a.rev
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Posts posted by a.rev
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No we don't. Now that I think about it, between course readings, research papers, and articles we're probably expected to read roughly the same number of books. One of my professors let me base my question on the research paper I wrote for her course, which was really sweet of her but I don't think they'll choose her question simply because she's been on sabbatical this year for an illness.
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Eighty?! Do you at least get to bring a list with you? I almost prefer mine just because I won't get Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World mixed up with Gendering the Borderlands. Good luck! I'm with you on the nightmares, although knowing whether or not I'll be attending school next fall would definitely be the motivation needed to push through this kind of stuff. Most of my friends, and some of my professors, have basically said it's more of a rite of passage. I've only heard of one person in recent years that flat out failed comps at my school, and it was my amazing and supportive thesis chair that failed the guy. The same one that I picked two questions by, so I'm a little panicky.
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I will totally commiserate with you, I think I'm driving my husband insane at the moment haha.
Oh my gosh, I'm super jealous. We pick 5 courses we've taken and ask the professor to write a question. Then we have to study the readings and formulate a response. The day of the exam is when we find out which 3 our dir. of grad studies has chosen and we 4 hours to write on them. One has to be an American history course, another a world history, and then a wild card. I've chosen Africa, slavery, and world history, the early republic, modern East Asia, Latinos in the U.S. South, and a teaching Global History seminar (basically new world vs. old world history). I'm positive I'll get Africa and early republic, but the rest is up to chance.
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So I'm applying for my FLAS right now at a school I don't know if I got into or not. I'm really nervous because I have to contact the department tmorrow and have them send over my scores, LOR, and transcripts. The bright side is that if I do get in and am granted the FLAS I'll have a $25,000 stipend which would be amazing given how expensive the area is. Has anyone else every applied for one before? What was your experience?
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Fianna, how are you liking Empire and Industry? It sounds like a book I might need to grab for some research. Also, good luck on comps! Mine are March 6th and I'm going insane. :/
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I second reading books within your field, or just academic history books/articles at all. I came into my MA program with a different (but similar enough) bachelor's degree and it took me a bit to catch up to the other students. See if you can't find a professor's reading list for the introduction to graduate study of history seminars everyone is required to take. It doesn't have to be from your target institution, I actually do this pretty regularly for courses I'd like to take but don't have time for. I've actually never known a history professor (aside from museum studies or public history) to take on a research assistant and those were student workers/TAs, although my professor did ask my opinion on his manuscript last summer but that was a personal favor.
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I took a class on defeat and memory that juxtaposed the civil war and Germany after WWII, not your topic but I can scrounge up the reading list. (Race and Reunion was actually one of the books.) I ended up writing about post-colonial Korea and remember using a really good book called Aesthetic Constructions of Korean Nationalism by Hong Kal.
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I don't read comics often but I will this weekend. My friend just sent me two issues of something called Bitch Planet, it sounds like it's right up my alley. If you're interested comics/graphic novels you should check out Oxford University Press' graphic novels that they've been putting out. I think there's three now, Inhuman Traffick, Mendoza the Jew, and Abina and the Important Men. I met the gentleman who wrote Abina earlier this year and he talked about how he just randomly ran accross this transript from a court case in the archives and had this idea to turn it into a graphic novel. They're pretty neat. If you're a TA I think you can request an instructor's copy through the Oxford website.
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The results search for Boston University are driving me insane, last year some people heard back this week, the year before some heard back next week, and then there were some a few years ago that didn't hear back until mid/late March! I decided to look at their website to see what it said about admissions and it gave me a tiny, just a smidgen, of hope.
Beginning in January, the admissions committee meets every two or three weeks to consider all complete applications. The committee will inform applicants who are admitted of its recommendation after the entire review process is completed. Those who are not accepted will generally receive official notification from the Graduate School shortly after their file has been considered.
I submitted my application over a month before the deadline, so it was probably one of the earlier ones to be reviewed. I'm just thrilled to still be in the running, even if they only accepted 8% of those who applied in 2012/2013. My only concern is that my current school didn't require us to take a foreign language proficiency exam.
I totally agree with ashiepoo about the GRE thing. My friend decided to skip applying this year because she had low scores, myself and several professors tried to tell her to apply anyway but she wouldn't. My advisor suggested that the reason it's used is for students like myself who come from smaller/lesser known schools. That way the committee can understand/gauge how their GPA compares to others. All he told me was that I should try to break into the 80th percentile in verbal to be competitive. That the writing is not important since you have a writing sample and the quantitative is not that important to the degree, although having a bad score may reduce university (but not departmental) funding.
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Not necessarily. The person I want to work with is at a university that doesn't have a PhD program, but he's one of the few people interested in what I want to study. James Mokhiber because he focuses on arts and crafts education in colonial Tunisia.Isn't the Venn diagram of this list and the list of people we applied to work with a circle?
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erchha/Chiqui74, don't feel bad. All of my schools were reaches for me, even though two of them are state schools they're the top in my field. Hopefully we'll all be surprised!
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I've actually heard good things about The Historian, both from family/friends and online. I'll have to add it to my ever-expanding "to read" list!
