psstein

I'm probably in the dwindling minority who thinks it does, but that's because Wisconsin has Nicole Nelson, who's a phenomenal STS scholar, but is the first to say she's not a historian.

Not in history of science, but that's probably due to the field's history and contours.

Usually, schools offer academic year-long stipend. Wisconsin, for example, pays a roughly $21,000 fellowship for first-year history students, disbursed over 9 months.

Not necessarily, but if you want to attend somewhere like Harvard or Yale, it's in your interest to score over the 90th percentile on the verbal and analytical writing sections. The quantitative section is less important.

If I had the chance to do it again, I'd apply to no more than 4 or 5. Realistically speaking, there are only 5 or 6 programs worth attending in any given sub-field.

Verbal: 90th percentile or higher Quantitative: As best you can. If you're doing history of mathematics or 20th century physics, 90th percentile or higher. Analytical Writing: 5 or higher.

It would be inadvisable, unless you have a question that you cannot possibly answer from the website. Most graduate programs post their policies/regulations handbook, which usually has (some of) the answers.

Well, my strategy devolved into overusing my TA office supplies, but that's not a feasible strategy for everyone. In your case, I would recommend keeping a paper notebook/legal pad/whatever, while using the following approach (an acronym IPSO): Issue: What is the research question? Position: What is the thesis? How does it interact with other literature? Support: What are the sources used? How does the author support his/her argument? Outcome: Future avenues for research, assuming the author's argument is correct?

Yes, there are. I know several who work for the government and make a good salary. Scientists are, in general, awful at writing.

I agree with some qualifications. The profession is currently in crisis, in part, because the model for training graduate students is broken. The current model depends upon taking intelligent, capable people, promising them the moon, and then exploiting them as cheap labor for 6-9 years. 6-9 years is on the low side, if any of these newly minted PhDs choose to become adjuncts. Given that the humanities are in retreat practically everywhere, even at the top R1s, it is completely irresponsible to encourage students to go to graduate school with the goal of becoming professors. Accordingly, it's also worth warning people with that goal of the brutal future of the profession and the current trends, which don't paint a good picture for any sub-field. When I was a junior in college, not all too long ago, I told my professors (at a very well-known East Coast college), that I wanted to go to grad school. With one exception, they all told me "don't do it."

Okay, again, I want to highlight how few people still work on science and religion, or American science. It's sad, but it's the nature of the field right now. I know a guy who finished a science and religion dissertation recently, and he's had an incredibly tough time of the academic market. It's work that needs to be done, but it's not frequently done anymore. What I'd strongly recommend is going to college (i.e. graduate high school and fully immerse yourself), then investigating your interests through formal coursework. You may find that you're not as interested in things as you thought you were. I went to college with the intention of becoming a physician. It turned out that, despite the fact I found chemistry and biology really interesting, I absolutely hated them as academic subjects. I just didn't find the ionic bonding of two obscure molecules engaging. Whether that leads to a PhD or not is not clear. The academic job market for life and medical sciences is not good. However, unlike the humanities. PhDs in the sciences have readily identifiable alternatives.

The questions you're interested in fall under history of science. As I hope you're aware (or becoming aware), there's a huge amount of literature on that topic already, so much so that many historians of science don't really look into it anymore. Broadly speaking, the Crisis of Victorian Faith is thought a settled field. That said, I'm happy to provide you with a short reading list, if you so desire. I assume, perhaps wrongly, that you mean Lyell's geological work and predecessors to Darwin when you mean "new advances led to the questioning of age old Christian beliefs." None of the questions you're interested in are boring, but they are abundantly studied, both in US and UK contexts. Top fields for hiring? I'll leave that to others. I will say that, based on that graph, this is the worst the academic job market has been since the 1970s. I will tell you, flat out, that if you want to do the PhD to become a professor, don't do it.

