lafayette

Last year Columbia took an incredibly long time to turn around rejections (it was almost silly, seeing as it was just a form letter). I think it was about a month after acceptances.

I wrote this last year: Good luck! It won't be that bad, I promise. (Also if you haven't gotten any interview requests, don't panic; I had one last year and it was only because my specific POI wanted to speak with his potential advisees.)

I worked while I got my MA (most semesters). It was hard. I went to school full-time but definitely did not work full-time. (Usually did 20-24 hours a week). It was difficult, yes. I would have quit my job had it really started to impact my schooling though; what's the point of doing/spending $ on a MA if you're not going to get the most out of it?

Met someone doing a similar topic during the admitted students visit at Johns Hopkins, so worth a look into. (Not that they aren't competitive).

I accidentally had extracurriculars as 'extracurriculurs' on my CV -- with the extracurricular being that I was a copy editor for an undergrad journal, ha! Went out to all but one of my schools, or the last, when I caught it. Didn't get into this last school, but got into several others that did see the mistake. Also got into one school where I BUTCHERED (I still have no idea how I did it without catching it) a potential faculty member's name. I inverted his name AND gave him part of my intended advisor's name. I tried not to re-read my materials for this very reason, but I had an interview for this school so I was reviewing beforehand and nearly died. But I figured, they're interviewing me, I've got this far, so I didn't bring it up. And I got in. So, yes, breathe. I'm assuming most people have some mistake in their application somewhere or other. Some worse than others, true, but it doesn't mean you're automatically out ... Anyway, I remember this time of year last year, when I was applying, and it was so incredibly stressful. Best of luck to all of you; once you're in, it's a lot of work, but it's *so* much better. Just hang in there! You'll be casually looking back a year from now from some program too, I bet

What Bactrian said. I had none of the above and did just fine. Others as well. It's all about the LORs/writing sample/SOP.

Just want to say that I'm a late bloomer (ten years out of undergrad & now starting my PhD) and definitely, definitely needed that time (I also got a M.A. in there). But there are a couple of straight out of undergrads in my cohort and you would never know it without them telling you. They're all confident, smart, and dedicated. I personally recommend taking time off to get a taste of life outside of academia, but in terms of academic maturity, some people are just ready at different times. There's no right age to apply that is applicable to everyone.

As an Americanist I only have one language requirement -- and I'm working on that now (basically a review of the French I took years ago). Hopefully will pass the test this fall. So yes, it is a big thing out of the way, but also not too much is required of me in this area to begin with.

czecz -- I haven't heard anything from my department either, and we register when we get there, so while I have course preferences, I'm not even sure if those will happen until I sit down with the DGS in September (save for the one required course). No syllabi available either, that I know of. I'd really like to get a head start in this area too ... I am more than eager to get started with the PhD adventure and September still seems so far away. I have been taking a language course for graduate students hoping to pass the translation exam -- but took this at another school here in the city. So I have sort of started in a strange way that doesn't feel like having started at all. My moving situation is quite easily, luckily. I have a dorm room down in Princeton that I jokingly refer to as my 'pied-à-terre,' as I'll be there about half the week. Spending the rest of my time in my current apartment I share with my partner (and dog). Having had to move many times over the past ten years, my heart goes out to all that have to deal with that -- especially long distance hauls. Always, always the worst.

