maelia8

@VulpesZerda I had exactly the same experience this week! I'm presenting discussion questions in class next week that were due to the professor today, and last night I had to email a professor, for the first time in my life, and tell him that submission is going to be at least 24 hours late because I've been unable to read a thing. I was almost in tears when I wrote the email. My headache was so bad last night as I was leaving the library that I worried I would throw up before I made it home on the bus My new glasses are really NOT agreeing with me. …. And then I got food poisoning from sketchy Indian restaurant last night. This is the worst.

Call me old-fashioned, but i always go with either Times New Roman or Helvetica for official documents. Everything else just seems to flamboyant somehow.

I keep my toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet, with a special snap-on cover for the brush part so that it hopefully isn't as contaminated. My bathroom has lots of towel racks and my bedroom is TINY so I keep the towel in the bathroom.

To be honest, if you don't want to teach and you don't want to work in a museum and you don't want to work in academia, you are probably going to have to go into a career that is only very distantly related to your Classics MA at the end of it. if you like the university environment you could try to go into administration/university organization. Otherwise, you might just have to use your general research and writing skills working some sort of corporate job that an MA generally qualifies you for.

Yes, I think it's a good idea to list them even though they are only tangentially related. I also specialize in modern German history (coincidentally), and I did internships at two archives and a library. Although only one of them was directly related to German history, I still mentioned all of them and I'm sure that doing so was beneficial for my application to my Ph.D. program.

I think that mentioning it only in the PS would be sufficient if it's a university that requests both a PS and an SOP. However, if it's a university that wants only an SOP, then I'd include that personal aspect in a brief section so that they know a bit more about you (unless there's another section on the application more suited to the topic).

@LittleDarlings I think I understand a bit what you mean, on a smaller scale - in my program there are 20 people in my cohort, and of those, all but 6 (including myself) are in committed long term relationships (2+ years) or married (some of them younger than me), and I've definitely felt a bit odd hanging out with them because it reminds me that there's a certain divergence in our experiences. I don't get jealous in the way that you describe, but I've definitely gotten antsy hearing them talk for long periods of time about their significant others because it's something I just can't really relate to. But every time I feel that prick of annoyance, I remind myself that it doesn't mean they are more mature or "ahead of me" on the path of achievement in any way, and that I don't have to compare myself to them. I'm pretty happy with my way of life as it is, and I'm not looking to settle down any time soon. Just keep in mind, even if you do want those things that they have, that you don't have to use them as a yardstick to measure yourself against, because the only yardstick you should be worrying about is yourself One thing that helps me is to compare myself now to myself a short while back, and it really helps to see how much I've matured and grown emotionally, and how many amazing goals I've achieved. Although it might seem right now that you're "behind" the others, you might just be on an alternate path that will lead you to even better things.

I'm a specialist in German history, already very fluent in the language, but when I was learning, I found "English Grammar for Students of German" to be a useful text for German grammar review, and I also recommend the book "German for reading knowledge" which is designed specifically to help you use German as a research language and not necessarily speak it. I hope this is helpful!

I contacted the profs I wanted LORs from at the beginning of October, and then wrote a follow-up check-in email in mid-November with more detailed information about what I'd been up to and what they might mention in the LOR (most of them were happy to get a little guidance so that they could mention my activities since I'd graduated a year and a half before). We then were in contact daily right before the submission date and they contacted me after submitting their letters to the online system.

Asking for a LOR years after the fact is perfectly fine I went overseas on a Fulbright and had to ask for LORs a full year and a half after graduation from undergrad, and it wasn't a problem at all. Of course, it's easier if you've been staying in touch with the professor and writing them newsy little emails every couple of months, as some of my friends do, but I just wrote an email to the profs with the headline along the lines of "greetings and update about academic future" or something like that, and my LOR writers were happy to help me

I'm still in the coursework stage of my Ph.D. and I'm not in a lab science, but one thing that really helps me is studying and reading in the grad student library for my department - everybody comes in an out of there at least once a day, and even if we just chat for a minute between classes or go eat our bag lunches in the lounge together, I feel like I've had the chance to reconnect with them and see how their day is going. Another helpful activity is to set up a "Stammtisch" = one night a week when you and your buddies head down to the bar for drinks at the same time. Since my department schedules grad student classes mostly Monday through Wednesday, we all go down to the pub together Wednesday night at 6 when the vast majority of us have just turned in our major work for the week and can afford to relax a bit. Getting into a routine really helps - you just need to add designated hangout time into your routine

@LKS like you, I'm in my first semester and don't yet have to teach. I'm enrolled in two seminars and a language course. I am very careful with my time and make sure that I get at least 8 hours of sleep per night. I am usually on campus working or in class from 11am to 9pm (minus a half-hour for lunch), so that's a 45-hour work week during the week, but I also go to campus on weekends and work for about 9-10 hours per day, so it's really more like a 65-hour workweek. I think it's pretty reasonable, but then, I don't have to do any outside research yet because I'm in a humanities program where we literally just do coursework for the first two years (basically the equivalent of the masters that I skipped). I do all of the required reading, and I'm not breaking my back doing it, but as I said, I don't have any lab work or outside research to do (besides prepping a topic for a research course next semester), and I still have time to go out for drinks or hang out with friends two nights a week on average (once after seminar on Wednesday, once on Friday or Saturday night), as well as working out at the gym four days a week for about an hour a day. What's important is to find a healthy balance and be strict about the clock - if you want to be up by 8 or in bed by midnight, nobody can make it happen but you

Welcome, we're glad to have you! I am also an historian of modern German history, and coincidentally, we're reading about Fascism and Communism in 20th century Europe in my intro modern Europe seminar right now Good luck on your applications, and feel free to ask me if you have any questions about programs or fellowships related to modern German history or German studies.

