vtstevie

alright applications have begun! 1/16 can't come soon enough, i'm ready for this to be in someone ELSE'S hands

wait stanford is $125?! what on earth

I'm waiting to get feedback on my SOP (rereading the one I wrote for my MA, which happened to be the same department as my undergrad major, was a little...disappointing) then I'm going to start applying. And yeah, the cost is definitely prohibiting me from applying to a few places I would if money weren't an issue, but you really really shouldn't let $80 dissuade you from applying to a dream school if you have a reasonable shot of getting in. Don't wanna be living with "what if..." syndrome for a whole year!

i suppose what you all are saying is true, and i am definitely existing in a wonderful, naive time of infinite possibilities still. i also want to shout out to gradcafe member natsteel and his excellent graduate school timeline and guide, linked here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/55484840/Applying-to-Graduate-School-A-Guide-and-Timeline which has definitely helped me through this process thus far.

hey everyone, i'm officially checking in for the season! hope you all are still fairly sane. my question is, after reading this forum i feel like i should be WAY more nervous about the whole situation than i so i gotta ask...is anyone else relatively calm and not feeling totally swamped with applications? is this bound to change for me?

Oh usually i throw in my main advisers while getting my MA as well, typically as the second sentence.

this is generalized via a fellow grad cafe member's guide to grad applications, but my initial email's have basically been: Dr. X My name is Y Yman, a recent graduate from University of State's history MA program. I will be applying to Name University this year and am wondering if you will be taking on new students? My research interests are blah blah blah broadly, with shoe factories in rural Saskatchewan during World War I being the topic of my thesis. Your work, especially Shoe Factories and the Women Who Love Them, was fascinating and immensely important to my research. Thank you for your time, Y Yman.

American History R_Escobar (20th century, American Indian), crazedandinfused (antebellum, intellectual), hopin'-n-prayin' (southern, religious), stevemcn (transnational), Simple Twist of Fate (early American), zb642 (20th century, labor/working-class culture), BCEmory08 (19th-20th century Catholicism, labor), irvinchiva10 (20th century, immigration/immigration reform) natsteel (early American political culture and intellectual history) unforth (19th century US political and military history, US Civil War) hbeels (colonial, early national, 19th century, transappalachain west, historical memory of these eras/areas) thedig13 (20th century U.S., culture and protest, African-American) Weepsie (North American Mapping, Exploration and Trade, Anti-Communism/Socialism in Interwar period, bit of a mixed bag) lafayette (19th c. [with a dash of 20th], urban, intellectual) vtstevie (Revolutionary/Early Republic New England, infrastructure/economic) European HistoryKelkel (Modern Germany, political), goldielocks (Britain), SapperDaddy (Eastern and Central Europe), kotov (Modern Romania, Holocaust, labor), RevolutionBlues (Modern Western Europe/France labor and leftist politics), theregalrenegade (18th/19th cent British Empire/environment), jrah822 (19th century Britain; emphasis on colonial relationship to India), grlu0701 (Intellectual & cultural history,fin de siecle Germany and Italy), naturalog (modern European [mostly German] intellectual and cultural/sexuality and gender/political radicalism), runaway (Eastern/Central, memorialization & visual culture), Sequi001 (Modern France, gender and sexuality, colonialism/imperialism) Abetheh (19th/early 20th century Germany and France, religious politics vs secularization) NeutralKate (Modern Russia, modern European economic history) Crackerjacktiming (Modern Germany, gender and sexuality) African HistoryOseirus (precolonial/early colonial West Africa), Singwaya18 (20th century East Africa), Safferz (20th century Horn/Northeast Africa), The People's Scholar (Spanish colonialim in Africa- i.e. middle/West Africa) Jogatoronto (Psychiatry in early colonial West Africa) ronwill06(Social and political radical movements) Latin American HistoryCageFree (20th century, Southern Cone), BH-history, The People's Scholar (18th-19th century Colombia) StrangeLight (20th century Central America) East Asian Historyalleykat (Modern China) kyjin (Pre-Modern Japan) aec09g (Modern Japan) pudewen (Late Imperial China) Near/Middle Eastern Historyuhohlemonster, (modern Israel, Iran, Palestine) oswic (modern Egypt, gender) Atlantic Worldsandyvanb crazedandinfused Global/World History cooperstreet (Cold War) melissarose8585 Jewish History [*]uhohlemonster, (modern Israel) [*]hopin'-n-'prayin, [*]kotov (Holocaust), [*]naturalog (sometimes modern European/Holocaust), [*]runaway (memorialization & visual culture), [*]ticklemepink (20th c. Germany/U.S) Science/Technology/Environment [*]shaxmaty1848 (Cold War) [*]StrangeLight (environmental history, ecological distribution conflicts) Social [*]annieca (Cold War and Post-Cold War East and Central Europe) Classical and Medieval [*]Hogs of War (Monastic Studies and Conflicts in Authority) Cultural [*]StrangeLight (gender, race, ethnicity, and religion) [*]hbeels (race/ethnicity, religious, masculinity/feminimity, print/literature) [*]crazedandinfused (race, nationalism, performance, rhetoric) [*]alleykat (religion, race/ethnicity, cultural relativism) Canadian History [*]truthfinder (New France, religious)

