Sigaba

The OP's GA said she handle it. Twice. Is going over the head of someone who is higher up in the food chain to dot an 'i' that probably doesn't need dotting really the best bet?

GradSecretary is correct. Fair or unfair, as graduate students, you will experience professors, and some administrators, standing on your heads and bouncing you off the walls. You will have to learn how to deal with these encounters in ways that don't throw you too far off track. In many cases, the better you respond to the criticism, the more confidence you'll inspire in professors, and they, in turn, will be more willing to mentor you. IMO, it was a profound miscalculation by those members of BB who down voted GradSecretary. Have you noticed that GS has left and not returned? What was the point of chasing away a person for providing a very valuable look into how some academic departments operate? How many threads do we see each application season in which aspiring graduate students wonder how they might best approach departmental staff? Might GS have been a good source for guidance? Please, consider the advantages of learning how to listen and to accept without comment nor argument guidance from individuals higher up in Ivory Tower's food chain until you've had considerable seasoning as a graduate student. To be clear, you don't have to agree with the information you receive. You don't have to follow the guidance that's provided. You don't have to like the person who offers guidance. However, if you develop a habit for tuning people out because you don't want to hear what they have to say, do not be surprised if you find yourself surrounded by a deepening silence.

Bump.

i would do what I could to get all the work for the following week done before getting on the plane as early as possible, have a blast in Las Vegas, return Sunday eveningish, hit the sack (without cracking open a book or turning on the computer), and go back to being a graduate student on Monday morning. If anyone asked where I was or why I was so bleary eyed, I'd only disclose that I was at a long planned family event that I dared not miss as I gave with a wistful "What could I do?" look and took a sip of coffee that clearly communicated that the subject not open for further discussion.

The following should not be taken as a criticism of GeoDUDE! What follows is merely offered #FWIW. First, interested parties should be aware that Goruck's packs have been a source of great controversy in the EDC community. Potential buyers should do their due diligence so that they make an informed decision. While Goruck has addressed many of these issues through improved QC and better customer relations, a high degree of polarization remains in many circles. (By way of contrast, one rarely hears similar complaints about packs by Mystery Ranch, Kifaru, London Bridge Trading, or Arcteryx's LEAF division.) Second, in evaluating what makes a pack the "best," please consider the purpose of that pack, the intended user, as well as how often one sees the pack being resold and why. The GR series are scaled down versions of packs intended for .MIL use in combat zones. Consequently, such packs are not only going to be expensive, they're also often heavier than more conventional packs. My $0.02/YMMV.

I recommend the Arcteryx Blade 24 or Blade 15, provided you're not also carrying a lot of books. If you're hauling a lot of books, the Blade 30 may prove more convenient. If you can find one on sale, the Arcteryx Khard 30 with an after-market computer sleeve is almost perfect. It pains me (literally) to say that while the Tom Bihn Synapse 25 is a very well designed backpack, the lack of a frame sheet makes it a poor candidate for carrying around books.

Have you had the opportunity to do any research on this POI? Is she/he teaching any summer classes and, therefore, potentially have scheduled office hours? Does she/he have a reputation for being a good citizen when it comes to helping students ? Or is she/he on leave and, therefore, potentially disinterested in talking to anyone about anything? Also, are there other professors with whom you might work? How about the department's DGS? Are there any ABDs on campus who might give you good information on the program? In the event you cannot get good answers to the above questions, I recommend sending an email, or an actual letter, in which you express your interest in the program, your potential interest in working with this POI, and a quick mention of your planned visit. If you decide to imply that you'd like to meet the POI, please manage your expectations while also preparing yourself for such an encounter. That is, please think about preparing very carefully for a meeting so that you can demonstrate how serious you are about studying history.

Gnome, this thread is on a serious topic. I think it is time for you to stop thinking/acting/behaving like an undergraduate and to stop treating this BB like it is a club house. I think it is time for you to turn up your situational awareness and know when it is time to dial down the snark. As a graduate student, you're going to be evaluated by a different set of standards than what you've encountered thus far. In graduate school, you will find that there's a stark difference between being liked and being respected. At present, you seem disinterested in the latter and I think that's a mistake you need to correct right away. Your classmates and your professors are going to make judgements about you. Those POVs are going to inform how they support you (or not). I think that you probably are intelligent and resourceful enough to overcome the unfavorable judgements of the former. However, professors do play favorites and they tend to do so subtly. That is, in the event you rub a fellow graduate student the wrong way, you'll know it but if you rub a professor the wrong way, you won't. For example, a professor can offer unfavorable remarks about you in a departmental meeting, tell other graduate students that you're bad news, write "coded" evaluations and recommendations that say one thing but really mean another or find ways to damn you by praising others. In the event you encounter a graduate student who is troubled and/or disruptive, you may be judged by your comportment and your conduct. That is, if you're glib and snarky, professors may laugh along with you while concluding that you're not someone on whom they can count. Conversely, if you treat serious subjects in an appropriate manner, you may generate trust and inspire a higher level of confidence in one or more professors who then decide to mentor you. My $0.02/NRN

I respectfully disagree with TMP's guidance on how to frame the conversation with your adviser. IMO, the proposed tactic could come across as an effort at manipulation even if it is skillfully executed. I recommend that you approach the topic from the perspective of two people in a room putting their heads together to figure out a plan of action that gets you where you want to go. For all you know, your adviser and others in the department could be having back channel conversations on how best to support you (including calling and emailing professors at other departments). My $0.02/YMMV

You could tell your supervisor that you want to minimize your URL foot print because you are concerned about identity theft. If you know anyone who has been a victim of identify theft, you could use that person as an example and thus minimize the risk of sounding like a tin foiler.