Horrific. 19th Century US History is likely the singularly most oversaturated field in the historical profession in the United States. If you are dead set on doing US history of that period, it is in your interest to work with other fields like the history of science/technology/medicine, history of capitalism, environmental history, etc. I would also just comment that you're not even a true college freshman, and, honestly, the field for academic jobs is likely going to get worse before it gets better. Right now, a huge contingent of PhD graduates, even from top schools, have no chance of having an academic job. Maybe 10-15% of all recently minted PhDs have that opportunity. The AHA has a jobs report you ought to read, but for whatever reason, my computer won't load it right now.

Stanford, Brown, and Hopkins are all outstanding choices with great faculty. I'd recommend re-evaluating USC and UCSB with reference to their placement histories. HoS is a very small field, and as with all other historical sub-fields, Ivies and public equivalents are disproportionately represented.

Good to see some other history of science folks! What programs do you think are a good fit?

If you're going to apply to St. Andrews, you ought to know that, while getting in will be easier than most top programs, getting a funded position will be damn near impossible as a non-UK/EU citizen, and is about equivalent to an Ivy. I also can't imagine that the outcomes from St. Andrews are all that great. I'd normally recommend you apply to Cambridge instead, but my understanding is that Schaffer is ailing and preparing to retire.

If possible, I would try to find out if there's a difference in outcomes between students going onto the PhD without the thesis and students who continue to the PhD after the thesis. It may be the case that students who write the thesis make their way to better programs. Or it may be the opposite. I don't know.

Okay, now I'm curious. In your view, what's the thesis' purpose?

If you want to continue to the PhD, it is in your best interest to do a MA thesis. The fact that the thesis is "dead" at Villanova is, in my view, very strange.

I partly agree with you. I think the demise of the SLAC has been greatly exaggerated; the oft-quoted figure of "50% of colleges will close in the next 10 years," based on speaking with SLAC faculty and staff, just doesn't seem true. What will happen, IMO, is that colleges with fewer than 1000 students will encounter significant issues. It's tough enough for those colleges to keep the lights on/pay faculty/pensions/etc. as it currently stands. I don't see SLACs, writ large "ceasing to exist as a concept." As for the meat of your post, yes. One of the major reasons I left Wisconsin was the vanishing job market. I couldn't justify 7+ years for a degree with dubious value outside of academia. (Yes, yes, I know about alt-ac jobs, but I have a very strong, probably idiosyncratic belief about the whole "alt-ac" push). I do agree that the job market is bad, and I'd add that students at 90% of programs have no chance at TT academic jobs. Even in the top 10% of programs, you probably have a 50% chance at best. My solution is simple: 75% of all graduate programs should suspend admissions. The remaining 25% should cut intake in half. There's also a more targeted, less brutal way to do this, but it would require having the AHA serve as an accreditation agency.

I can vouch for this. I applied originally as an early modernist, though without Latin. I did, however, have a good background in Greek and an excellent one in French (near fluency). The lack of Latin was still an obstacle, to the extent that somewhere I applied wondered why I wanted to work on early modern science without knowing Latin. Latin is basically a barrier to entry for medieval and early modern programs. I wouldn't advise going somewhere that didn't require it.

To add onto this, just reading an article or two in any given area may completely destroy whatever interest you have. I ever so briefly had an interest in history of chemistry. Two articles cured me of that interest.

All of the approaches put forward are useful, but as I've recommended to @historygeek, I'd strongly encourage a heuristic tool known as IPSO. It's great for teaching undergrads, but you also will see benefit to applying it to your own reading. Issue: What is the issue at hand? Why is the author writing? Position: What is the thesis statement? Who is the author in dialogue with? Support: How is the author using evidence, what sorts of evidence, how does s/he engage with objections, etc.? Outcome: So what? If this argument is correct, what are some possible avenues for further research.

Reading proficiency is the major proficiency that matters, unless you're planning to do interviews. I would only list the languages that are relevant to your project, which you have the highest degree of proficiency in. For example, if Bulgarian is relevant, keep it on. If Russian isn't, then leave it on. It seems to me that French and Russian are probably the most relevant to your intended course of study. Which programs are you intending to apply to? Bluntly speaking, there aren't 10 programs worth attending in most given subfields.

Hey, I try to discourage people! ? Wisconsin actually has a shortage of TAs, to the extent that students on fellowship were asked if they wanted to teach last year.