Annalistasaxo89

Well I made my decision on Chicago. It was a hard one but I feel it will be the best fit.

Well I made my decision on Chicago. It was a hard one but I feel it will be the best fit.

Well I made my decision on Chicago. It was a hard one but I feel it will be the best fit.

Well I made my decision on Chicago. It was a hard one but I feel it will be the best fit.

So here's my problem:
 
History is a manner of thinking, and the purpose of teaching people who will not become historians history is to train them to think historically. Thinking historically, at least as we conceive it today, is the process of understanding events on the small scale and then, if possible, weaving them together to form broader conclusions. This process requires specialists, but it does not preclude generalists. Generalist history, however, requires a substantial amount of effort to pull off correctly.
 
Being a generalist or writing to a lay audience are not valid excuses for sloppy work. Attempting to approach a subject on a larger scale puts more of a burden on the scholar, not less, because without the solid foundation in microhistory, you can't separate reality from your preconceived biases. If you find a generalist work that you agree with or think is useful which is not so grounded, all that tells you is that the work accords with your own preconceptions. It tells you nothing about the validity of those preconceptions.
 
Popular "historians" such as Diamond do not think historically. They do not write historically. However great their appeal, they are not useful to historians nor should they be encouraged because they are teaching a false approach to history. Diamond in particular promotes an entirely uncritical vision of Western exceptionalism which does much more damage than good.
 
Not all publicity is good publicity.

Thanks to everyone who has engaged with my questions so far!
 
My answer echoes some of what others have said before. If you had asked me back when I was a freshman in college, my answer would be quite different (but I take it as a good sign that my thinking has matured since then). This won't be as cohesive or eloquent as I would like it, but here's a preliminary sketch of my thoughts:
 
There are six main thrusts to why I study history. They overlap and probably contradict each other, but I suppose that's to be expected.
 
1) I'm a bit of a misanthrope and introvert but I'm deeply curious about the lives of others. I'd love to go peeping into other people's brains if I could. But the relationships necessary for that level of access are two way streets. Studying those who are long dead allows me that level of access without the reciprocal expectations. Dead people don't look back at you and expect things from you or judge you. You can't disappoint them. You can't have awkward conversations with dead people if all the conversations are in your head. It's just easier.
 
2) Someone earlier beautifully wrote about their curiosity about the forces that wore away at stone steps. It's a powerful image for me. I often think about the accretion of experiences in urban spaces and the way these experiences build on one another in complicated ways to produce the world we live in today. As I enter into the world, I want to do my best to be in conversation with the forces and layers that produce the world as I receive it. (Has anyone read Beauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity? It's been a long time since I've read it, but this is compelling me to return to it.) Fundamentally, I'm just curious but understanding this kinesthesia (as one of my POIs described it) is also helpful as I work to shape the world for the better.
 
3) Being in an archive is the closest I get to God (or what I, as an atheist, assume people find in their deity of choice). In such a chaotic and destructive world, the fact that fragile and precious materials survive the ravages of time provides a bulwark against the inevitability of change and decay. Cherishing what survives also allows me to mourn what we have lost and that we will perpetually continue to lose the world around us as time marches on. I don't mean to sound dark or melodramatic nor do I dwell on this, but our impermanence haunts my time in the archives. I both grieve and reconcile myself to the fact that I will never be a part of or know those individuals and communities who shape my world. Archives make me feel small and insignificant (kind of like thinking about the vastness of space). As a person (like most of us) inclined towards egoism, being reminded how insignificant my life is is probably a good reminder.
 
4) Just as archives provoke my existential fears, they also allay them. Especially for social and microhistorians, we spend a lot of time studying the lives of "mundane" people. I, likely, will never be famous, but this sort of history is a helpful reminder that though my place in this universe is infinitesimally small, my life still matters. I am imbricated in forces vastly greater than me, both as a passive recipient of cultures/norms/discourses/etc and as an active force shaping the world around me with my choices (I'm thinking of Camus, Foucault, and Arendt here).
 
5) Though I'm loathe to admit it, point four results in a nagging desire at the back of my mind to someday appear on the pages of historians years from now. I study history out of a sense of obligation, too, a way of paying it forward, if you will. I'm not saying that historians make the lives of the dead matter; I mean that historians get to give our subjects an afterlife. (Now who that afterlife serves is a question I struggle with deeply...)
 