It's ok to contact two POI at the same school, right? There are a couple schools I'm looking at who have multiple people I'd be thrilled to work with - there's nothing wrong with sending both of them individualized (obviously) e-mails, right?

This may have been answered but my internet is kinda screwy so I'm just gonna ask while it's letting me! I'm applying for PHD programs this coming fall and took the GRE when I applied for my MA in 2008. Are those scores still valid or should I be planning to retake the test?

thanks guys. i mean, in the past 3 months i've visited 4 national parks, gone to the great american beer fest, reconnected with a ton of old friends...so my life here is great. i just feel this constant pull away from it and find it difficult to reconcile the two paths my life seems to be on. while it's true, i'm luckily very young, i feel the crush of student loans and the fear that my fire will go out or it will stop being such a (RELATIVE) boom time for early republic historians sometime in the very near future.

You may want to look at UVM's terminal MA program, Dave Massell especially

Hey guys, I mostly lurk here but really need to get some thoughts out with some folks who feel the same desire to go the PHD road that I do, so here is my status I recently graduated from a terminal MA program from a top public university in early republic US history. My thesis was very well received (as far as I could tell) and I made many connections with more than a couple mentors in the department, many of whom said I could get into PHD programs if that's what I wanted to do. That is very, very much what I want to do. I love doing research, love teaching, love the entire experience of being a professional historian (even frustrating undergrads and searching for impossible to attain documents). The issue is, toward the end of my first year of grad school, I became heavily involved in a relationship that has now taken me across the country and put on hold my applying to further schooling indefinitely. My girlfriend is supportive of my eventual goals, but I don't have the heart to ask her to follow me to, say, Delaware for five years at this point in our relationship. I love my life out here but have not been able to find steady work in the historical profession and am currently in a dead end full time job with little time to volunteer at museums (though the time I have found to do so has been extremely rewarding). Basically, I just walk through every day feeling like I'm putting off what I am meant to do and what I truly want to do and I don't know how to reconcile that with the realities of my life right now. I'm young but still - it feels like some mysterious clock out there is ticking and the longer I wait and more likely it becomes that I'll never apply! I know there are no easy answers and that the advice I'll get (and have gotten) is follow my dreams/strike while the iron is hot, but it already feels good to just get that out there, so thanks for reading!

Also, ESM is directly across from Java's, which is my personal favorite coffee shop of all time

I wholeheartedly disagree that Eastman School of Music is in a "sketchy" part of town. It is, in fact, right near one of the main sections of downtown where people congregate at night. It's certainly no more dangerous than any other urban area after dark, and certainly safer than parts of, say, Philadelphia at night. Use common sense and you'll be fine, but certainly don't expect Gibbs Street to be an urban warzone.