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I'm terrible about buying books on my kindle to read later, I've had it about a year now and I have over 100 books in my library with another 150 on my wishlist. Right now I'm reading a couple of books for my thesis and a few for fun. I'm skimming these for relevant information so I'm technically not "reading" them like a novel but they're what's on my desk at the moment: Empires by Michael W. Doyle, Imperialism by Philip Curtin, Orientalism by Edward W. Said, and Costumes du Maroc by Jean Besancenot.
My friend's thesis chair suggested she read the Outlander series so I'm giving it a shot, but I'm also reading The Rose of Martinique: A Life of Napoleon's Josephine by Andrea Stuart and a few others (Erik Larson, Ken Follett, and the Song of Ice and Fire books). I also have a book given to me by a student at the end of last semester called Undaunted Courage that I need to read before he stops in to say hello.
Does anyone else read several books at a time? I've always got at least 5-6 that I'm working through, sometimes I put them down for weeks,months even, before picking them back up.
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Don't feel bad rmw, I've only heard back from one school and it was a rejection. To add insult to injury, a week later they sent me a letter. I ripped it up, threw it in the trash, bought cupcakes, and binge watched Netflix for a day. While I highly recommend cupcakes and Netflix, a bonfire also sounds nice. I'm sending positive vibes your way!
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I've had several professors who pursued PhDs with children. One took a three week old to Africa during Fulbright research and another took a 2 year old to Mexico for a year. Both were men but I'm willing to bet the biggest difference for women would be pregnancy and the first few months after. My husband and I have decided to try to have our first after my first year or so in a program, if I don't get in this year we'll try to have one during the one year break. (A win-win for us!) I would imagine mentioning a child in a SoP would only be expected if relevant (you took a break but didn't work during that break.) Edit: I'll add I'm 27, I'll be 28 in June. I don't think I'm old, but most of the people in my MA program are fresh from getting their bachelor's. Their average age is 21-24, so there are definitely times I feel old.
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Well, I just turned in my paperwork to take comps in a month. Hopefully the panic from that will take my mind off of waiting for applications. (Silver lining?) I haven't noticed but is anyone else applying to Boston University? I've seen Boston College a few times, but not BU. I guess I'll go back to grading discussion boards and procrastinating on my thesis.
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I'll play! As I mentioned before, I'm interested in North Africa, specifically colonial Morocco. My MA thesis discusses how the protectorate controlled and regulated heritage in its African colonies through education and organizations that would verify authenticity. What I'd like to do is delve deeper into how this influenced gender roles and class structure, as well as local reactions.
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Heimat, I do actually. Mainly because the two samples I chose to submit were not really related to what I want to do and neither showcased the language ability I do have, which was an oversight on my part. One focused on colonial memory and South Korea and the other was on art and abolition. Unfortunately, none of the courses I took in my MA program allowed me to write on my topic and my undergrad degree is in art history (my senior thesis there was on Brazil feather-work so I've completely switched gears, to say the least.)
Ashiepoo, thanks for the encouragement! I actually had a conversation with my advisor before the break and we talked about alternatives to PhD programs. One of which was to teach English for a year in Morocco. If you don't mind me asking, what is your emphasis?
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You guys...I was just accepted to MSU with full funding. I'm totally floored.
Congrats!
MSU was in my initial list of schools to which I wanted to apply, then I cut it out because I didn't feel it was a good enough fit (despite very positive correspondence with POI). What is your area, if you don't mind?
Africa but I knew it was a bit of a long shot. I'm looking at North Africa but because my undergrad and MA do/did not have an Arabic program my advisor (an Africanist) advised me to apply to African Studies programs, since they tend to be more lax about it. I guess the plus side is that I don't have to worry about filling out all the FLAS paperwork! It just stinks because I met with my POI and she was really nice. The next best fit for me would be Boston University but I'm not sure how selective they are in comparison to MSU or OSU (which is probably the most unlikely since I don't think it was as good of a fit.) It's my fault for not submitting parts of my thesis and using research papers instead. Oh well, c'est la vie.
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Well, just received my first rejection from Michigan State University. It was probably the best fit and the best chance I had given my LOR. I'm pretty bummed to say the least.
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I expected OSU to start notifying this week but didn't realize they had two waves. I wish they would just let me know either way but I guess no notice is better than an outright rejection, right? I remember reading on a thread last year that one person didn't receive their acceptance notice until March (?). To have my application say pending for that long would make me go insane.
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Thank you! I keep adding and removing BU from my list, simply because I don't want it to be "too big." Thornton seems to add an interesting facet to early-modern Atlantic history that I must admit I am not the best versed in though I desire to, obviously, improve on that.
I wouldn't apply to BU on the hopes of working with Thornton alone. He's a very big name (pretty much a rock-star in Atlantic world history) and, from what I understand, does not take on many students. I plan to put an application into BU so I wish you all the luck but it's better to be realistic, although BU has a phenomenal African Studies department so if that's your thing then go for it! I thoroughly enjoyed reading Thornton and highly recommend Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World. It's an older book (20+ years I think?) but he talks about how Africans came from a place of power within the Atlantic world, instead of being taken advantage of, which is the standard for discussing Africa post-1400.
Fall 2015 Applicants
in History
Posted
You're right but also Ohio's Arabic FLAS was cancelled this year. Something I wish I'd know before applying. :/