TMP

I've noticed a pattern in my conversations with non-academics who are trying to relate to us in grad school: they connect on the theme of teaching. If your date has been in school as an undergrad or whatever, s/he is going to be able to *get* it when you talk about teaching and offer more feedback/perspective. Remember, even as grad students, we do other tasks besides research.

Wow. Didn't realize that I started a whole thread.... Update: think the word got around a bit quick that I do pay attention to the attendance sheet so the requests for excused absences have fallen quite fast and the professor suggested that I drop the first two unexcused absences. Recently, it's been mostly the female students and good male students who come to me. It's a good place to be The other (male) TA... meanwhile.... messed up two of my students' fates on their first paper (long story) and the professor saw the whole thing. Seems like the end point is more about your persona/presence than your gender.

This! I used to spend hours reading this as a kid, imagining the world beyond my room. I learned physical and political geography, examined the unique things countries had (i.e. pyramids in Egypt), and memorized facts. All of that made for an interest in transnational focus in history. By the way, my copy is from when Russia was... still Soviet Union.

Actually, Palo Alto, Cambridge, and Princeton are pretty expensive places to live.... $26K for Palo Alto is barely livable. As my aunt who lives there says, "Don't move here unless you're already making good money just to pay rent."

Is there any way you can wait until the following year (deferral) or do you need the health insurance/income? It's a personal decision indeed but it seems to me that you also want an opportunity to make the most of your graduate experience too. Do what's best for you and your family.... remember, babies grow up very fast!

Not at all. You're accepted for a reason- there's a fit with one (or MORE) of the faculty members. Keep an open mind- personalities matter too. Take some time to take classes with other professors before settling on a thesis adviser.

I felt this way when I was a master's student when I looked at the PhD students. Now as a PhD student, I understand now why PhD students are that way.

I have frequent flier status so I get upgraded. If you're talking about using school's money to purchase tickets, you need to pay for coach if you want to be fully reimbursement. I agree that if you want/need a non-coach seat for purchase, you'll have to ask.

Simply mention (in private of course) that you have summer funding included in your other package but you really want to attend the program. PM me for a sample letter (and the two schools' package details) Your adviser was the DGS- listen to her. Good DGSs want those details to help them find their benchmarks for better long-term planning for recruitment.

.... remember you can always negotiate a bit if you have a better funding package elsewhere.

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,178461.15.html I also agree with the follow up. My question is: How badly do you want your PhD? We all have had to learn to deal with various BS to get where we are. Your adviser knows this. Your committee members know this. You can't keep running away when your boss tells you to get moving. You can either quit on the spot or just do it. You have to learn to deal with authority. Until you become your own boss, you will continue to be pressured with deadlines.

Don't need to say anything. The funding is yours until April 15th.

Biggest one in general? How quickly drama can explode among graduate students and within the department. For me, the ability to work that's "right" for ME. What worked for others might not work for me. I spent like a year experimenting with my note-taking and reading for my exams and I'm just... barely nailing the technique (that's right for me) down and my exams are this summer! On the UPside, I got frequent flier status!

I did a data analysis of the faculty in my department. The result is on par with the article. 50% of the faculty received their PhDs from the top 10. Approximately 30% got their PhDs from 10-25 according to USNEWS rankings. The remaining 20% are from foreign universities or ranked lower than 25. Does it make make me nervous? Slightly. However, I have noticed two things. As Sigaba and Professor Plum pointed out, who sat on your dissertation committee matters (because everyone is aware of the "trickle-down" factor). Another thing is the term you forumites use-- "tenure track jobs"-- is too vague. You need to be more specific as to what is it you want. My program is excellent for placing students in tenure track positions in TEACHING institutions (where the courseload is more like 3-4 courses per semester). Public universities are decent about placing their students in teaching positions within the region/state. I've long accepted the fact that I am not interested in teaching more than 5 courses a year because research is a strong part of my academic identity and will be aiming for elite SLACs/R1s where I can be hired as a scholar-teacher (not "teacher") or simply quit academia and move into a NGO. I am methodical about my dissertation committee and my adviser as I am in a small field where the university name will not matter as much as the adviser. The picture is much, much more complicated than what that article presents.

Your questions will be discussed when you take historiography, required for all doctoral students in the history department. Also, you mentioned you're in Canada. In the US, we do have very, very few departments that have fields in military history such as Ohio State. Military history has been integrated into other fields of historical study. Scholars have examined "the history of war" through particular lenses such as women's role, labor, politics, etc. These historians do not wish to analyze battlefield tactics and consider various outcomes (i.e. what if the British had won the Somme if they had done X instead of Y?). They take war as it is (To quote Leopold von Ranke, the father of the modern history discipline, "Wie es eigentlich gewesen" ("how things actually were")) and consider the participants and factors in shaping the moment. In that context, they may consider the physical body of exhausted soldiers, the food supply, the natural physical conditions of trenches (they were very muddy indeed, inviting all sorts of diseases), and social tensions as factors for the outcomes of various battles. Isabel Hull's Absolute Destruction is a wonderful example of non-operational military history. She analyzes a number of ways the Germans continued to push forward to the point of extreme violence such as unchecked public opinion and separation of the military and imperial government during the Second German Empire (the 1871 constitution had given the military uncontested powers, unlike the 1789 US constitution which placed the President as the Commander-in-Chief of the military thereby tying the government and military together). Hull's multi-faceted approach to German military history offers insights for those interested in European colonialism, WWI, and the workings of the Third Reich's military forces as well as other historians who might wish to take her as a platform for analyzing class differences, health, role of Jewish, Catholic, and/or Polish soldiers, etc.

