delores

I've only been on one of these so far, but I think a nice version of your normal clothes is fine. I wore jeans and a nice sweater to the one visit I went to--and that was pretty much what everyone else wore, too. I would say avoid anything with holes or stains etc., but the whole visit was pretty casual.

Penn State at least sends out acceptances by subfield. They may be the only one, though.

I'm currently doing a fully funded (tuition remission + stipend) MA. It's in an area studies department, not history, but I've taken mostly history courses and am in the process of applying for history PhDs. When I was applying to programs, I just assumed that I would have to go in to debt for it--no one told me that getting full funding was a possibility, and the schools I applied to didn't advertise it. But despite that--nearly everyone in my cohort has either full or partial funding. I have two pieces of advice: First, if it makes sense for your interests, look into area studies departments! My department is a Title VI resource center and I think that makes it possible for them to pay for so many grad students. Second, look into private universities! Yes, at public schools you can often get TA positions and get a tuition remission through that, and they're cheaper in general--but private universities are often very wealthy. That comes with its own set of benefits. Moral of the story: funding is out there! Don't let people tell you that MA degrees don't get funded, or that you have to restrict your search to universities that explicitly advertise their MAs as funded. Feel free to message me if you want more information about my program.

Thanks everyone for this advice! Can't wait to get back to the archive on Monday...

I've just started a month-long trip to the archives, my very first one! After my first day there, I have a camera filled with pictures of archival documents, and now I'm wondering how best to organize and keep track of them. What I did was download the pictures to my computer, name them all after the document name (Caja XXX, Vol XX, Ex. XX #1, #2, #3 etc) and put them in separate folders, but I'm already sensing that this is not a great system--for one thing, it took me forever to individually name and order all the pictures; also, the document name, while necessary information, is not very descriptive and doesn't let me see easily what's what. Does anyone have a better way of dealing with this? I'd love your advice! I want to get a good system in place while I'm still at the beginning stages of research. Thanks for your help!

Colonial Latin America, though I would think that the kind of thing I'm looking for would be relevant for people working in any area.

I'm a first year MA student in an interdisciplinary program with a strong interest in history. My BA is in philosophy; I have not taken a single history class since high school. I'm very excited to be in my first graduate history course this term, but I'm a little worried that, when it comes to doing research or analyzing the readings, I won't know how to ask questions like a historian. As an undergrad, I found a wonderful guide to writing philosophy papers which I often referred to (here). It's aimed at intro students, but the advice pertains to people doing philosophy at high levels as well. I especially appreciated the list of things which a philosophy paper might try to do, and when I was stuck writing something, I would sometimes look at it to remind myself of what the possibilities were. I recognize that many of the guidelines for how to write a philosophy paper apply to history as well, but aside from that--does anyone know of any similar resources for history? It could be another blog post, or a book. I'm just looking for some guidelines about how historians ask, and answer questions--an introduction to the practice of history as a discipline, I guess. Any recommendations?

Hi everyone! First time posting, though I've been reading these boards for years. I'm deciding between two area studies MAs, though my ultimate goal is a history PhD so I thought I'd come here for advice. Both programs are very well-regarded, and both schools also have top-20 history PhD programs. School A has a POI who is one of the top scholars in the specific sub-subfield I'm interested in. In terms of money, they're not guaranteeing me anything. I applied for FLAS funding, though I haven't heard anything yet, and I've been told that "many" MA students land TA positions, which come with a tuition remission and a small stipend, though I won't be able to apply for those until I've accepted their offer. School B had offered me full funding--tuition, fees, health insurance, and a nice stipend, guaranteed for the three semesters it takes to complete the program--and I don't even have to TA! They're just giving me a fellowship. On the other hand, they don't really have any faculty who do work on the country/region I'm interested in. There are a couple POIs whose work is thematically similar to my interests, albeit focussed on different countries/regions--but it's not nearly as easy a fit as the POI at School A. It's hard to turn down money, and so I'm leaning towards School B for that reason--here is a real opportunity to get out of this with no debt! I won't have to worry about money--in fact, I won't have to worry about anything but school, because I won't have to work as a TA! On the other hand, thinking strategically about applying for PhDs, School A is better choice--it would be a better fit for me to do a PhD at, and the POI I would be working with is a big name in the field, which would help me applying to other places. School B is also a really good school--just not specifically for what I want to do... Money, or fit? How important is fit at the MA level anyway?