it as a Hilfswissenschaft above all else. Look for history MAs in programs with a strong interest and/or institutional support in DH, not DH programs. Stanford, Brown, Princeton, Harvard, and Yale fit this bill. Most other programs at best seem to have realized DH is important but haven't really figured out why. I don't know any place in the Chicago area I'd really recommend. I don't know any really good DH coming out of either NW or UoC.

There's a Brooklyn Boulders in Somerville, if you have extra coin.

I'm pretty well versed in DH at this point, but people mean a lot of things when they say "Digital Humanities". Can you describe what you mean by the term more precisely?

I have to say I disagree. Limit your search to the top-20, look for 3-5 programs, and be willing to not get in anywhere and move on. Your goal isn't to get into grad school. Your goal is to get a job after grad school.

Unless he has a dual appointment, it means that he can't be your primary.

As a wise king once said to a habitually-late rabbit, "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop." In other words: read until you don't understand something. Then read until you figure out what that means. Repeat this process until you find something you don't understand and no one can tell you what it means.

PhD comics is, as always, apropos

A couple of things to clarify: there are some medieval PhD programs that only insist on Latin + French OR German. These are to be regarded with suspicion. Second, having proficiency in 2/3 (or sometimes 1/3, particularly if that 1 is Latin) is generally OK. I would pick up Karl Sandberg's French for Reading, because a standard French course will go too slow for what you want. Keep at it, though; being able to publish in another language is great! For Latin, these days I recommend Keller and Russell's Learn to Read Latin. It's solid and it comes with a workbook/problem set. It's probably also good to pick up Wheelock's Latin, for extra explanation of terms and study. If you have time and are in the Boston area, Harvard Extension School offers a year-long French For Reading course every other year, and Professor Richard Thomas, Harvard's Virgilianist, offers intermediate Latin prose every fall and poetry in the spring. These courses typically run ~$1000 and are without a doubt a fantastic bang for your buck. With some hard work, you can get your Latin up to speed over the summer with the materials above. Do both of these things and start working NOW. Leave German for the PhD program. Schools will be skeptical if you don't have credentials for the language, but if you use them in your writing sample, that will speak for itself.

Is that supposed to be comforting or terrifying?

Profs on sabbatical everywhere are required to continue supervising their graduate students... aren't they?

Sometimes people just grow up. I know I did.

Enjoy (somewhat humanities-centric)

Honesty is not the best policy. The modern relationship with your employer is that you will show up and do the job, and they will pay you money for showing up and doing the job. You don't owe them anything else, and you owe it to yourself to be financially solvent until you go to school.

I'm going to have to agree with Mvlchicago."Things that happened after 1500" isn't really a valid answer to the question.

Yes, the commuter rail runs past 'Deis, but it's not super regular and moderately inconvenient to schedule around. It's really in the suburbs, though, and stuff is only really walkable if you consider 2-4 miles round trip "walkable". However, unlike closer to Boston, you can probably get a space with your apt gratis, instead of paying $200/mo. Watertown would seem to fit your needs fairly well, particularly if you live near the 71 (70?) bus route, but you'd have to do more research into buses from Watertown Sq. to Brandeis. Generally speaking, it's much easier to travel to/from Boston than it is North/South.

Air B&B - should be some people subletting. I have a loveseat with a pull-out bed, but I think that would probably be hella awkward.

I'm not sure what the stipend is these days, but it would be very difficult to find a 1BR below $1200/mo with heat/hot water. Allston/Brighton will have the lowest rents. Lower Allston (the bit north of rt. 90 and below the Charles River) would be ideal for prices and travel time. Upper Allston is noisy and packed with BU undergraduates. Somerville and Watertown are more expensive (generally) and further from campus. Cambridge is expensive but close. Some people life in Arlington, Medford, or Dorchester, all of which are far away and/or have no good public transportation to campus, but are cheap. Everett and Chelsea are like these latter three, but have high crime rates, to boot. Generally, the further away from the Red Line (which is, not coincidentally, the subway that takes you right to Harvard) the cheaper your rent will tend to be. I've used Zillow and Padmapper. Most of these lead to realtors. Be wary. Most are merely incompetent; some are malicious. Make sure to Google any realtor or management company beforehand. The turnover is, however, very high in these jobs, so the quality of a realtor can vary greatly one year to the next. You will need to be able to have a check for first, last, and security (usually 1 month's rent) to get a place. There can also be a realtor's fee on top; try to avoid those. If you like a place, you should be able to hand them the check for that amount right then and there. If you wait, you run a substantial risk of losing it. I have on occasion taken a day to think it over, but it's a gamble. Godspeed. I am eternally grateful to be moving someplace sane.

I didn't really want to make a new thread for this, but I did want to share it: http://news.sciencemag.org/scientific-community/2015/04/sexist-peer-review-elicits-furious-twitter-response