Sigaba

MOO, your most pressing need is to start defining yourself as an aspiring academic historian by fleshing out the "whys" of your goals. That is, why do you want to study history? What are your fields? Why do you want to attend a "top 10 American history program" when, depending upon one's interests the top ten schools may be far off the beaten path? It depends upon the nature of the work you're currently doing, how well those writing on your behalf understand the differences between a LoR for an academic position versus one in the private sector, and the viability of the prefered option -- getting LoRs from professional academic historians who know you and your work.

L13-- I think your emotions are getting the better of you. I think the frame of mind you're exhibiting in your posts in this thread is not sustainable. Here's the thing. Professional academic historians ask each other about their work and offer comments. In the event a historian finds a question or comment controversial, she will, in most cases, offer a thoughtful collegial reply--either on the spot or after some additional work. She does not say "Because you've asked this question/have this POV, you're not qualified to talk about this field..go read Wikipedia and then get back with me." (If you really think this frame of mind is sustainable, then please throw this comment around your department.) So when I offered the OP my suggestions, I was recommending that the OP act like an aspiring professional academic historian and not, as you inferred, "a lowly confused master's student."

First, how do you know this statement is accurate? Second, if the statement is accurate, what are the best ways for the OP to bring the professor up to speed? Somewhere along the line, a graduate student in history is going to know more about a topic (or topics) than her professor. IMO, a good ability to have is to put together a sustainable argument that gets a professor to rethink a position within the accepted rules of the game. This is to say, the OP might benefit from an approach that allows a conversation with the professor to start off "I did what you asked, here's how I did it, and here's what I found out..." as opposed to one that starts along the lines of "You don't know what you're talking about..." My $0.02./YMMV.

@HistoryBritt I think that GeoDUDE! and Hashslinger are offering useful guidance. This experience provides you with a good opporunity to look inward and to understand what you contributed to the dynamic and you might do differently in future collaborative efforts. I recommend that the process include a careful evaluation of the following comment you offered.

Using any kind of encyclopedia as a reference in a serious conversation with a professor is not a good idea. @FemmeFatale It is my view that the professor simply wants the OP to do research in primary source materials that are actually primary source materials rather than secondary works from antiquity. I respectfully suggest that you do your best to find sources that satisfy this requirement. This effort might include contacting experienced scholars in your field and asking for guidance and/or hitting the relevant academic journals.. If obtaining primary sources that satisfy the professor's criteria is impossible (as opposed to impractical or inconvenient) develop a historiographical argument that centers around the field's best accepted practices. Two general comments. First, be careful about drawing conclusions about a historian's expertise before doing a great deal of background research. On the surface, a labor historian may seem out of touch IRT other fields, but one never knows (until one does the research) if said historian has friends/classmates who are the bee's knees. Second, getting push back from an advisor can be an unpleasant experience. However, it is crucial to understand that being told "no" is a significant part of the process you're going through right now. The challenge graduate students in history face is learning how to think through the ramifications of a "no," to grasp what is being taught, and how to respond.

Lafayette discussed that tactic back in 2012. <<

Gnome-- At the end of each academic year, the progress of graduate students in a program is reviewed at the departmental level. These reviews inform the decision to continue funding a student. These reviews also help professors decide the degree to which they want to help/mentor a graduate student. (There are many threads on this BB that discuss the inner workings of academic departments and graduate programs and the ways professors quietly nudge out the door graduate students they want gone.) Since your arrival at this BB, you've gotten several polite hints from experienced graduate students that you might benefit from taking a step back, dialing down the attitude, and showing a greater willingness to find answers to your own questions. (What is computational linguistics? Why it is inappropriate for an aspiring graduate student applying to Syracuse to joke around about having sexual relationships with undergraduates? Why is it simply unsatisfactory to make jokes about peoples' sexuality?) Despite these hints, you've made it clear that you're going to do things your way. You've also made it clear that when you don't get your way, you're going to generate controversy for its own sake. Time will tell if your approach is sustainable in graduate school.

The one who is going to be telling your prospective schools about you is you. Either when Jaklin Kornfilt and her colleagues review your application materials or when they've admitted you to a program and get together and talk about your conduct, and your work ethic, they will decide what to do with you.

You should stop while you can. It is only out of resepect to your armed service to the United States of America that I tolerate your disrespect.

