Jump to content

TMP

Members
  • Posts

    2,397
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    28

Everything posted by TMP

  1. I should also add the value of typing/writing the documents by hand is fantastic for anyone who has incredible memory like myself and finds such technique a great way to learn. I could recite what I found in the archives to my adviser without even needing my notes and answer any questions that she had for me on the spot. She was quite impressed by my memory but later found out (and became even more impressed) that I had to write everything down that contribute to why I remembered so many details. But clearly if you're short on time in the archives, just do what you have to do.
  2. You actually need to have a PhD in history to become a curator or a historian in residence. But pay lip service to PhD programs about your career goals because many of them, as a whole, are still very old-fashioned about their expectations for their PhD students' careers. A MA in history or museum studies (along with networking) will get you the door... for an interview to start with, that's for sure.
  3. I had funding for my research but one of my major archives didn't allow for any photography or photocopying so I had to type up everything onto my laptop (my WPM really improved!). That saved me a lot of money- meaning that I had more money to copy as much as I wanted to in my other archives and I still came within my budget limit. I printed everything out and just organized them in my binders. Binders with dividers are your friends. So what if I killed trees? I'm pretty environmental in other aspects of my life.
  4. TMP

    What do you think?

    It does depend school by school. You may want to ask your major adviser what exactly are the benefits of doing the honors thesis vs. regular senior thesis. At my small LAC, everyone had to write a senior thesis in their department in order to graduate. You could take the seminar either in the fall or spring of your senior year (sometimes ambitious juniors will take one in the spring prior if there's a course that they really want to take). In order to do the honors, you had to have a 3.5 GPA in your (history) major and have completed a senior seminar. Then you go into the honors seminar (in the spring) and work on expanding the thesis by double (from 30 pages to 40-60 pages) and sharing drafts with your peers to improve the thesis as a while. If you wanted to get "high honors" (with a major GPA of 3.8), you would do an oral defense. It was a great experience for me. My department did strongly recommend anyone who's interested in graduate school (especially for history) to do the honors thesis if they met the GPA requirement.
  5. Much of the language training will come through the form of literature, film, and media. It can be a challenge to continue learning the language after you realize how much you don't really like reading that kind of literature. In order to successfully learn it well, you need to have strong appreciation for the culture, literature and history. I took Russian until my intermediate Russian class began using a film with a script to help us learn everyday Russian and I realize that Soviet films just weren't for me so I dropped the class (as much as I loved Russian/Soviet history). Some languages take longer than others to *love* if you don't have strong appreciation for its usage to begin with. I'm emphasizing literature here because reading novels in original language is a great way to get very comfortable with it!
  6. From what you've written, I say, don't do it. If you're so comfortable making $100k+ and are already scared to death of living on $15K+ per year, then don't do it. You'll probably be more miserable as a PhD student than being a lawyer. Right now you can afford to do retail therapy, right? Down the road as a PhD student, it's hard to spend money to make you feel better. You're not going to have time to work as a PT attorney. Also you're choosing fields that require languages. I gather that you must have some Latin.... but even so if you don't have fluency in any languages, I'd put off your applications for PhD programs for a while until you gain mastery in one or two languages.
  7. Has there been much faculty turnover since you graduated? If it's been quite a while, then I wouldn't worry so much as if you JUST graduated from there. New professors bring in fresh ideas and perspective to the program.
  8. I reversed that negative for you. I didn't see anything wrong other than you just making a duplicate thread of the other one.
  9. I would think you can explain very briefly in your SOP (one sentence) and let your professors make the case of why history graduate school is better for you than law.
  10. Listen to your adviser, especially if s/he knows about your graduate school plans. They're more interested in your ability to handle primary/secondary sources, develop strong analyses and write very well. Your breath/depth of knowledge would certainly appear in your writing sample but you would be able to show it through your SOP.
  11. I was a transfer student but I didn't transfer for better name. From my experiences, if you are already very happy where you are, then stay! Transferring is tough! It's worth doing so if you think the new school will meet your academic/living needs better (which was in my case). Otherwise you may find yourself unhappy at your new school if it doesn't do anything for your other than vanity. As long as you are among the top students in your department and have strong relationships with your professors, you will be okay. It just so happens that students at higher ranked institutions are already exposed to doctoral programs there and have the top-notch faculty's names. But a honest, personal, and well-written letters from a little-known professor is better than a lukewarm one from a famous professor (which at this point you don't even known if those kind of professors will have time to prepare you). Graduate programs realize that everyone comes from different programs and respect that. Also, you can check on your department's placement records- see where the graduates have gone.
  12. MattMedia, you just made yourself sound like you resent academia (aka the Ivory Tower) for getting paid to do nothing but research/write in exchange for teaching or receiving grants. Given your rebuttal, why did you ask how much you would get per journal article in the first place or frame your post question that way? It is a privilege itself to be published in an academic journal, whether it's a research article or a book review. That said, you don't have to like or agree with what I have to say. I respect that.
  13. About a generation, according to my professors. So.. like about 20-30 years from now.
  14. TMP

    MA or PhD?