Nobody's retracted an acceptance It only happens for undergraduate admissions! They saw the potential in you and want to see what you're like in person. Sure, everyone is awkward at the beginning and professors realize that. We have had some admitted students whom we were like " :blink:" at the beginning and they've turned out wonderfully. Do not worry. Easier said than done.

You actually have as long as you want because you haven't been offered a funding package that requires you to make a decision by April 15. Unfunded offers have no deadlines.

Now you've said Bay Area. I can give you better advice. As you already know from the climate, layers are super important. Even in Midwest. This is what the conversation looks like between me and my grandparents when I visit over the holidays: Grandma: "What are you going to put on? It's 50 degrees out." Me: "Well, this fleece jacket that I brought with me." Grandma: "No, dear, please borrow one of my heavier raincoats." Me: "No thanks, this rainboat has a light wool lining." (sporting LL Bean raincoat) Grandma: "You're going out in shorts?!" Me: "What? I'm going for a run and I'm going to get hot." (and I come back sweating, wearing long sleeved tech top and shorts) Grandpa: "Which sweater do I need? Is it cold out?" Grandma: "Which coat should I wear?" Me: "Well, it is cold out.... I'd recommend for you, wimps, to put on the warmest thing you've got." (sporting a light wool coat) In other words, ashiepoo, you might want to dress for 10 degrees colder if you're not used to the cold.

Just relax. They will likely lead the conversation (otherwise they wouldn't ask to speak) and go with it. The aim to start opening the line of conversation and get to know each other a bit. It's your opportunity to "interview" them too! If you in a tiny field where the person matters more than the institution, you'll want to make sure that the person is a great fit for you. Remember, you will be working with this person until you leave the program- or decide to switch advisers (which does happen, usually because of personality conflict or changing interests). One thing you'd want to be aware of is that professors are held to rules set by the Council of Graduate Studies not to share your information with their present graduate students (including advisees) UNLESS you wish to be in touch with them. It's a privacy issue- intended to protect your privacy (not theirs because their information is already public on the website). The most professors can share with present graduate students is your general area of interest (i.e. I accepted a student doing French gender history with emphasis on Southeast Asia) until you make a final decision.

DC just wimped out. Federal government and University of Maryland-College Park shut down for a snow day tomorrow (2/17). As for NYC, I agree. Sidewalks will be shoveled. I definitely recommend warmth and weatherproof as you will be walking around quite a bit (especially to find the right subway stop from street level!).

Actually you should let them know where you're planning to accept. They need to get a sense of benchmarks for funding and program strength purposes. It's discussed all the time and you would be doing them a favor.

Try this one from Indiana University (yes, I saved all decision letters). This was from 2012. In the face of a large number of highly qualified applications for admission to our graduate history program (over 300 for 10 spaces), the Indiana University Department ofHistory has adopted a highly selective admissions policy for the Fall 2012 term. The competition has been intense, and we have been able to accept only the most outstanding candidates and those who best fit our department’s strengths. Although you were judged to be highly qualified, you are not among those to whom we are offering admission. In other words, we feel that you might very well be able to earn a doctorate in history and proceed to professional success, but we cannot accommodate you here. We wish you the best fortune in pursuing your goals elsewhere. If you have any questions about this process, please contact Joey Kremer, GraduateAdmissions Coordinator, by mail at the address on this letter, by email athistadm@indiana.edu , or by phone at (812) 855-8233. (insert the buzzing sound over "but we cannot accommodate you here.")

I'll push this a bit further. It depends what your goals are. Do you want to take on a 4-4 load at a teaching institution? Or are you more research oriented? My department places well when it comes to teaching institutions and people come to my program for that reason. Public schoosl like Wisconsin tend to place its PhDs within the state and region.