Do you have experience working in urban planning? Or have you participated in the recruitment and hiring of interns who are urban planners?

Another concern is that rather than doing the job, one will be working on the dissertation.

IMO, if one finds the process of looking through faculty listings as "tedious," being a graduate student in history may not be one's cup of tea in the long run. As many of you will find as you begin graduate school in history, knowing who is who and where they sit and how they came to sit there can play a vital role in learning about the profession. I developed my list of schools by looking through the hard-copy of the AHA's Guide to Departments of History. I looked at the roster of every department listed that has a graduate program. If a department appeared strong in my areas of interest, I did some background research on the historians with whom I'd probably end up working. Concurrently, I focused on where potential POIs had earned their MA's and Ph.Ds. For me, the process was useful because it taught me that the top schools programs overall may be nearly as good as the top schools within one's primary and secondary fields of interest.

In other words, your IRL and URL personalities are pretty much the same.

The best way to establish both of these alleged truths is to stop posting in this thread, if not on this BB altogether.

MOO, you would do well to keep your pragmatic approach to yourself. There's nothing wrong with your motivation as long as it works for you. However, you may run into true believers/crusaders who believe that everyone should share their passion and have the ability to screw over those who don't and/or gravitate and support students who are equally committed. IMO, you should not fake passion nor allow others to draw the mistaken conclusion that you're passionate about your field. You might find yourself in a situations where others misread you and then feel that you've burned them and conclude that you were jerking them around and not taking them seriously the whole time. (You have a quirky sense of humor that makes you especially vulnerable to this perception.) What you can do is figure what to say that defines your motivation. For example, you might say that you're motivated to learn, that you want to do well, and that you want to make contributions that expand the field of knowledge.

@Riotbeard Reading between the lines, I think the professors are raising concerns over [a] the practice of contemporary history (i.e. events that occurred within the last fifty years) and comparative history. IME, [a] has always been a controversial time frame in which many historians have wondered if it qualifies as history at all. Meanwhile, is, IIRC, a field that is in rapid decline for methodological and theoretical reasons. However, as you point out, post World War Two American history and international history have many practitioners. @TylerJames Have you attempted to take apart your interests (globalization, contemporary history, the U.S. and the USSR/Russia) so you can figure out what it is you like best about the combination and then focus upon that single element?

I know of a professor who parlayed a job offer to his wife, who is an MD, into a promotion and a corner office. Some of the other professors seemed miffed but the guy was too valuable to lose.

Sometimes, an introductory class is harder to take and to teach than an upper division course. For example, some schools use introductory classes as "weeders" so that underclass persons who aren't ready for college get hammered and either flunk out or leave. IME, this type of class can require a lot of work by a TA because he is tasked to raise the bar high and hold it there so the weeding function will work. Also, introductory classes can have a lot of students who only don't know anything about the subject but also very little about being a successful, forward leaning collegian. In such situations, TAs not only have to facilitate the teaching of (for example) a basic class in American history, he/she also has to support the process by which students learn how to think critically, to make an argument, and to write skillfully. Moreover, because of the introductory nature of the course, a TA can get questions and answers from left field because an undergraduate doesn't understand the parameters of a field of inquiry. A discussion of the causes and nature of a specif war in a history class can quickly veer into a conversation better suited for courses in the sociology, political science, or philosophy departments, or a bar at happy hour. In these situations, a TA faces the challenge of getting the conversation back on track without being too heavy handed.

Do you have experience as a TA?

Please keep in mind that you could start a thread on this secondary topic and/or dive into a few of the older threads in which these issues have been discussed. (I think this may have been r_s's point.)

I worked for as long as I could before it was time to take care of the move.

I respectfully suggest that whatever one does to handle argumentative students, that graduate students make sure they're on the same page as the professor for whom their working, the department in which they're working, and the school they're attending. To be clear, please make sure you're in step with all three. One of the loneliest places to be is where you realize that the Powers That Be have a strikingly different approach to difficult undergraduates than what you thought/read/were told. Or so I've heard. (But I'm not bitter.)

Ah, irony.

FWIW, a couple of older discussions of e readers are here there While the technology has improved and, in some cases, the prices have gone down, these earlier threads have some good "chalk talk" that may still inform the decision-making process. HTH.