Sigaba

@RDG1836 I recommend that you assess what don't you like about the Industry and what leads you to believe that things are better in the Ivory Tower. IME, the sound a know it all undergraduate makes when he's rolling his eyes is a lot like the sound an A list director makes on a conference call when you tell him that's not the way it happened. (But I'm not bitter.) IRT @knp's guidance, I would counter that a historian is a historian is a historian. No matter how focused one may be on a leaf upon a tree's most remote branch, you will also need to talk intelligently about the forest. I would also add that there's at least one more vector that historians use to define themselves in addition to region and area--that is historians also (and in many cases, primarily) define themselves as social, cultural, political, military, economic, and so forth historians of [period] and [place]. Consequently, you will need to be able to figure out very quickly the differences among a military historian who studies the American Civil War, an Americanist who studies the Civil War, and a historian of the American Civil War. (Why walk away from the Industry at this point in time? I strongly suspect that there's going to be an incredible explosion of creativity in defiance of the hammer the federal government is going to attempt to drop on the TMZ. Which is more fulfilling for you? Writing the first draft of the history of that contest, or being in that fight and writing about it later?)

@telkanuru This post captures both the best and worst of what you bring to this BB. In regards to the latter, your humility is a trait that is refreshing, endearing, and respectable. But I sometimes wonder if it gets in your way. Your degrees don't just lend you prestige because they have Harvard on them. Your degrees also lend Harvard prestige because they have your name on them.

I am thinking that I (mis)read your question to mean "How do you organize your notes as part of the process of preparing for qualifying exams?" It seems that you're asking about the best software to build a reference tool that you'll use while taking your qualifying exams. If such is the case, depending upon how much time you have, I recommend staying with Excel. While Excel isn't the best software for building a database, it's superior to Word.

Do not send an email apologizing. Chalk it up to "lessons learned" and go on with life. If you're offered admission and you accept, you might mention it in passing if you establish rapport with this professor. On another issue. Do not describe your questions as "stupid." Here's the thing-. Your question has been asked and answered many times over the years--your question is a reflection of either your motivation or your skills. I recommend that from this point forward that you do your due diligence as a historian by looking for existing answers to your questions. If, after making a best effort, you cannot find the answers, then ask. (Do understand that, given your fields of study and the intellectual ferocity of its practitioners, you're going to be screwed if you end up working with this guy.)

@nevermind I am not trying to box you in. I tend to ask direct questions (that box people in). While individual learning styles are different, if you've experienced what I described in my previous post, you've been given a format for how to organize your readings in preparation for qualifying exams and beyond. By seeking to catalog your readings, you may be adding elements of complexity that are comforting while you prepare for qualifying exams but end up being confining when you're actually taking qualifying exams. Keep in mind that you are being trained as a professional academic historian so that you can create new knowledge. Qualifying exams may just ask you to show how well you know the existing knowledge, but they can also prompt you to take a stab at creating new knowledge. IMO, preparing for qualifying exams is like building and fine tuning a kaleidoscope. You want to organize your knowledge in such a way that you can easily identify it as the kaleidoscope is being turned but not to the point where the identifying features prevent you from seeing new shapes, patterns, and colors under extreme intellectual and psychological pressure. By period/area/topic (or combination thereof). Author, short title, year, one sentence summary that captures central argument and sources. How it advances relevant historiographical debate

Have you had the opportunity to sit through sessions of seminars in which professors run through lists of books and give summaries of books in one sentence or less?

Skill sets centering around the collection and analysis of data, and presenting findings are anticipated to be replaced by AI within twenty years. There will be fewer jobs for bean counters, number crunchers, researchers, cartographers, graphic production types, fieldworker types, and technical writers. There will be jobs for people who have an eye for nuance as they watch drones and software perform these tasks. (I am not bitter.) Managing relationships with clients, stakeholders, and customers (internal/external) and other "soft skills" are anticipated to remain tasks performed by people. MOO, there will also be jobs for people who can think through the policy implications of emerging technologies.

