Sigaba

@urbanhistorynerd, one of the many challenges you're facing is that urban history is complex, intricate, detailed, and nuanced yet its best practitioners make it seem so easy that it's easy to conclude "I can do that, too." Overall, the feedback you're receiving is saying to you that you might be better served preparing a SOP that indicates you know the basics of making thread and maybe a stitch or two before you endeavor to make the sweater. What big picture historical debate do you wish to address? Can you succinctly summarize those debates? Can you succinctly define your terms? Can you describe realistic projects centered around the use of primary source materials you'd want to do that will advance those debates? Can you indicate how your interests will fit into the research interests of the departments you wish to join? (I am hinting here that you should not focus on individual scholars by name.) Can you chart/project future projects you wish to do as you progress from newly minted assistant professor to Professor of BTDT at Happyland University? For examples of how to address questions [1] to [3], I recommend that you spend some time in the stacks (not on line) of a periodical library. Start with copies of The Historian, JAH, and AHR, maybe even Reviews in American History. Once you feel that your on solid footing, up the level of intensity and start reading through journals that are in your wheelhouse including the Journal of Urban History and the Journal of Social History. After that, if you want to take it up another notch, consider stepping out of your comfort zone to look at journals not directly connected to your interests. For this task, I strongly recommend journals that publish articles on modern German history. An objective of the above-recommended task is that you'll start to see the elegance with which historians communicate. As a mentor told me while he was standing on my head during office hours, "a historian is a historian is a historian." By that he meant (I believe), that there's a structure to historical writing that allows one to communicate a great deal of information in a very limited space to an engaged audience of varying interests. A secondary objective of the task is for you to find ways that you can curb your tendency towards editorializing. As someone who likes to throw in a zinger here, there, everywhere, I get the appeal. And, as someone who has been bounced off the walls of professors' offices and now makes a living as a technical(ish) writer, I understand how editorializing gets in the way. Here's the thing. if you're a very good writer and you editorialize, professors may cut you some slack. But eventually, the practice will catch up to you and you'll get "notes" that you won't enjoy hearing/reading. A pivot. @ALCON, it appears that this season is going to see more applicants asking openly for feedback on their SOPs. In the event you give feedback, please keep in mind that in some quarters, giving specific guidance can put an applicant on a slippery slope. At some programs, incorporating feedback either word for word or close enough constitutes plagiarism. Let's not screw aspiring graduate students over unintentionally.

Use your knowledge of the dismal science to project the lifetime costs of your two options. I recommend a scenario in which you get into Happyland University because of the progress you make during your gap year, a scenario where the gap year makes no difference, and corresponding scenarios for applying now. For the gap year scenarios, I recommend additional projections for the possibility that a one year gap becomes two, then four, then five (because life happens). Maybe throwing in a job you find that gets you close enough to where you want to go. FWIW, I don't think that your UG GPA is going to matter as much as your performance as a graduate student.

IMO, this is a project management issue. Before talking to a colleague over whom I ultimately had no power beyond the power of persuasion, I'd touch base with the PM. I would have one or two courses of action in mind, but be willing to defer. I am not sure that I agree that your colleague's initiative isn't coming from a malicious place. As you put it: Were she of the same mind as you and favored a collaborative approach, you'd know what she's trying to do and why. Instead, her behavior falls into an identifiable pattern. My $0.02. ETA: I make a living doing project work at a consultancy. Doing the work, one quickly learns the differences between asking for permission and asking for forgiveness and straight up stonewalling.

Set up a schedule with set periods of time (days or weeks) in which you are either in a state of rest/relaxation, a state of working on your craft, or in a liminal state between relaxing and working. If you're resting, do that and nothing more -- avoid thoughts about what you "should be" doing. If you're resting or relaxing and what you're doing helps either/both, then you're doing exactly what you should be doing exactly the way it should be done. No school related activities of any kind is allowed. If you're working on your craft, work as hard as circumstances allow. If you feel like goofing off or procrastinating, then adjust your schedule so that your activity is in line with your objective. If you're in a liminal state, find the sweet spot so that you don't punish yourself for not "working harder." Here's an example of what I mean. Week 1 Complete rest Week 2 Complete relaxation Week 3 Alternating days (like, 2, 1, 2, 2) in which you plan and prepare for your next project. Organizing your workspace Collecting materials Very limited but attentive reading Week 4 New Project phase 1 Each day work harder than the previous one. Cap hours of work for each day between 8 - 10 Week 5 New Project phase 2 Maintain a high level of intensity (imagine the 85th - 90th percentile of effort) Work at least 10 hours a day Produce some sort of "deliverable" Week 6 Complete R&R Week 7 Transition to going back to school. #HTH ETA: BTW, in the private sector, with minor tweaks and lots of coffee, the schedule above is known as "Mondays".? #NOTBITTER

Why?

Do your sentences need to be structured as they are? Are you defining your terms? Are you editorializing? Does a contemporaneous event such as meet the standard for historical study? (Is contemporary history possible? Was Michael Brown "a black man" or a young adult? Was the cause-effect pattern what you imply? (Did the civil unrest follow Brown's killing or did it follow the grand jury's decision not to issue an indictment?) What does it mean that you're using a journalistic analysis of an event from a paper based in Los Angeles? How does your work follow Sugrue's since he compellingly argues that the shifts you describe took place between the 1940s and the 1960s? Does your proposed topic reflect a realistic understanding of research at the graduate level? Exactly what are the fundamental questions that your work will address? (This is a question about historiography.)

