ashiepoo72

The modern US professors there are amazing. I'm pretty stoked!

Just got accepted to Binghamton!

That's good news LeventeL! An MA at IU is great! Fingers crossed we are classmates there

Congrats kateosee! And that sounds like an amazing conversation, JJWS. I feel the same way when I talk to my professors. I go in thinking I've grown as a grad student, and they remind me how little I know and how much more deeply I can think about things. I have a shadow of that effect when I chat with undergrads about topics in my wheelhouse. I wanna blow minds for the rest of my life!

Funny, Ivan, I'm taking a course on Soviet history, and we spent a lot of time discussing why Sheila Fitzpatrick got pilloried back in the time before Ronald Reagan took down the Berlin Wall with his bare hands

Haha love it JJWS! Ugh, perfect time for me to catch a cold. Happy Sunday, y'all!

I'm getting business casual clothes for recruitment events, and some nicer casual clothes as well. Nothing too fancy. I like to be comfortable more than fashionable. If I end up moving somewhere cold, there'll be a much larger wardrobe upgrade involved.

Oh totally! It warrants a new wardrobe. I'll probably celebrate with an orgy of book and kitchen appliance shopping.

Where else did you apply? My whole mantra is contingency plans are always good, but I wouldn't start losing hope til all my programs started notifying.

I remember catsandscarves mentioning that IU doesn't do a recruitment weekend, and she said that they try to get people out there individually when it works in the admits' schedules. Every program that's accepted me (other than Albany, which I turned down pretty quickly so I don't know if they would've) mentioned a recruitment event, so I don't know much else :-/ sorry Heimat. Maybe you could contact the DGS for more info, or ask to get in touch with a grad student there? On another note, I'm about to go shopping for recruitment events. I hate shopping, but for some reason I'm excited to buy clothes for the first time in my life haha

I would start mentioning your plans to apply to grad school and solicit their advice now (this helps get them thinking about you and grad school, and gets you good advice during the process of researching programs and applying), but ask for a LOR in like August or September so if they say no you have plenty of time to get another rec writer. It also gives them plenty of time to write a LOR. Some profs get super annoyed if you ask last minute.

Thanks JJWS! I certainly hope so! That program happened to get a truncated version of my SOP (seriously, 500 words is a tough restriction) so I sent him a longer version. Commiserations to the Emory rejections. Hope you all hear some good news soon!

I just got a nerve-wracking email from a POI asking me for more details on my project. I thought Sundays were for relaxation!

Monday approaches at a snail's pace

I love reading everyone's answers. What about you fopdandyhomo?

I said you questioned the value of race, ethnicity, gender and culture because you questioned the value of race, ethnicity, gender and culture in explicit terms in the post above my last one, as well as with your attitude throughout this entire thread. I said your proposal isn't good because if it was, maybe you wouldn't be complaining about professors turning you away. They wouldn't do that if your proposal was compelling. Sounds like you got your feelings hurt and, instead of attempting to improve and adapt, decided to blame the bogeymen of social historians and non-traditional history. Best of luck to you. I'm officially disengaging from this conversation. I've humored you much longer than I should, despite my better judgment.

I don't think the problem is your lack of social emphasis, so much as the whole lack of a good proposal. That you listed race, ethnicity, gender and culture as negatives really says it all. Bill O'Reilly probably needs an assistant, I'm sure he will pay you more than you'd ever make in academia. Besides, it's pretty apparent you don't even LIKE academia or all it entails, which means you're wasting your time here.

Funny, I'm pretty sure Michelle Malkin feels the same way. Is it just me, or does Fox News sound like a great department for this unicorn of a project in traditional history?

Dude, I already think plenty deep about historiography. If this thread convinced you to do so, now THAT would be something. Psst...the writing of history didn't stop during "the 'Nam," and we will get through this. You're welcome.

LOL You guys, it's not worth it. Though I am sincerely amused, I will now do something useful like read up on the historiography of my field--including the pesky subfields that bore and/or aggravate me. Because I, sir, am a historian.

I wanna upvote this hard.

The solution is simple. Create your own school of historical thought using those groundbreaking, radical methodologies that historians are now so callously ignoring. You can call it the Old-Timey School of History. If it takes off, I expect credit for the name

Seems like you need to think outside the box. Just because they aren't traditional military historians doesn't mean professors can't supervise a military history project. This is assuming your project is viable--as in, contributes something to the historiography--and can be supported by the department as a whole. that doesn't mean it needs to be identical to what the scholars in the department are doing. Lots of us apply to work with people that don't completely match our interests. If a professor is doing the exact same thing as me, why would my project be viable? The point is to find someone who can train you to be a professional historian, not someone who will always agree with you.

Aren't Americans in every era exceptional?

I like dead people more than living people In all seriousness, I have this weird connection to history that just draws me in. I don't think I could do anything else or at least not be fulfilled by anything else. I find history vital, dynamic and obviously important, something that needs to be studied and made valuable in the present and the future. But mostly, history gives me the feels