On the topic of insurance and fieldwork, I very strongly recommend that one not go by assumptions and what seems when figuring out what coverage a policy covers. Insurance companies and their agents are not necessarily invested in accepting claims. Even if a claim is accepted, the process can be drawn out and cost you time and focus that should be going to other tasks. (In case I'm being too subtle, let me put it this way. Some--not all--insurance agents are weasels who will look for the first opportunity to screw you. Others, not all, are helpful but not as competent as they might be when talking about coverage. They can tell you yes, but be wrong.) To the extent possible, communicate with an insurance company in a way that is clear, concise, and in writing. "I am going to be spending three months in Paris, France doing X, Y, and Z. What does your policy cover, does it specifically cover A, B, and C?" If you can, consider doing research to find an insurance concierge that will do the leg work for you. When you consider paying a fee for such a service, ask yourself "How much is a hour of my time worth?" and then do some back of the napkin cost projections. #HTH

@AP, I regret that this happened to you. While you take stock of what was taken and what you need to do to get back on track, please pay attention to how you feel. Maybe even talk to someone (as in a trained professional) now even if you feel "okay" about what happened. (As an undergraduate, I got robbed at gunpoint. I didn't really talk to anyone about it because I was "okay." When the dreams started out of "nowhere," my academic plate was such that the shifting feelings didn't cause any setbacks. However, what you're working on now is a lot more complicated.)

Try the old fashion way. Start a correspondence with potential LoR writers. And by old fashion, I mean actual physical letters. I mean well written letters that you show the best of yourself as an aspiring graduate student who will ultimately be that person's peer. Take a look at ISBN-13: 978-0812242539 for possible ideas on tone, style, and subject. HTH.

@wlsWKglaemfek I am sorry that you were assaulted and your trust betrayed. Please give thought to contacting the ombudsman's office/department at each of the schools to which you're applying. Give the facts, outline what you'd want to do, and hear what they have to say. Pie in the sky, the ombudsman at a particular school uses her good offices to contact the department to which you're replying and/or the graduate school and gets you a green light for sending in two LoRs while maintaining a level of privacy that you feel comfortable. IRT your concerns for being perceived as weaving a "sob story," you might mitigate that concern by doing research on how each of your preferred schools approach sexual violence. It may turn out that a department has addressed similar situations and has ways to work with you while not cutting you any breaks (e.g. substitute an interview for the third LoR). It's unclear from your OP if you're currently in the United States or if you're in your homeland. If you're in the U.S. give thought to reporting the attack to your school and the police. This may not be the first time this has happened and your disclosure may lead to your attacker being held accountable, if not convicted of a crime.

I recommend that you start looking at consultancies near the schools to the one's you're applying that do the kind of work that you see yourself doing so you can compete for internships during the summers. Focus on developing your people skills--consulting is as much about interpersonal relationships as any thing. Develop skills that will allow you to communicate effectively to stakeholders who will range from disinterested to fingers in ears NIMBYism. If you're a perfectionist, you're going to have to teach yourself that in many cases, good enough is better than great. You're going to need to know how to stay under budget and on schedule. You may also want to think ahead. Artificial intelligence is going to change the way professional service firms work within the next twenty years--don't get caught on the wrong side by hanging your hat on work that robots will be doing within twenty years. If social justice is very important to you, you may find yourself getting kicked in the teeth a lot as America meanders through the Age of Trump. It may not be too soon to start thinking of an indirect approach to getting what you want. (Did you see the segment in tonight's 60 Minutes on the Golden Triangle in Mississippi?) ETA: FWIW, I work in the planning department of a boutique A/E consultancy. These days, we're finding that a lot of planning issues are actually policy issues because planning sensibilities are changing as developing and new technologies come more and more to the fore.

What is your career objective? Ivory Tower? GOV type job? Developer? Consultant?