Please keep in mind that one can be identified on line not just by your actual name, but also by crucial information including your DOB, your current location, your academic and personal interests, the schools you've attended, the schools you want to attend, your writing style, the food you eat/drink, and the car you drive. #PERSEC

Read the fine print on your application materials. Specifically, look for language in which you agreed to a background check and/or you affirmed that the answers you provided to all questions are correct and complete. If you've agreed to a background check, that check may be farmed out to a private firm that has a rubric for evaluating errors/omissions/inconsistencies. If the program to which you're applying is a stickler or the competition for spots is especially intense, your unintentional omission (rather than the suspension itself) may be the reason used to not accept you. For this reason, you might benefit from calling and writing the program in question to see what steps you can take to mitigate your oversight. ETA: The purpose of writing (as opposed to emailing) is to do what you can to get a physical piece of paper attached to your application materials. Someone can say/email "Yeah, I'll take care of it, don't worry" and end up dropping the ball. Going forward, understand that each individual's past is more and more a hunting ground for people and institutions in authority. For worse and for better, "know your horses/do your due dilligence" is one of the lessons learned of the Great Recession. (Although elements of this sensibility emerged as the Dot Com bubble was bursting.)

@joeyboy718 I / @Gnome Chomsky, do you think you've put your best foot forward on this BB any better than Pinkster12? You've indicated that you were in the armed forces, but then where is your situational awareness?

IME, graduate students have meltdowns. Some professors talk students off the ledge. Others will stand on a student's head then bounce it off the walls during office hours. Some will give graduate students a nice shove. Are those instances are different than the behavior of a handful of aspiring graduate students on this BB given how comptetitive the admissions process is? As for you, why shouldn't you be judged for what you've posted here? In the baby on the way thread, you berate people whom you've never met for not being responsible. But here, your position seems to be that you should get a "pass". That is, you would allow for yourself what you don't allow for others.

From time to time, there are spikes in the number of "guests" viewing threads on this BB that are of a controversial nature. How many of those guests--or the hundreds of other unregistered guests at this BB on a typically busy day--are admin/faculty types is difficult to say. However, IMO, if a graduate program is going to invest tens of thousands of dollars in a graduate student whilte the program's parent institution is going to expose itself to risk, then someone somewhere is going to do a basic level of due dilligence. Google does crawl this site. Many members here post personal details about themselves that will also be on an application. Many of those same members also use the same usernames that they've used on other BBs, as well as on various social media, in which they have provided more personal information. Sure, one can change one's user name here, but even then, such changes are not necessarily global. MOO, the question remains. Why take so many unnecessary risks when so much is on the line? Sometimes it seems that some people are not managing their ambivalence about going to graduate school as gracefully as they might--or should. YMMV.

GnomeChomsky-- I am not certain what has motivated you to reply in such a fashion. I may have been in error to assume you merited a respectful reply. There's a difference between what is legal and what is appropriate. Some departments may frown upon the mindset which you've displayed in this thread, if not others. Others might embrace your frame of mind as a good representation of what they want in a graduate student. In any case, I suppose only time will tell if members of a department, to say nothing of members of a school's risk management team, that are presently reviewing your application materials will prove to be so "uptight." Best of luck to you.

Think before you post. You have identified your location, your discipline, and your preferred schools. You have indicated that you'd consider physical relationships with undergraduates because of their age. Do you think that your frame of mind (joking or serious) makes you a stronger candidate for admission than an applicant who demonstrates a different set of sensibilites towards graduate school? (Or, at least, has the good sense to keep his/her mouth shut on the topic?) Here's the thing. What goes on inside a department is a black box to those who aren't in it (and then there are black boxes within black boxes). Scandals happen and then departments can become hyper sensitive to anything that might reopen that wound. You and other applicants have worked so very hard to get to this point. Why take unnecessary risks now?

Here's something to consider. By your own admission, you don't have "substantive relevant work experience in the field," so how do you know there are "similarities that contract discussions have with negotiations between nations"?