I don't think that's a good idea. Schools admit people based on how much funding they have and how many people in each tuition block they'll be getting as incoming students each year, and if they count on you paying US citizen tuition, it would be both deceitful and a hell of a lot of work for them to recategorize you as an EU citizen. Are there some benefits to applying as a US citizen, besides the tuition thing? As someone who's applied to European institutions before, I remember applying as a non-EU citizen to be a much bigger headache than it was for EU citizens, but maybe it's different in your case.

I'm a grad student with two years of professional training in what I tutor, so I'd charge $20/hour, but if I were an undergrad, I'd probably still charge $15.

I read more books than articles, since I'm still in the coursework stage of my degree and don't have to do any independent research yet. I read only 5 (long, 20-30 page) articles independently per week, plus half a dozen shorter book reviews, but I read about 4 books per week (250-500 pages each). I also go to a working group where we read two articles per week based in my specialty area, and I go to colloquium talks where professors in my department present their research and papers about once a week.

In my first-year cohort of twenty, all but five people are either married or in committed LTRs (most of them long-distance), and they all somehow manage to make it work (I'm one of the singletons). I think that you have to want very much for it to work and be willing to make some sacrifices for the relationship in order to maintain it, whether those be geographical, monetary, or career-related. I think it's very important to constantly reassess the extent to which you are willing to compromise in a relationship - although you may go into it with the mindset that you're not ready to make any sacrifices or compromise in order to stay with the other person, that may change over time, or your feelings could just as well evolve in the opposite direction. I've broken up with various partners half a dozen times because I was moving for a job or for education, because each time I asked myself, "Am I ready to make sacrifices and compromise to maintain a long-distance LTR?" and the answer was clearly no. However, I'm open to the fact that this could change at any time in the future, so I try to stay open to all possibilities. I understand that eventually it will probably be necessary for me to compromise more and make more of an effort to accommodate my partner if I want the relationship to really last for the long term, but I'm not ready for that yet and you, reinhard, should definitely not feel pressured by your age or any other circumstances to stick with someone and do an LDR if you don't think it's realistic for you right now (or even if it's just not something that you feel comfortable with, period). Good luck!

I was with Fulbright and another international exchange program overseas for two years before applying to graduate school, and it was both an amazing experience and helped my grad school application! I highly recommend taking some time off after undergrad, because it will give you time to relax, recover from burnout, and assess whether you really want to go to grad school while getting a chance to try out a "real job" in the meantime. If you would like to know more about Fulbright, feel free to PM me.

In my field, getting more than one B per semester is considered pretty bad, even if it's a B+, partly because our first two years are entirely based on coursework and our skills aren't measured in any other ways. I think that once we get into the upper years after qualifying oral exams, the grades won't matter so much any more.

I feel like I need to work on balancing workload and fun time. I've been yo-yo-ing between working extremely hard and intensely to the point where I stay on campus in the library until 11pm every day and finish my assignments two days early one week and going out for happy hour every night and partying on the weekend the next. There's got to be a healthy balance here somewhere … I just have to find it.

I have developed pretty intense hyperactivity and insomnia - I can't seem to fall asleep before 2am even if I'm done with my work for the day, so I usually just keep on working because as long as I'm feeling chipper, why not? I'm sure that I'm going to crash and burn eventually, but it hasn't hit me yet. I often do dance workouts or yoga in the middle of the night in order to tire myself out. Let's see how long this lasts ...

@ss2player that's definitely what I'm going to do next time! Honestly, I don't know what came over me. I know my own limits and I was clearly pushing them - I was just so happy it was Friday that I stopped caring. After spending Saturday pretty much comatose, I won't be doing THAT again for a while.

went to a party, got smashed drunk, and spent the last hour puking in the toilet … I'm too old for this! Now all of the other grad students in my cohort know what a responsible adult I am … I'm so embarrassed.

I know that it would defeat the purpose of portability and lightness, but I really wish that they produced a 15" version of the macbook air. Like wuglife427, I like being able to transport my laptop easily and move it around the house, but a 13" screen for watching movies and looking at images is really just too small. I have a 15" macbook pro mostly for these reasons, when I honestly don't need the increased power or storage space (I'm an historian - the most advanced program I run is Zotero!), but my pro is already 3 years old and out of warranty, so if it dies, I'm thinking of getting a 13" just so that I can save my back and shoulders lugging it back and forth between campus and my apartment.

I applied to 6 schools because I honestly felt that those were the only ones with a stellar advisor fit, and also because I was financially limited and couldn't have paid for application at 10. It depends on your individual situation, but I agree with the general statement that it should probably be more an 4 and that more than a dozen is probably overkill.