Okay, not to play all-knowing sage just because I'm in my late twenties, but ... I've been about thinking this a lot when reading messages on this board. It's totally okay that you don't know what you want to be 'when you grow up' or even what to do in those incredibly hard years after just graduating college and forging ahead on your own. It's really scary precisely because it's the beginning of the period in your life when most things don't have an obvious plan or next step (as say, going to college after high school). Most of your peers probably have no idea what they're going to become career-wise, and even if they think they do, they'll probably change them in the next few years. I also graduated undergrad with a love of history, but there are very, very few history jobs out there, and chances are you're not going to get one. There ARE entry-level jobs, however, that can utilize those skills you learnt from obtaining your history degree -- research, writing, etc. But it's okay if you don't even get one of those right away, either. The economy's not great for recent graduates. But you'll figure it out, with time. And it's totally okay to continue to love history on the side, while you're working, and perhaps even volunteer in some history-related capacity, and continue to look into how people who do have those few lucrative (as in they're coveted -- not that they pay much) history-related jobs out there. Then maybe you can start to think about enrolling in a Master's program that might help you move into one of those fields (but be sure of WHICH field). It's going to cost, and your loans will follow you -- and your paycheck-- through years of your working life. Keep in mind that a master's degree will take away years during which you might have been working, earning money, and gaining more experience. So it's good to be sure, or at the very least, mostly sure. I was looking for work between graduating with my history M.A. and starting a Ph.D. and while everyone I interviewed with didn't view my degree as a negative, they were confused by it, wondering why I had even bothered to get it. Mostly they were obsessed with the gap in employment I had due to quitting my part-time jobs to finish my thesis during my final semester. So, a liberal arts master degree might not be much of an asset while looking for broad employment, but it is, for some very specific jobs, the only way to get in. So if you want to do a field like say, archival work, you WILL need that MLIS. If you really want it, you have to just go for it. My years working after school helped me one, feel like an independent, adult person (yay!) because I was making my own money and bearing a ton of responsibility (which also meant I could be fired at any moment! I don't miss this) but also made me realize how much I didn't want to continue on my same path. I was always very good at history, have loved it since I was little (and all that other sentimental junk one must never put in their personal statements and had, like you, considered but was not too sure about getting my Masters right after I graduated. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I wanted to be a historian. Schooling would be necessary, of course. But I STILL wasn't sure, because I had to figure out if I was even good enough to get very far in the field or if I even liked it. So I saved up my money and enrolled in an inexpensive program, giving myself a semester to figure it out. I loved it -- the reading, the writing, the research -- and I was pretty decent at it. So I stuck around. My M.A. advisor recently said to me, "So I guess all those years here were actually worth it, right?" And yes -- I'd never take them back, as now I'm headed into my top choice program. But I was always cautious. BUT ... not too cautious, because if I had been, I'd still be in some corporate office somewhere. Anyway, tl;dr ... take some time off, try to get a job -- even you hate it, it'll teach you about where you want to go, what it is you want (or don't) want to do. Along the way, do a little research into other job options, and see how people got there. But who knows! You'll figure something out though, I'm sure of it. Best of luck.

Why don't you wait a year into your program & see how you feel about it then? You can ask the opinions of your new advisors who have experience with various sorts of archives (& the additional degrees one might need to specialize in them). And perhaps reach out to archivists who already work in these organizations and see what their path was? Or try to gain an internship in one of these places and get the inside scoop. You might not even need the additional degree.

Is it truly easier for a Europeanist to get a employment / fellowship than an Americanist? I haven't really gotten a sense of this at all. (Or maybe the sense is that it's just really hard, all around).

Ha, I actually was very surprised by the constant amount of Princeton gear being worn around campus -- I think I just have attended very lacking-in-pride institutions in the past (or, rather, urban campuses).

YAYYY!!

Whoa I had these exact same scores. I focused on just getting a decent verbal score (I knew my q would be awful); my guess is that this is really what's looked at, as had been mentioned here various times.

Congratulations on your decision! I don't know about the 'horrors' of the British system (if, like you say, they exist) but I do know the adjuncting nightmare of CUNY*, so perhaps you're replacing one bad thing with another, but I doubt it. *"Don't apply to CUNY" said my MA advisor who works for CUNY, for this reason & other various funding issues (which is the source of relying on grad students as an adjunct army, anyway). Edit: All of the faculty at CUNY I've encountered though were WONDERFUL; so I'm not totally dismissing CUNY, but if one has a better option, take it.

Oh -- and one more thing. Ask what research funding is like at CUNY. I'm assuming you'll go overseas for archives, right? CUNY is not a wealthy institution, so it's good to ask what sort of resources are available.