Were the assignments listed on the syllabus or did the professor assign the first paper and then the second with no forewarning?

As an alternative to @TMP 's sound guidance, you might take a look at a work or works centered around prominent historians in your fields. These works can range from interview transcripts, to biographical works, to memoirs. Maybe even a Festschrift or two. And/or you could devote some time to administrative tasks. Organizing, returning, renewing...backing up digital files...catching up on email. What ever you decide to do, give yourself permission to do it at a pace that feels right at the time with no second guessing or regret. And that includes not doing a damn thing related to history if you so choose. What ever you do, please please please please (please) resist opportunities to shit kittens over the 2016 election results. Worker bees and bosses in the private and public sector have that job covered. Bigly.

Contacting the POI to look into an administrative matter would be, at best, spectacularly bad form. Look into other ways that you could communicate with the graduate admissions office up to and including coworkers of the coordinator. I very strongly recommend against contacting anyone who may "outrank" the coordinator, e.g. a boss. As you explore these alternate forms of communication, be as polite as you are persistent. Express the appropriate amount of urgency but don't act as if you're circumstances constitute an emergency. Do what you can not to freak out. If you can't help but to freak out, act as if you're not freaking out.

MOO, not addressing your GPA at all is the best way to go at this point. Going forward, I do think that you may want to take a long hard look at how you articulate your thoughts on how professors evaluate your work. As written, your posts leave you vulnerable to interpretations along the lines of Geo123 is more focused on getting a certain grade than in learning what needs to be learned. IME, professors are more likely to give one what one needs if one greatly de-emphasizes the focus on grades.

As you already have an MA and are on fellowship, I recommend that you set a gold standard for yourself in which read/skim/digest at least one book a day and one journal volume a week in addition to your assigned course work. Some weeks, it's going to be the tin standard. Some days, it will be the pepperoni pizza and a ball game standard. But what's procrastination without self flagellation? (Also your professors are paying attention to your progress and comparing notes regardless of how hands off they may seem.) You don't need to read every book from cover to cover. (In fact,you may be doing it wrong if you're reading most books cover to cover.) However, you do need to know which books you're supposed to know cover to cover. IRT obtaining a level of conversational ease when discussing scholarly literature, the challenge you're encountering may be directly related to your reluctance to go "above and beyond" when it comes to reading the latest scholarship or the "entire canon." IME, works that represent the leading/bleeding edge of scholarly inquiry on a given topic often have brutally efficient summaries of relevant historiographical debates not just on that topic, but on the broader field as well. Moreover, the references will lead you to very dense historiographical essays and give you strong hints as to which books you really don't need to read at all. If you spend enough time repeating this exercise on various topics and fields, you'll become increasingly comfortable with "reading for the argument" and stopping when you know what that argument is. (Also, while you're competing against yourself when it comes to maximizing your potential as a professional academic historian, when it comes to getting a job, you'll be competing against those who are going above and beyond right now. Someone is going to earn that tenure track job at the University of Happyland--why not you?)

IRT wording, if the school to which your applying also has a law school, see if it defines itself as a profession school or a professional degree program. Maybe also look at how the graduate school (not the department to which you're applying) defines itself. If the law school and the graduate school make clear distinctions between their programs, I would think that you're GTG. If things are not as clear cut, and if you've read the question carefully, and if you've read the fine print where you sign your name (digitally or otherwise), and you're adhering to the letter of the law, so to speak, the guidance provided by @fuzzylogician and @TakeruK is sound. (FWIW, were I in your shoes, and I couldn't find a definitive answer in the materials available, I'd call the department to which you're applying, get a definitive answer, and then provide the requested information. I would then go on to worrying about something else.)

