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maelia8

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Posts posted by maelia8

  1. I got notification of my fellowship award on Wednesday (Graduate Student research - full year). In the letter it says to find a form called "Consent Processing Medical Data" to sign and return on the DAAD Portal website, does anyone know where to find that form?

  2. I'm not sure about insulted, but I am rather surprised that the conversation went this way. I am currently in a history Ph.D. program, and in my cohort, the majority of graduate students began the program after two or more years of work/life experience outside of the academy, rather than heading in straight from undergrad. Most of them say that what they did strengthened their applications, and most professors I have spoken to would agree - I for example was an overseas English teacher for two years in the country that is the focus of my historical research, and this has only been regarded positively by faculty at my institution. If anything, those who come in later are more motivated to get in and complete their dissertation in a timely fashion, since they know they aren't getting any younger and have also done so much research on grad school before applying that they know what they are getting into. It is also problematic for a professor at any Ph.D. granting institution in the humanities or social sciences today to denigrate the possibility of working outside of academia, when even elite institutions only have a tenured professor placement rate of about 1/3 two years after filing. 

    In sum, I believe you were speaking to someone who represents a significant outlier, and should take their feedback with a grain of salt. This does not represent a typical response, and I would not want to work with someone who had that attitude about applicants' qualifications, or the realities of the postgrad academic job market.

  3. I am not in SLP, but as someone in my 5th year of a Ph.D. program, my advice for covering rent is always to get one (or maybe two) side hustles, preferably on campus. Unless you're in a field with high levels of tipping, you'll make more per hour as a research assistant to a professor, or working for the student government (at my institution, there are many paid positions in student government, or as an intern in a graduate division or for a university administrator. These jobs usually have very flexible hours, often involve a monthly salary rather than being paid by the hour, and the work can even be done independently at your own computer, or while manning a desk and doing your on homework or research on the side. My sister is doing her masters' and she works as a TA for two undergrad studio courses (she's an artist) on her campus. Doing a job nearby and flexible is the way to go to ensure that you are not caught commuting (and paying for that commute, thus losing valuable time to do your own work.

  4. I can second TMP. I have had grants from the DAAD before, and the sponsorship is a formality - the advisor is there for you if you need help (i.e. getting access to an archive, suggesting where you might go to look for a particular category of documents, allowing you to participate in their department's research colloquium, etc.). The relationship will be what you make of it - it's a way to form connections that might be useful to you while you're at your host institution/archives, but if you have it all figured out on your own, that's fine too.

    On 9/9/2018 at 9:13 AM, Tigla said:

    The DAAD recently switched its funding targets to better represent 'Third World' scholars and research topics. I had to change my statement to reflect the DAAD's new target, but not every researcher can do that. In short, talk to the DAAD as they will be able to answer your questions on their requirements.

    @Tigla I hadn't heard this, and I'm not sure in the case of an historical research grant that it makes much sense - for historian grantees from the US, the primary goal of the DAAD has always been that the research has a pressing need to be performed in Germany due to the existence of particular archives, documents, or similar, which usually means that the focus is on German history in some form. Of course, there are German topics that are more transnational (such as imperialism, colonialism, etc.) but these do not represent the majority of funded DAAD grantees who are historians, and I'm not sure how they ever could - many if not most grantees go to Germany specifically to research Medieval, Renaissance, Prussian, or Reformation topics that do not always lend themselves to the "Third World" research focus. In the case of scholars, DAAD funding is divided by regional divisions, so those from different regions are not competing against each other for funding; if more scholars from Asia/Africa/Pacific are chosen, it does not mean that proportionally less North and South Americans will be. DAAD has reduced the number of grants overall due to government spending reapportionment, though; almost no one who applied at large (not going through a university priority program) was given a yearlong research grant last year (at least among North American applicants). 

  5. Last year they sent out the email indicating change of status on the first Monday in March (at least to me) ... hopefully you'll all hear by the end of the week.