I think I'll add my two cents here as I feel as though my grad school experience is somewhat different from others around here... I went straight from undergrad to my two year MA program at the same school I did undergrad in. I don't regret it, as I was truly hitting my groove academically the last three years and didn't want to lose that momentum and certainly didn't feel like I was about to burn out. An MA was also a chance for me to test the waters of academia, make connections in the profession (especially in my department) and learn valuable skills/create a writing sample, all of which I feel I achieved. I'm taking a year or two off before applying to PHD programs, but that's for personal reasons and not because I feel like I couldn't go straight to another program now (though going through the application process while a student DOES seem a bit rough). What I want to stress about my experience is, while it's true being in a program does to a degree limit your other options, in no way should you feel as though entering graduate school (at least on the MA level) ties you to your school constantly. I did more traveling in the last two years than during my entire undergraduate years, some of which was funded by my department. Graduate school let me create my own schedule and, while I didn't get rich off funding, also afforded me some income to fund what was a rather full life. It is, of course, a lot of work and more is expected of you as a graduate student than as an undergrad, but you can still do volunteer work and travel (to use ticklemepink's examples) while a graduate student, and have a very full social life should you choose. Obviously there are other considerations (debt being the top of the list, as most MA programs that I came across don't fund well, if at all), but it's worth pointing out that entering graduate school doesn't mean the end of life as you know it.

good to know we cool dudes not alone

I'm the exact opposite - I go over department web pages practically for fun, I find it's the perfect compliment to, say, sports (and with baseball right around the corner, I should be looking at a LOT of schools). I just jot down the names of people I'd like to work with, whether they guarantee funding and if they have a foreign language requirement at this early juncture - once I have a list of about 15-20 I'll start narrowing it down and looking into the harder info. It's still early, don't stress too much yet. For now, just look at your favorite books on your shelf, check out where the author teaches and make note of it. If you're going crazy looking at too much info as of now, simply tone down the amount you're taking in at once - that's what I'm doing anyway.

I'm curious as to how many programs you folks are applying to? As an early Americanist, there is no shortage of people I'd like to work with at highly reputable schools and I have a "longlist" going right now of about twelve programs. Applying to all of them seems excessive, but one adviser of mine told me to aim for 10 - even that seems like a lot (I applied to 6 undergrad and like 4 MA). Still, I don't want to limit my chances of admission - what if I don't apply to school X but, in some alternate universe, they were the only ones that let me in with funding?!

You guys will be seeing quite a bit of me over the next year or so! Americanist, Revolutionary period/Early Republic (speaking of non-unique areas of specialization) Best of luck to you all

Also, I know personally I'd rather live in Boston (Cambridge) than virtually anywhere in the US, so my gut tells me Boston... (just as an idea for what would go into MY thought process where I lucky enough to be in your shoes)

The one piece of advice I've been told time and again from virtually ever Professor I've asked is, do NOT under any circumstances, enter a PHD program unfunded.

I should add that my advice should be taken with a grain of salt since for one of my conferences I was presenting to all of TWO people

I've presented at two conferences and was quite nervous at both. The biggest advice I can give is to keep in mind that no one wants you to fail and everyone is a harsher critic in your mind than they are in real life. You know what you're talking about, even if you don't feel like it. Don't feel bad or get worked up over nerves as they're natural - just start reading (or talking, if you're going from memory) and before you know it you'll be in the groove and not even thinking about it and then, boom, it'll be over. Also, make as much eye contact with the crowd as possible - even if it psyches you out a bit, I find that's the difference between an engaging, excellent presentation and "just another" presentation. Also makes you look confident, even if you don't feel it!

pretty much this Academic history was something I found myself to be fairly good at (at the risk of sounding full of myself) and the idea of working at some dead-end gig for years sounded truly horrible. It helped that I loved my undergrad department and had a great life in the town I did my undergrad in, so doing my MA there was a nice way to remain in town, maintaining relationships that mattered to me and preparing for my future at the same time. I knew that by the time I wrapped up my MA (a time which is now upon me!) I'd be ready to pack up and move somewhere else, and that's exactly what I'm doing.