6) Many others here have proffered the idea that the "past is prologue." While I generally agree with this idea, I have one big caveat. Part of the reason I study the past--especially the not-so-recent past--is because it isn't prologue, at least not necessarily. I'm drawn to moments of opacity that are wildly alien from the world and worldview I partake of now. As a massive homo (surprise!), I, like many others, am not satisfied with the ways my desire for certain types of bodies has been amalgamated into a sexual orientation I must proclaim to the world (lest I be accused of suffering from undue shame). But if I look beyond the late 19th century, I find a whole set of alien paradigms for thinking about sex, desire, and gender. Though some were wildly oppressive, thinking beyond our received identities and paradigms enables me to undo them. It's hard to think beyond the gender binary or the hetero/homo/queer spectrum. I have agender friends who struggle to imagine what it means for them to not be female or male. Here the past can provide useful examples that we can steal from when they provide useful prologue. Understanding the roots and changing nature of the discourses I find oppressive makes them seem less ineluctable (sorry for the wordiness). So, for me, history fundamentally enables me to be a more ethical citizen. It's part of my social justice efforts just as much as it is a personal salve.
 
Whoops, I've outted myself as a complete weirdo. This isn't all of my thoughts or a great approximation of them, but it will do for now.

Got the official offer the other day, so I'm officially free of paranoid suspicions haha.  I'm going to be studying transnational history in the western hemisphere (Latin America as first field).  How about you?

Any rejection stings even when you get into a top school so don't feel bad about feeling bummed out. The impersonal notifications can be harsh though, at least my POI at Columbia emailed me and said that my application was more than adequate but my research interests did not match with the dep (which I already though was going to be an issue).

Got first acceptance, into Indiana.

Perhaps as enjoyable as possible due to the standard opaqueness of German academic writing.  I always wonder who one should blame for this. Perhaps Hegel?

"Enjoyable German prose" is not a concept with which I am familiar

I almost went to Berkeley for undergrad and I was at Chicago for grad school (and currently live in Chicago). I can tell you that it is much, much cheaper to live in Chicago than Berkeley (maybe why they upped their offer package?). I live in a 1400 sqft flat, near transport in a nice area 3 beds/1 bath for $1400 a month. When I was in Hyde Park, I lived in grad apartments; mine was $800 a month for a 1 bed/1 bath 650 sqft apt walking distance from the uni. I know people who found even cheaper housing when they looked outside of grad housing...though in some places it can be quite sketchy (we were encouraged to not walk alone after dark--esp women).  
It might end up evening out either way--so it might just come down more so to where you feel the most comfortable. 

Congrats! She was my POI there as well. Her paper on masculinity and the Gregorian reform still sticks out as one which blew my little undergraduate mind. Choosing between her and Lyon is a task I only envy a little bit
 
I work on connectivity between monasteries and their surrounding communities in the long twelfth century, so I'm sure we'll see each other around!

I have two campus visits for Chicago and Berkeley (admitted to both), which were my top picks, and having to decide between the two is going to be agonizing. Berkeley gives better funding all around and will pay for my trip out though Chicago is only giving 2,000 less per year. However, the cost of living in both respective cities may tip the balance either way.

Congrats on those two awesome admits, Annalistasaxo!

I just received an admit from Chicago via email. Looks like this week is when things start to heat up.

Thanks! Jonathan Lyon. He is one of the few scholars who focuses on medieval Germany, which is my primary area of interest.

Thanks! Jonathan Lyon. He is one of the few scholars who focuses on medieval Germany, which is my primary area of interest.

I just received an admit from Chicago via email. Looks like this week is when things start to heat up.

I just received an admit from Chicago via email. Looks like this week is when things start to heat up.

When I make my final choice, I'm taking my grandfather out to a nice dinner. He immigrated here in the 70s, but before he came to America he was one of the most educated and ambitious men on the island he was born. He moved here to improve his family's chances, like many immigrants do, but ended up doing backbreaking or janitorial work the rest of his life, never really learning the language. His dream was to be a professor in Portugal.

When I left his house today, he choked up, saying "one day, I'll be able to tell people my daughter is a doctor." He raised me, so he's like my dad. It made me cry. Of course, he said something was caught in his throat. My grandpa never cries

For those of you waiting on Cornell, the committees met late last week and I'd be expecting an update soon (though I didn't see anything pertinent to applicants hoping to study the Americas...)

I just received via email an acceptance from Kings for their Masters in Medieval History. It is however conditional upon the maintenance of a certain GPA this semester. 

I got accepted by Berkeley. I should hear back from Chicago soon I think.