    Are you planning to take any time off? What do you really want to do a PhD? What do you hope to get out of your experience as a graduate student for the next 8-10 years?
  15. Well, the dripping baklava and over-the-top awesome borekas did it for me. Personally I've found both groups fine to deal with. The Turkish were just more naturally hospitable.
  16. Ask your thesis adviser or a professor for an idea. I know a historian personally who wanted to do something 17th century German history for her MA thesis. Her adviser asked if she wanted a job and she said yes. Then he pulled out a box of microfilms and told her to pick one out and find a topic in that reel and make a thesis out of it or there would be no job for her with her original idea. She ended up studying and writing about Nazi medicine and is one of the leading scholars in that area. You never know.
  17. Let me guess, is the Turkish community in Berlin your major focus, or at least part of your thesis? They were my saviors when I lived in Berlin when I didn't want German food and needed people to practice my Deutsch with (as they spoke no/little English)!!!
  18. A pay rate? You don't become a historian to make money. Nobody gets paid to do these things. You only get paid for the recognition of your work. As you probably already know, it's a very long process to get your article published from scratch to published.
  19. I'm sure your therapist probably already told you that you're so used to be successful (given your GPAs) that suddenly you feel inadequate to finish this thesis and you're just not sure what are the tools you actually need to do the job. Successful people run into these kind of problems at one time or another and they eventually figure out how to solve them. Occasionally, they can't and need more help. Realize that this is normal. My suggestion is to sit down for 15-20 minutes once or twice a day, every day. Just write. Write anything you can think of. Don't sit there and figure out the best word choice or phrasing. That's what edits are for later. The key is just to get it all on paper. Say what you what to say, as if you're having a conversation with your computer (which doesn't give a damn whether or not it "gets" what you're trying to say. It doesn't care if it's perfect or not.). Generally, I like to work it all out in my head when I'm running and just type it all down when I come back to my computer later. Sometimes physical activity can "loosen up" that mental block with all those brain chemicals. Look into PHinished boards and see if there's anyone there who can be your partner. There are also great suggestions in Chronicle forums as well (under Grad Student Life) on finishing a thesis/dissertation.
  20. Really, really listen to your prospective advisers. Do what they tell you. But the final decision is up to you. Whatever you do, senior year or year off or whatever, just keep taking languages so you can start becoming comfortable hearing and reading something that isn't English. Once you pick up one or two, the rest seem pretty easy. You'll make yourself more competitive in any case with more languages under your belt because you'll be able to expand your research interests and do transnational and comparative work (which will make your work all more interesting). I would think that you could just make up a list of PhD programs you'd love to be in and one or two MA programs you'd be happy attending.
  21. I am not kidding. TAKE A YEAR OFF. You will breathe a lot more easily. You will feel more confident of your application package if you feel that you can give it full attention that it requires. PhD programs are seriously competitive that you just cannot afford to make mistakes on your application. That's including languages. You need to be able to read it well enough to put down "comfortable" or "near fluent" or "advanced" knowledge. If you can take a literature level in French, it'll suffice for US history's foreign language requirement. Languages, publications, conferences, and teaching experiences are all "bonus" points in applications (and can make up for less-than-stellar numbers) because those are all the tools you need to be a successful doctoral candidate preparing for the academic job market. I believe that if you don't have ANY of those, then it's a very, very long shot to being accepted. I was told, "If you're going to take a year off, take a language course" and "If you want to take a year off, work a little to save up some money and spend some time in Germany and learn German." (German is one of my research languages). Really, I thought I would die if I didn't continue on so I applied straight out of undergraduate. I didn't get into any PhD program but 2 MA programs (w/o funding and took the cheaper program and took out loans). In retrospective, I wish I had done my language abroad THEN go to my MA program. Right now I'm just out of my MA program with loans and I spent the last winter in Germany to learn more German, and I'm kicking myself for not having done it the other way around. Then I would've had more money to stay in Germany longer and become fluent. Bottom line: You will NOT die. You will NOT die. You will NOT die if you just not be a student for a bit. The whole world is really your classroom, not just academia. I have a number of friends in PhD programs who started right after undergrad or one year out and they're all insanely jealous of me for having time off from academia and all the things I'm doing. Before you start filling out those applications, take some time to reflect on the things you've always wanted to do and your life "to-do list." Does any of these things require a lot of youthful energy? Is there something you've always wanted to do but just didn't get to do? If the answer is yes to both or one of them, then take the time to do them! PhD is a long time commitment and that includes the job search, which may take a year or two. If you are scared of the current US job market, then what are you going to do with yourself when it comes to finding a job in academic market for historians? It's worse. You may end up working in Starbucks with a PhD in your hand. No kidding. Second bottom line: Historians' job market is so bad that it's imperative that you start developing other skills as soon as you can so that you can be marketable for anything else. Employers will want to see that you can do other things besides researching and writing academic topics. They want to see you being able to "transfer" your skills to other forms of communication and research and have the ability to interact in a "regular" workplace. I think it is one of the underlying reasons why history departments would like to see some work experience on your application- they want to know if something happens to you, you can find your way back to the "Real World." Again, breathe.