In the event that you feel defensive, keep in mind that you're probably not being attacked. Instead, you're being asked questions as described in @Hope.for.the.best's posts, or you're being given "notes" on how to comport yourself as a professional academic, committee members are thinking aloud, and/or they're raising the bar on you incrementally to see how high you can jump. A tactic that is available (but you should not use too often), is to say "I don't know" when you don't. I don't recommend saying "I never thought of that" with a sense of flat footed wonder. Instead, if you're presented with a concept that you did not anticipate, I recommend a nod and a measured response. IRT asking your supervisor for a mock defense, I suggest that you don't make that request. You should have friends/peers who can perform that function for you. In the event that you're a worrier or prone towards excessive attention to detail, you might benefit from not looking at your work too closely the day or two or three before the defense. When you go to your defense, make sure you bring a physical copy of your work (thesis? report?) for reference.

FWIW, Los Angeles was established in 1781 (before Chicago), is the second largest city in the U.S., had an electric streetcar system three years before New York opened its subway system, and L.A. has been enhancing its public transit system since 1993.

FWIW... https://www.walkscore.com/

@huxlb, did you mean to post here or actually there?

If the chair is concerned about his exposure to a sexual harassment charge from you (and he is), and you want to continue working with him, I recommend that you conduct yourself professionally. I would resort to humor, especially the example you proposed, if and only if you're ready for him to hand you off to another professor. (Which he might do anyway.)

Unless you're exceptionally disciplined, your day to day responsibilities may place ever increasing pressure on your self study. I therefore recommend that you establish a modest plan with limited goals over an ambitious plan. For example, find a couple of resources (analog or digital) that you can use as references while you read works by your adviser and his peers. Work on familiarizing yourself with basic terms and concepts while leaving aside the nuts and bolts in depth knowledge for later. (Focus on the what rather than the how.)

You've done nothing wrong and there's no reason to feel any sense of embarrassment, although such feelings are understandable. I recommend that you put two thank you cards in his box as soon as possible. One for the professor, the other for his daughter. In the latter, thank her for loaning you the clothes and for taking care of you. If you've the means, I would drop in a gift card that she'll find useful. In the former, thank him for the support he's provided over the years and most of all for saving your life and protecting your dignity.. If you're so inclined, you might write in an elegant fashion, that you consider the two events at his house to be accidents. (Think carefully here as any such language could impact you IRT liability. There were two slip and falls on the same property on the same day. Until you're absolutely certain that there are no long term ill effects from your injuries, you don't want to do anything that might limit what ever protection the laws provide.) Put the gift cards in his box and before you meet, take a quick peek to see if they've been collected. If they have, you can look him in the eye at the start of your progress meeting and say simply, "Thank you, again." And he'll look you in the eye and he'll say the right thing and life will go on.

Common practices are often not best practices. Expertise in a field does not equate expertise in teaching that field. The professor is doing you few if any favors with this approach.

I like it when aspiring graduate students work with each other by putting their questions and pooling their knowledge in the most recent Fall 20xx Applicants thread. YMMV.

Have you checked with Chicago to make sure that Blom can supervise masters and doctoral candidates? Also, given where the United States is today with people across the political spectrum picking their own facts, how do you see your scholarship influencing the ongoing debate over "truth"? IRT your use of psychoanalysis, please keep in mind that there may be opportunities to learn (if not not apply) theories informed by clinical work and developments within the profession. Finally, will your focus on digital technologies include study of AIs and ASIs as artists?

After some incredible growing pains, Lenovo's outlet on-line store has worked out most of the integration issues with Klarna. If you're diligent, fast, and more than a little lucky, you can get a refurbished Thinkpad at a considerable discount. FWIW, at my job we've found Surface Pros to be a source of frustration and disappointment. We're at the point where we're moving back to using Dell Latitude Ultrabooks.

If you have a "very good relationship" with Professor Malikov and have discussed graduate school with professors you know in person, what is the purpose of asking strangers for their opinions? Are you saying that you don't trust Professor Malikov?

Hi, @Boyar678 Please consider the utility of using the search function to find answers to your questions before starting a new thread. The ability to generate answers to one's own questions is a core skill set in the historian's toolbox. You are competing against applicants who are taking every opportunity to develop their research skills and that effort is going to give them a competitive advantage. https://forum.thegradcafe.com/search/?q=russian&type=forums_topic&nodes=38 IRT flunking out of nursing school, the challenge you may face is that unless members of admissions committees know nurses personally, they may not appreciate how difficult nursing school can be. You may also need to find a way to explain better why you did not successfully address your short comings in nursing school before getting the D's. Finally, given the fact that you're working in a history department now, you would probably benefit more from developing a relationship with professors at your school, especially Malikov, and get answers to your questions from them.

By being authentic.

You may not have received any consideration given that you have a RA-ship and a fellowship pending. Going forward, you may benefit from asking around before throwing your hat in the ring. By asking around, I don't mean that you should ask for permission, I mean that you should find as much information as possible so you can make an informed decision. The time you spend applying for something you're likely not to get is time you can spend doing something else.

I'll put it less gently. In addition to increasing the intensity and range of your due diligence, you should consider re-ordering your relationship with the profession. It isn't what established professional academic historians can do for you, it is what are you going to do advance existing scholarly debates. Often, up and coming scholars conclude that they're doing something that's leaps and bounds ahead of what's gone on before (e.g. the many "new" histories) when, in fact, they're giving an already well-refined historiographical kaleidoscope a slight turn. To be certain, that turn can show the past in a different light that illuminates and invigorates a field--if not the entire profession--but it's rarely as pathbreaking as some say.

I think we're on the same page.

At the same time, one should not ignore entirely the relationships an advisor has with others, including undergraduates. If you're the only person with whom the individual does not get along with or gets along with, it may be beneficial to perform a self assessment and some asking around. It may well be that an advisor picks a different chew toy and/or "favorite" each academic year to be discarded the following year.