Sigaba

Luck can play a role as well. If you are part of an incoming class that has great chemistry, you may have more opportunities to develop lasting friendships.

Taking a year off so you can focus on your personal life can be problematic. As the saying goes "life happens," and when it does, one year can quickly become several.

Be very mindful of your own expectations, especially when it comes to the level of intellectual and emotional support you want from this person. As the person is more experienced in the ways of the Ivory Tower, what may be a mountain to you may be a molehill to him/her. For example, if one of your professors takes you to the woodshed and bounces you off the walls, and then you tell your person and all you get is a cryptic smirk and a snarky reply. These differing perspectives can lead to big time disappointment if you've not done a good job managing your expectations. Also, do what you can to figure out if specific professors in your department are going to make your relationship with the post-doc part of his/her personal crusade. (This guidance differs slightly from that offered in post #2. TakeruK is essentially suggesting that you figure out how those with power over you may react. I'm suggesting that you also look at those who have power over the post-doc--and power in general.)

Keep in mind that professors are not necessarily people persons and that they can be busy and that they may see the summer months as their time. Also, please consider the advantages of bringing something to the table in addition to your curiosity when you initiate communications with established academics. At the very least, I recommend that you find ways to demonstrate that you've done your due diligence as a potential applicant. Otherwise, you may well run the risk of coming across as someone on a fishing expedition. Finally, please keep in mind that there's a big difference between "liking" a professor and respecting her and her work and that while what you think of her may be important to you, it is not as important as what she thinks of you. HTH.

Agreed. From what you've written, you seem to be getting into a dynamic where the different visions of the project are serving as a springboard for your disrespectful thoughts about your PI. It may well be that these thoughts are shaping the way you act and your PI is reacting to your behavior rather than to you ideas. I recommend that you keep in mind that it isn't just what you say, but how you say it that can make the difference. HTH.

^ Awesome post, TheFez. Two small adds on to the discussion of addressing academics. First, in fields such as history, addressing a professor as "doctor" can be perceived as a slight. So if you get a "spot correction," roll with it and make the adjustment on the fly. Second, addressing academics formally can also help keep you out of situations you'd just as soon avoid --e.g. conversations of the TMI variety. IRT the OP. You can take the silence/poor communication as a slight (that you're not a priority) or you can take it as a sign of respect (that you're intelligent and resourceful enough to figure things out). Or it can have very little to do with you. A department's administrative team can have items on the to do list that are much more time consuming, complex, and important. In any case, consider the advantages of using your google-fu to find out the right POC and giving that person a phone call. Just because one prefers to communicate by email doesn't mean a POC feels the same way. (Also, your email queries can be hitting a filter--"orientation" for a scheduled email blast aimed at a different cohort.) In these communications, treat the POC with at least as much respect and deference as you would a tenured professor.

You have two issues. The first is the differing views between you and your PI on your project. The second is your relationship with your PI. Before pulling the plug, I would take a long hard look at the second issue. That is, are there things you can do to make the conversations you have with the PI more collegial and respectful? Or have things gotten to the point where you cannot mend that fence?

What kinds of conversations have you had with the members of your exam committee for whom you will write? IME, these conversations can help provide points/questions around which one can organize one's preparatory efforts.

Panchigot-- Also keep your lifestyle in mind when picking between Davis and Palo Alto. There are a lot of differences between the California Bay Area and the California Central Valley.

Go to Stanford for the very reason you pointed out in the OP: the level of competition. If you keep your head screwed on the right way, a competitive environment can bring out the best in you.

To add on to Eigen's point, a car that is driven infrequently is going to have sediment issues as well. (i went through a stretch where I was driving fewer than 50 miles a week because I was living about two minutes from my job. My mechanic cued me in on the sedimentary issue and told me I need to stretch the car's legs regularly.)

@Hypnotoad-- I don't know that you need (read: should) address the question from the perspective of career management. What ever path you pick, you will still need to demonstrate that you've wrestled with "big picture" questions. Yes, there will be historians who will burn you for not fitting into their mold, but there will be many others who will respect you for being able to provide a "big picture" that takes one or more discussions forward.

Before making a choice, I recommend that you carefully consider what type of job you want to get. If you do a lot of policy-oriented work, academicians may rightly raise questions about how well you'd fit in an environment that is driven by the historiography rather than contemporaneous concerns. Conversely, if you develop the sensibilities of a professional academic historian, you might have issues with doing policy-oriented work at a think tank.

@Hypnotoad-- University of North Texas Kansas State University of Kansas TAMU (as much as it pains me to say it) Penn OSU I strongly recommend against not disclosing that your primary interest is teaching. I think you should assume that your professors are going to figure things out sometime between the moment they read your SoP and the moment you ask them to write reference letters so you can get a teaching gig at a community college. I am not saying that you should say "I want to teach and everything else is bunk." I am recommending that you find ways to make a compelling and balanced argument for your vision of yourself as a historian that fits within the ongoing debates among professional academic historians about the future of the craft. Also, when you're looking at schools, take a look to see if they've got graduate programs in education. As a graduate student in history, you may well have to do work in an outside field. If your objective is to teach, you might benefit from doing your outside field in education. Finally, you will need to think about how you will answer the following question: Are you a military historian who looks at the African American experience to gain insights into the history of war or are you an Americanist who looks at the history of war to gain insight into the African American experience? HTH.

Are you sure you want to take things in this direction?

@Tabes-- There are too many variables to give a definitive answer. There's nothing to stop members of an admissions committee from sorting through a stack of applications and making the first cut based upon the applicant's UGI or her intended field of study or another criterion. Focus on what you can control. Try not to think about decisions you cannot change. Submit the strongest application possible. That way, up or down, you'll know you did the best you could under the circumstances.

E-- If you do go this route, I think you should do what you can to scrub from the internet your outspoken take on the ethics of your field. My $0.02.

What would your mentors say about operating under a set of unvetted assumptions?

If someone offered you career changing -- if not also life altering -- guidance without spending a moment to learn more about you, would you be inclined to take that guidance?

Don't ever burn contacts. Yes, she did. Several times.

So everyone--regardless of field, degree, or institution--should do as you were told as a chemistry student?

@NEN I almost sprayed coffee all over my keyboard with that one.

@imonedaful-- I believe you may have misunderstood the point of my post. I am not talking about preparing "contingency plans" for unknown events or having one's life mapped out. I am talking about looking for patterns in how you feel when the unknown happens. For example, one may not know when an authority figure is going to use his/her power in a way you find distasteful, but one could potentially get a sense of one finds it distasteful. (For example, one may have a well developed sense of fair play.) So, knowing this, when the unknown happens, a person can recognize that sense of distaste, one of its causes, and then make a decision on how to incorporate that feeling into one's response.

@Weepsie-- Is there a theme/concept that can serve as the rope that ties the mixed bag? Such a theme/concept could help an audience understand how your interests serve as examples of a way to look at the past, and how that vision can be developed in a graduate program.