I would recommend against mentioning specific individuals. An academic department is a collection of black boxes within black boxes. You don't the politics and personal rivalries or even if the person mentioned has let it be known that she's going to leave for greener pastures in a year or two. Instead, I recommend using relevant sections of a SOP to demonstrate that you're very familiar with the fields and research interests of the professors with whom you imagine working. So, if a department of history is strong in American foreign relations, describe projects/interests that are in the wheel houses of two or three professors in that field. For example, don't just write about the Cold War, write about the impact of electoral politics or culture or race or gender in such a manner that your interest in working with Professor Atwell and Professor Spencer is both implicit but not written in stone. My $0.02.

FWIW, I recommend following @Neist's and @rising_star's guidance before (but not instead of) @NoirFemme's and @TMP's advice. "Here's what I've done..." as an opening comment may strike a different chord with a professor than "What do I do?" My $0.02/YMMV

Your attempt to be dismissive is noted. Bluntly, it is ill conceived and beneath you. You have read many of my posts. You damn well know that I put careful thought into every one what ever their length. IMO, it is exceptionally bad form for you to fold someone else's individual experience into a meta narrative of gendered oppression. By doing so, you have gone from empathizing to imposing your POV upon a situation that may be more complicated than is presently known. Is the conduct of the men described in the OP just about gendered "micro aggression" or is also about a lack of professionalism (on the part of the professors) or the culture of drinking or other shared experiences? By using the term "micro-aggression" you have changed the stakes for the OP and the OP's peers. Crass and egregious behavior that might have been checked by a candid conversation among three or four people and turned into a teachable moment in which everyone benefits in the here and now is now part of a much broader struggle for power, access, and opportunity in the Ivory Tower. The OP did not phrase the issue in such terms, why are you doing so? By casting the OP's experiences in your world view, you have undermined a graduate student's opportunity to develop her own understanding and to reach her own conclusions about gender in the Ivory Tower independently. IMO, that's not teaching, that's not mentoring; that's indoctrinating. Just to be clear, as a historian, I have long held the view that Western civilization rests on a foundation of misogyny. As an Americanist, I've concluded that men's desire to control women is at the heart of Southern absolutism and white supremacy, and that Trump's success thus far is best understood as a manifestation of that desire. As a civilian with an interest in military and naval affairs, I am increasingly convinced that the army, the Marines, and the navy will need to be purged of thousands of SNCO and NCOs before the armed services can fulfill the objective of filling combat jobs with qualified applicants, regardless of gender, gender identity, or sexuality. Yet, I believe that what ever one's view of the big picture or the appropriate ways to fix what is very badly broken, more experienced hands at the gradcafe need to make sure that the desire to provide wise counsel does not give way to the desire to control how aspiring and less experienced graduate students view and respond to their individual experiences. My $0.02/YMMV

Yes. And the question was not rhetorical.

Is it fair to attribute motivation (aggression) to individuals one has never met?

IMO, it would be a mistake to ask questions about the racial climate on campus and in town. As an aspiring graduate student in history, you should have the research skills to find out that information on your own. If comments/observations are offered, take them all in. Yet, make sure you communicate that your focus is going to be on learning the craft of history and developing your identity as a professional academic historian. IRT the recruiters, take a quick glance at their business cards. Develop an understanding of the relationships among their office, the department to which you're applying, the school of the department, and the parent college/university. If the recruiters are from departments of history, have the type of conversation you'd have with other academic historians. Try to get a sense of the "big picture" concepts that link faculty members together. Try to find out if, generally, faculty members are committed to teaching undergraduates and mentoring graduate students. Try to find out more about the opportunities for interdisciplinary work. The answers will give you crucial insights into the department's views of diversity and inclusion. Ask questions centered around the relationship between the first year or two of course work and getting ready for qualifying exams. When answering questions about your interests, do what you can to frame your replies so that they come across as both confident and provisional (Presently, I am interested in X... Based upon what I've seen so far, I think Y may be a potential dissertation topic...). If you don't know, say so. I strongly urge you to be very subtle in how you ask your questions about job placement--such queries may come across as putting the cart before the horse. Make it clear that you are focused on earning admission and focusing on the hard work leading up to quals.