I'll share as well. RevolutionBlues wrote a good post and I'll only add my experiences. I applied to grad schools for PhD in my senior year of college. I applied to A, B, and C for PhD. Thanks to this board, I quickly realized that I wouldn't be accepted anywhere so I scrambled to apply to D for the MA and called C to transfer my application to another department where my dream POI was also housed in for the MA. That worked out- I had two great years at C. In my second year of my MA, I went ahead and applied to 5 PhD programs for American-focused history. There was another (former) student with similar research interests who graduated before I came in and had been spending her time teaching. She applied to the SAME programs. Guess what? She got into ALL of them while I ended up waitlisted at 2 of my dream programs and rejected at others. It was a huge blow, especially when I compared our accomplishments. I had more languages and a strong MA thesis while she had more teaching experience. Who knows- why her and not me? She ended up turning down the offer from my dream program and accepted the offer at C. Later in that summer, she decided to defer and I was definitely pissed off because I wanted to go a PhD program that badly. I decided that my interests were more in European history so I changed up the list but kept my dream programs on it because I had been waitlisted (so close!). This time, I applied to 8 programs and moved to Europe to study the language and get the experience. When decisions rolled around, I could not focus. I was trying to make the most of my time in the fabulous city I was living in but it was so hard because as rejections came in, I became depressed. I ended up with 1 unfunded acceptance to a fourth tier university, a waitlist (again at one of my dream programs), and rejected by all others. Because I received all of these decisions abroad, away from my support network, I had no one to turn to. I actually fell into serious depression- could not even get myself out of my bed until noon or so. It continued for another month or so. My family did visit in the midst of it all. It was hard for me personally because I really wanted to make my parents proud and I needed to be "in the moment" with them. So what did I do this time? I was able to get into an e-mail exchange with my dream POI who also happened to the DGS at the time at E. Because she was a C alum, I used that alum connection to briefly tell her that it was my second cycle and I was utterly at loss for how to improve my application. She encouraged me to try again and offered constructive feedback on my SOP. I was also told by several people to get the PhD thing off my mind for the summer and come back to the issue in the fall and see how i felt. I did. While I was able to return to my dream workplace for a year-long paid internship, I just felt so exhausted. C suspended admissions for that year. Yet, I had three POIs who told me to try again. My MA adviser got me in touch with a professor at F (where I was very nervous about applying because of funding issues). My work colleagues also encouraged me and to add a top 5 program (I chose G) for kicks. I received a lot of emotional and personal support from my work colleagues (many of them with PhDs) and that made the process of re-applying for the THIRD time more bearable. I also had the opportunity to speak with my dream POI at E again and she was just... amazing and I realized that she was utterly perfect for me. I found the energy that I needed to finish my application strong. Then I took my mind off the whole process during the month of January (it helped that I had a big project dumped on me). Lord behold, on February 6th, I found out that I got into F via website. February 7th, just as I was finishing up my work for the day, I checked the Results board and saw that someone posted for an E acceptance. My heart began racing and I realized I couldn't remember the password for the website. So I walked home very very fast. Logged in. ACCEPTED. My first acceptance with guaranteed funding! I forgot all about dinner and nobody called 911 because I was too busy screaming and crying out of sheer excitement and relief. February 8th. Around 11 AM, the DGS at E e-mailed me personally to let me know that I had been accepted and nominated for a fellowship. I was so excited. THEN around 2 PM, the (new) DGS at H (one of my dream programs) sent a cold rejection letter. Ouch. I felt the stung a bit. Then around 4 PM, my POI at F e-mailed me to let me know that I had been selected to receive a multi-year fellowship package. I was utter shock-I had looked at F for a long time for US history but never... never imagined that I would be so lucky. After that, nothing matter because E and F were in the Midwest and had excellent faculty and both offered me full funding. G rejected me. Then I pulled my application out of I pile (thankfully as one of my friends did get in that program). While I did end up with a happy ending to all of this, the process took a real toll on my mental health. I was so exhausted when I came in as a first year and it took a long time for me to see that I needed serious intervention for my depression and anxiety. (There were other underlying causes for them, not just the grad admissions process). I'm well now. While I still pangs of pain as I think back and relive some of the feelings, those years built a lot of character and introduced me the importance of seeing rejections as "mixed blessings." Outside of grad admissions, I did have wonderful experiences in those two years- living abroad, working at my dream workplace, being a camp counselor, etc.- which shaped my perspectives as a graduate student now. I still get rejections from fellowships and grants for research but I look at them as "mixed blessings" and "always next year." It's important to recognize that nothing truly has an "expiration date." Very few do have serious restrictions in number of times you can apply and stage of career. Articles for journals can go somewhere else where it can truly find a "home." PhD programs aren't going anywhere and if you really want it, just re-apply. Stay proactive about the process and your next steps but also don't forget to embrace the present opportunities so you will be able to bring in another perspective into the seminar and your research. Can't emphasize RevolutionBlues' point about forming a strong support network for this. You'll need it as you go through the PhD program and beyond.

It all depends on the person, really. The main thing is to be PROACTIVE. The key is to be resourceful and assertive. You will need to learn how to "manage up" a busy adviser while cultivating a relationship with another professor. Faculty members usually have a good idea of how each other work and will step in as needed. The best way to know how the "big name" advisers work is to talk to his/her graduate students and find out who is on their committee. Sometimes the game just has to be played the way it is. My former (MA) adviser was a big name but I was able to take a class with her and work on my thesis with her. She was available as long as I made appointment or went to her office hours where she could give utterly undivided attention. It worked well.