Yeah, if you plan on teaching in the US, Cambridge will make it hard. But I'm not sure what kind of stock CUNY has internationally though; Cambridge would definitely be a better choice if you don't intend to teach in the U.S. And yes, NYC is a great city, I recommend it. However, CUNY is reallllly going to make you work and their campuses where you might have to teach classes are really far flung, in less than desirable places to be in NYC (not saying they are unsafe, but they are deep in the boroughs). I think their reputation might be moving up a bit, but I know in the past CUNY has had less than stellar placement records. If I were you I ask would your potential advisor about what placement is like specifically for your field.

As others have mentioned, I would jump at the chance to some sort of shorter but comparable research project, if possible. Even if it's for yourself -- you're going to have to do this level of work (or higher) for the rest of your schooling -- nay, the rest of your career, so it's good to get a sense of how you go about it. Hey, you might really hate it, or at the least, it's good prep. My thesis (which I spoke about in my SOP, as evidence of my ability to do research, but did not use as a writing sample) took a LOT out of me. It was really, really hard. But I learnt so much about what I wouldn't do next time, and I think -- oh yes, I've already made it through writing 80 polished pages that required a huge amount of time parsing through original sources, I can do aaaanythingggg! Ok. Not anything. But I realize I can do the work of a historian.

Agreed that you want to write in your voice; don't be too stuffy, or, relatedly, as a former professor advised me, "Don't make it sound like you have everything all figured out." Be yourself: which is someone with a lot of training ahead of them. But I don't think personal stories are necessary; that you are personally there behind your research questions and proposals is. They want you to be a good researcher and historian above all else. I just feel personal stories might sometimes feel too forced, but if you have a really good one -- go for it. For me, I mentioned why I went back to school for history, because I felt I had to explain this, & also thought it'd work doubly to show how personally committed I was. The rest was my experience doing research -- but really that was just a bridge to ask questions and present what I wanted to do in my next phase of research (which was somewhat of a departure, but not totally, from my former work). So I'm there, asking those questions -- but it's the questions that really matter the most.

Oh, and for anyone looking for less of a research and more of just an interest/summer read on Vietnam and protest -- check out They Marched Into Sunlight. It's great.

I mean geographically, and the built environment of the 'inner-city' more broadly. The '92 riots were absolutely their own unique event, but I was thinking of the Watts riots, and how they unfolded nearby to the places of the '92 riots; also south central, also 'inner city'. (Which is not to say that this area looked exactly the same between '65 & '92..., nor was it inhabited by the exact same groups). But just thinking about how most post-war US urban riots/insurrections happened in dense inner city spaces, in working class & immigration neighborhoods haunted by spatial segregation. I'm sure there are many arguments one can make as to why Los Angeles' landscape made the event particularly unique, but some also not so much. But while I'm thinking about: Though, I do think, problematically, the 'inner city' was not thought of as unique from city to city during this time. Riots were thought to be the almost expected product of these problematic urban spaces, these supposedly instable inner city spaces -- in all big cities that had them. So looking for the particular is good, to undo this narrative (though it doesn't mean similarities should be ignored). The Simi Valley bit is interesting though, and I feel like I have read something about how certain communities (in particular Korean-Americans) veered more conservative politically after the experience of the riots, and obviously space/geography plays a part in that. Anyhow, I'm sure the product of your research will be very interesting.

I second -- don't worry about the GRE *too* much. It's the least important thing to drive yourself into a tizzy over. My main piece of advice for the GRE though is to read through their guidelines (on the testing website) for the writing section. This part is graded very fast and they're just looking for certain things. They have a list of questions too; look them over and get a good feel of the subject areas they might ask about (education etc). Most schools know that the writing test doesn't reflect your abilities of a writer much (and they have other examples from you anyway), but it's first on the test so if you know what to expect, you're less likely to drive yourself into a panic that stays with you over the next three torturous test hours.

I've thought that the '92 riots would make for an excellent history for some time (but perhaps particularly because they stand out in my childhood memory so strongly). I'm just wondering if those urban spaces that it took place in were so particular, though, when included in a larger history of riot in the latter half of the 20th c. Something to think about.

I'd look at Nicosia's Home to War. Can't remember if there's anything in Christian Appy's Working-Class War about protest, specifically. But maybe.