  6. I take notes during lecture or discussion on my laptop in the (free) Evernote program so that my notes are completely searchable, taggable, and synced across all devices in the cloud. The program also has the ability to link to bibliographical information of works mentioned in lecture, and I often download and attach the lecture slides as well if they are offered by the instructor on the course website. I strongly dislike paper weighing me down (especially since I travel a lot, and paper notebooks tend to wear down with time), and have thus chosen to go fully digital with my life (aside from the most vital ID/medical/professional documents and my private diaries). i certainly think this is the most convenient and safest way to store and and organize notes, and makes looking through notes for research paper writing or exam prep a cinch (saves lots of time). However, I'm a person who types very quickly and hates handwriting, so I'm certainly biased in favor of digital methods.

  7. I agree with what's been posted previously - If you're in the Bay Area or New York, anything under $1000/month for a private room in a shared living situation is probably either a scam or comes with significant issues (very dangerous neighborhood, crumbling apartment, landlord renting illegally without a proper lease so as to avoid rent control, etc.). I pay roughly 65% of my annual income towards rent/utilities, and I have what would be considered a really great deal in a mid-tier Bay Area neighborhood very close to my campus. The only way to get something cheaper in regards to rent is to commute over an hour by car or (still not cheap) public transport, and it basically saves you nothing when the cost of parking in central downtown Bay Area cities is factored in. I think that shopping around if you're in a different market makes sense, but if you're in a market driven by insane demand, the competition is too tough to turn down places that aren't dirt cheap if you get someone willing to accept your offer on the place.

  8. My first name is incredibly unique, and, combined with a flowery-sounding last name, has led friends to joke that I should have been a romance novelist and am missing my true calling (seriously, my name doesn't even sound like a real name, it sounds like a nom de plume that somebody made up). That being said, there is no danger that I will ever meet anyone with the same name to compete with for publishing purposes. I'd never include the middle name or middle initial, as I think it would be overkill.

  9. @lordtiandao I basically went into the GRE with a goal quant score beforehand, and promised myself that if I fell lower than another predetermined point that I'd retake it (in my case, my reach goal was to break 155, but my minimum was to break 150 or retake. I got 152, so I didn't retake it). As long as you pick a range that you are comfortable with and that is realistic for you based on practice exam scores and manage to hit it, then I wouldn't retake. It's not about the size of the gap between Q and V, it's about knowing your abilities and being able to accurately assess whether retaking the exam could conceivably result in a significantly higher score within the time that remains before you have to submit your application. If not, and you're not wildly off the acceptable range for your school, I wouldn't worry about it.

  10. I'm more of a themes person - I look at a time period of two decades or so and examine how the way that that theme was addressed changed during the aforementioned period (in my case, reproductive policy and travel journal propaganda in 3rd wave colonialism). It's a bit source-based too (why are these journals representative, and what about them indicates certain flavors in the editing process for publication as thinly veiled propaganda?), but what really gets me going is themes and change over time.

     

  11. Most of the Americanists in my program took the exam in Spanish since it meant minimal work (brushing up on what they'd already learned in high school), except for those who had a legitimate need to use another language in their research (for example, 18th and 19th century Western diplomatic history requires some knowledge of French, even if you are an Americanist historian). One person who focuses on Western Canada/Alaska learned Russian, as that's the most useful for studying that region in the early 19th century. Play to your specific interests, or take the simplest way to filling the requirement if you're not sure you need any further languages.

  12. I attend a public R1 institution, got 168 V but only 152 Q, and was accepted. At my school, I don't think there are any humanities-wide graduate fellowships for people with high overall GRE scores - everyone I know who got a special fellowship on top of the normal package got it thanks to special status (i.e. first generation college student, ethnic minority) or special history of community service/activism. I was told by the history dept. admissions officer that as long as you didn't totally bomb quant, they didn't really care how well you did on it, all that mattered was high verbal. 

  13. On 5/15/2017 at 10:09 PM, rising_star said:

    My concern is more that someone who is singlemindedly focused on coursework and research misses out on some of the key learning that's necessary to succeed in academia. As much as I loathe drama and politics, academia is full of them and being able to navigate these successfully is crucial when you're junior faculty. Even outside of academia, every workplace has its drama and it pays to pay attention, even if only so you can avoid getting caught up in it. You don't have to take my advice but, maybe someone else on this thread will find it of value.