  22. No, I don't think you're missing anything, aspiringhistorian. One of my mentors is actually a professor of political science. His work can be mixed in with history (which is how I found his books in the first place). Yet, when I listen to him talk about our topic, I just *get* the sense that he's a political scientist at heart. These people are much more theoretical driven and concerned with the relationship between the sovereign and subjects through the law. Nationalism is a broad topic and most people involved in social/cultural/political history should be able to advise you. Identity politics is a fascinating topic and I can't see it "being done to death" any time soon because of evolving theories and perspectives put forth by historians and social scientists. Just look for any works that grabs your attention and find those professors. You could gravitate towards Western Europe because of your languages but don't assume that adcoms will look at your skills set and go "This applicant's got French, Italian, and German, and s/he wants to do American history? Okay, no big deal." But if you really want to do Soviet Union and DO expect to use Russian-language sources, you better get your Russian working. You need to decide WHICH geographical area you want to focus on- American or Russian. A lot of times Russianists fall under European history and it's very stiff there. Those Russian professors have to battle against other Europeanists who have applicants who are likely to be fluent and can make better case for those valuable spots (and you'd be one of them if you choose this route).
  23. I agree with StrangeLight. It also depends if you're interested in anything in the last 20-30 years. Do you have courses that would make you competitive for a quantitative-based PhD? Do you really, really enjoy working with data and figuring out statistics? What would be your ideal methodology? Just some things to think about.
  24. I am going to encourage you to take a year or two off. You'll need this time to brush up your Russian and a secondary language (French or German). To have this time to be able to focus on sharpening your languages will make a difference and adcoms will commend you for your efforts and see that you're serious about your studies. Do Peace Corps or some other overseas program that can get you in Russian-speaking areas for a bit. Russian is mad hard and the archives are, from what I've heard from my Russian history professor and Slavic Lit friend, rather complex to deal with if you're not fluent in Russian. I don't know if you realize this but I'm not positive how well the study of post-Soviet Union will fly with historians. There is, at least from my professors at a top-tier school, an unwritten rule that there needs to be at least some space of time between the event and now, about a generation, before historians can examine the period objectively. We are only just beginning to scratch the surface of the 1980s. To discuss 1990s is still too contemporary and if you are really that interested, then I would change your discipline to something else like Sociology or Political Science. My Russian history professor literally wrapped up the post-Soviet years in one lecture because there are still so many issues that cannot be discussed with objectivity. BUT! You can argue that you would like to look at the roots of certain behavior or activity that occurred after the collapse. You could go ahead and e-mail modern Russianists in non-top 10 in the fall and see if your proposal is viable. If someone doesn't agree to work with you, most likely the person isn't ready to examine post-Soviet Union objectively and isn't able to advise you the best s/he can. I also want you to think more about, if not Russia, what geographical area you would like to be considered for. many PhD history programs are still rigid in their admissions process of categorizing people by their geographical focus. Both 20th century America and Europe are extremely competitive and you will need to be above and beyond to be competitive. For European history, you'll need at least 3-4 years of language and/or demonstration of your proficiency by utilizing primary sources in the original language into your writing sample. For American history, it's purely luck. A lot of it, once you pass the bar, is crapshoot.
  25. StrangeLight's being a little cranky. But what she said is why I asked you those questions. Since you are in 20th century America, it's not unreasonable to want to stay within Northeast if you don't care too much about where you get your PhD. You can expand your search to UMASS-Amherst, CT, and RI, Albany, and maybe NYC. NYC and CT have good job markets compared to a lot of other places. Unfortunately, in this economy, people are underwater with mortgages and working spouses. While the PhD stipend is challenging to live on for just the two of you, you could save up a bit to have some money right now (assuming you'll get in somewhere) until your wife can find a new job in a new town. It's a thought and I've seen some situations here on this board. It all comes down to you and your wife setting priorities. I should suggest that you can look at Indiana University- they have several Americanists who do WWII. Those are tough to find! But if you stay within Northeast and don't care where you get your PhD, the likelihood is definitely higher than your job market search will be limited to that region. It's just an hierarchy and connections thing. Best of luck to you! PS- You don't need a PhD in history to write a book.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. See our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use