Okay. IMO, the professor was sending you at least two messages: dial down the humor, dial up the intellectual intensity when grappling with important topics/subjects. In regards to the former, I tended to make jokes in seminar and offer "witty" remarks in my writing. A couple of professors stood on my head to convince me of the limitations of those two practices and I disregarded much of the guidance. To some degree, I was able to get away with it because, over time, the light went on IRT to theory. Like you, I was very skeptical of the importance/relevance of many theories because I didn't see the relationship between them and my fields of interest and (in my wisdom ), I thought some of the theories were poo poo. Over time, I came to understand that I needed to take theory more seriously because so many trajectories of historiography are informed by theoretical innovations of the last several decades. I also came to understand the terrible price my fields (naval/military/diplomatic) of history have suffered for not taking these innovations more seriously. That is to say, while senior military historians are saying "Theory Z is not useful and nothing more than a fad," a critical mass of the profession has decided otherwise. So while more and more conversations across more and more fields of study are informed by Theory Z, traditional fields are finding themselves increasingly isolated. At one level, the ongoing emphasis on theory might be seen as a political issue in which certain groups of historians are using it as a means to exert power in the profession. But I submit to you that the emphasis may also be due to the fact that a historian can greatly benefit from studying theory for its own sake. For me, the benefits have been a marked improvement in my ability to understand a wider range of historical works with greater efficiency and an ability to build good rapport with historians in other fields. IMO, these benefits are important because academic history is more about the debate over what happened in the past than what happened. My advice to you is three fold. First, find ways to dial down the humor for the balance of this academic year. For example, you could jot down your quips in the margins of your notes and let your laughter shine through your eyes even though the rest of your face remains dead serious. Or, when you're writing, you can write what you want in a draft but then edit comments out at the last minute. Second, I recommend that you develop a frame of mind that allows you to put aside your skepticism about some of the training you're receiving and to instead embrace it. If you can manage this task, you may find yourself in situations where establish historians listen to you talk about their work as they give you a look that says "YOU GET IT! YOU GET ME!" even though you may disagree with what they're saying and how they're saying it. The ability to build this kind of rapport can end up being an invaluable resource as you progress towards your qualifying exams. Third, show and prove to this professor that you're making adjustments. Go to his office hours and talk to him about theory and history. Make the focus of these discussions what you understand and what you don't understand and how a given theory can inform your own work as a historian. (If you don't like a particular theory, try the following approach--imagine someone showing you how to use a drill even though you may never need a drill yourself. You may never use a drill, but you will likely be using some other power tool, so there's going to be something in the discussion that is useful.) In these conversations, think thrice before you offer any additional apologies or explanations. #HTH Hey, as long as you're here, how about stopping by the History forum? There's always room at the table in the House of Klio.

I think your expectations are unrealistic. Exactly. To students of naval, military, and diplomatic history, the most important theorists of the last two centuries are people of whom you've not heard. Their theories of grand strategy, policy, and warfare have shaped every aspect of global history. Yet, it would be in appropriate to insist that all historians should know these theorists and their works.

I recommend that you invest time making sure that the Powers That Be understand you're still committed to your educational goals and to the department. This effort may be more effective if you develop an understanding of your department's recent history. For example, did a fairly recently hired professor fail to earn tenure because he or she had a kid? Have other promising graduate students leave the program because life happened? The point here is that as happy as professors and administrators may be for you on a personal level, a department's budgetary considerations and strategic objectives may end up playing pivotal roles in how you get treated.

Chechecheche-- Please clarify. Is the professor in question a member of the history department?

Keep in mind that the task before you is not simply to avoid screwing up. You also should do all you can to put maximum effort in putting your best foot forward as a potential member of the department. This second goal does not mean you have to be the life of the party, to know the answers to all the questions, or to be someone you're not. What it means is that you need to compete for the opening in a way that is authentic to who you are at your best. (FWIW, I went to Cal as well.)

You allege that don't care about grades but look at all the excuses and clarifications you offer for your performance. Yet, by your own admission, the reason is simple. You quit.

Loric-- My understanding of the Ivory Tower doesn't come from reading comic strips but rather from listening to professors talk about undergraduates and graduates like you. IRT your view on the importance of grades, your previous posts on that subject suggest a different narrative than the one you're offering in this thread. You flunked out of one program and have subsequently rationalized your inability to put forth your best effort by casting yourself as some sort of anti-establishment crusader who doesn't care about grades. Yet, the question remains: if you really didn't care about grades, then why are you spending time trying to convince everyone that you don't care about grades? It is my view that you are very much like those graduate students who "grade monger" in that you seek all the attention you can get and that you don't understand the difference between self esteem and self respect. The difference is that while those individuals seek approval for its own sake, you seek controversy.

The other side of the coin is that individuals such as Loric and Pinkster12 intentionally behave in ways that motivate professors--especially younger ones--decide to have as little to do with students as possible.