    Here's what I've noticed about those who were from the city where I did my PhD and had a network outside of campus. They didn't make close friends with anyone but then would all of a sudden become very friendly when they needed something. This meant that they were a lot nicer to others when they wanted a copy of your successful fellowship application, for you to share a syllabus and set of assignments you developed, or wanted your feedback on their fellowship/grant materials. I... dislike when people do that. It's one thing to share with your friends and another to share with someone who is basically a stranger that you've seen in the hall sometimes. So, regardless of whether you make lifelong friendships, I'd encourage everyone to cultivate collegial relationships with others in the program so you gain these informal benefits.

    I absolutely agree with this. I just passed my quals, but three people in my cohort are dropping out (two decided in the last two months not to take the exam, while the third took it but already wanted to leave before he took it). The one thing that these three people have in common is a strong disconnect with other members of the grad student community. They never attended colloquia or stuck around for wine and cheese afterwards, didn't attend meetings of the History Grad Association, and didn't talk to other students about the pitfalls of choosing your orals committee, taking classes in x outside department with x professor (who other grad students know). Two of them had very strong social lives outside of grad school, and the third isolated himself and really developed no connections in the city at all. 

    As a result, all three of these folks missed out on very useful information, or struggled needlessly to plan or prepare things that would have been much easier if they had been in the loop. Although your major professor knows many things, other grad students are often very valuable sources of information when it comes to navigating university bureaucracy, meeting deadlines for things like funding applications and teaching certifications, and telling you about how to navigate setting up committees or informing you where to go for more information. If you don't take the initiative to get to know people in the first year, you could find yourself shut out of a valuable network (especially involving graduate students in years above you who know the system and are often happy to give new hands advice). I have no doubt that in the case of these three who departed, feelings of confusion and isolation contributed directly to their dissatisfaction and fear about taking their qualifying exams, ultimately persuading them that the Ph.D. was not a happy place for them. I'm not saying the result was inevitable, but their lack of support and connections with other graduate students definitely contributed. Just as professors collaborate and dialogue with each other on a regular basis to make their work easier, Ph.D. students have a better time of it when they network with each other and collectively support each other professionally and academically. 

  14. This is a really, really helpful thread, folks! I'll be leaving for a research year in September and am still pretty unsure about how I want to manage my time and my documents, and, in addition, have some concerns about self-motivation/regimentation in a place without any colleagues or graduate students monitoring me or working with me regularly. Some of you have touched on this, but how did you motivate yourself to work when no one was watching, and keep to a set schedule with less appointments or performative aspects than usual? As an extremely social person in a grad department that facilitates frequent colloquia and panels, and encourages grad students to work together in a shared space on campus, how did you get used to working alone and setting your own schedule (without getting lethargic, unmotivated, or even depressed)? This is one of my biggest research year fears, as it was a problem for me when I did summer research a year ago.

  15. Just wanted to say how inspiring all of you are to me as I face my oral qualifying exam next week ... I'm only halfway through this process and you folks are finishing, but you really make me feel confident in keeping with it to the end! You folks were old hands when I got here three years ago, and I've been so happy for all of your advice throughout this time. I hope all the good karma you have earned through your kindness on grad cafe is reciprocated on the job market!

  16. I agree with @Cheshire_Cat about the ability to make your own schedule and to be as flexible as you'd like! Another thing I love is the amazing access to all kinds of talks, trainings, resources, books, discounts, counsel, advice, support, camaraderie, etc. If you want to, there is a club or organization or committee or office to help with anything you need under the sun, and all you have to do is ask and be tenacious. In normal life, often all you have as a resource is the internet and friends you know who may have expertise. At a large university, so many people are experts in their field, whether librarians, administrators, professors, theater directors, etc. that you'll always have access to the best of the best, if not the most vibrant examples of cutting edge thought and engaged community.

  17. On 4/18/2017 at 10:38 AM, hj2012 said:

    LOL! I'm not actually from the Bay Area so the little monikers don't bother me. But my partner is, and I've certainly heard it from his family and friends for sounding like an egregious tourist. :rolleyes:

    As a born and bred Bay Area native, I can concur, the words "San Fran" make me cringe big time. The proper ways to refer to San Francisco beyond its actual name are "SF" or "the City" (I know, New York people say that too, but bear with us, that city is far enough away that there's no confusion. Maybe it has something to do with crossing a bridge to get there?)

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