Tigla

What is your region/theme (other than power relations) that you want to study? What is your time frame? How do you want to study power relations? Do you have a specific area that you want to focus on, such as the global economy, the household, political movements, ideas and their "spread," and many more? If you give us a bit more info, then we can help you narrow your search further.

I studied at FU and can speak a bit about the university. For starters, grades are the determinant factor in the German system. You will not get the chance to elaborate or explain parts of your application. This is great for students who have the grades that many Ivy and top-tier applicants, but lack the name recognition that is almost required in the American system. Beyond the application, you need to be extremely careful with applying to an English language program at a German university without B2 or C1 German skills. The program might sell itself as an English only degree, but the reality is vastly different. Most programs at FU and HU require some knowledge of German to complete the degree, especially if you study anything other than American or British topics.

Welcome to the age old dilemma with graduate studies and academia. My fiancee and I have had these discussions for a couple years from now and remain a tense point in our relationship. These discussions will only become harder because life does not wait for academia, but academia seems to think it does (from my jaded point of view). Honesty with everyone - advisers, colleagues, friends, family, and significant others - is the best option, which may lead to heated, but necessary, discussions/fights. I went through 3 cycles before being accepted and had these discussions ongoing over the past couple of years. As @AtlasFox has already said, you are limiting yourself for the worse and this needs to be said to your SO. They need to know that your future has been jeopardized by their requests. If everything goes according to plan, talking with your SO will foster understanding and acceptance about your graduate studies and future career which will only strengthen your relationship. If you want, I'm willing to talk about specifics in PM. I don't want to air private laundry on the public board.

Establishing a website with a blog and a supportive and diverse group of graduate students and young scholars is the first idea that pops into my head. This would require a lot of upfront work, but gives you the opportunity to spread the workload and get different opinions on specific questions and worries.

Hi all. I hope we all are enjoying the summer a bit before the new semester/year kicks off. I have a quick question about storing articles for future reading. I use Zotero, OneNote, Microsoft Word, Listary, and OneDrive to keep my digital library, notes, and papers in order. The issue I am coming across is my god awful "to be read" folder and document. If I find an article or book chapter that I want to read later, I download it, name it, and file it in my "to be read" folder. Then, I add it to an excel spreadsheet with all the other pieces I need to read. This system is not working for me because I tend to lose track of where I am in my "to be read" section and sometimes it does not correspond to my "to be read" folder. How do you sort, file, and maintain your "to be read" pieces?

I would contact the programs and ask them directly. They will be able to tell you whether they will accept them or not. For your reference, here is what the ETS FAQ section says: For tests taken on or after July 1, 2016, scores are reportable for five years following your test date. For example, scores for a test taken on July 3, 2018, are reportable through July 2, 2023. For tests taken prior to July 1, 2016, scores are reportable for five years following the testing year in which you tested (July 1–June 30). For example, scores for a test taken on May 15, 2016, are reportable through June 30, 2021. GRE scores earned prior to July 2013 are no longer reportable. GRE scores earned in July 2013 are reportable until June 30, 2019. Note: It takes approximately five business days to process requests to send GRE scores. If you plan to send scores and the date at which your scores are no longer reportable is approaching, allow enough time for processing or your scores may not be sent.

I had to fail a student today after months of trying to motivate them to do their work and engage with the class material. I know it's their fault for not doing the work, but it still feels like you failed them as a teacher. That feeling can jump off a bridge!

I lived in Berlin for 2 years while completing my MA and frequently visited Vienna to meet friends and colleagues. Both cities are amazing and allow you to be whoever you want. I focused on the books and missed a lot both cities have to offer. There are a lot of impromptu performances by local bands, operas, and musicals that occur in both places. I "enjoyed" Berlin's public transport system more than Vienna's because Berlin's system allowed you to reach any corner of the city while Vienna's system has some gaps in it. Both are dated and need updating, but that is the case in every city I visited in Europe. Like most capitals in Europe, both cities are experiencing a rather quick increase in the cost of living. Rent in Berlin is by far the quickest expense that is increasing and you are receiving less and less for the rent. Meanwhile, Vienna is expensive in general, but I found going out to be the most expensive. A cup of coffee in the city would normally cost about 2-3 euros, but do not be shocked if you see 4 euro cups being sold. Despite these issues, both are great places to live once you get into the groove of a program and city. I suggest learning German if you want to really integrate (at least passable bar talk German until the drunk German or Austrian switches to English to practice) and make the most out of both places. Best of luck with your studies and feel free to PM me if you have specific questions!

Just to further expand on SIgaba's great advice about housing and renting. I built homes in my teen years with my family and cannot emphasize the importance of checking pipes, electric outlets, and signs for termites/ants/insects. These three problems caused me the most headaches because the issue could be a one day fix or several weeks to month-long fix. If you have a piping issue, it could be something as simple as opening the trap and removing a bunch of hair from it (I'm looking at the women and super hairy men here) or it could be something as severe as a cracked pipe buried deep in the guts, which could force you to leave the unit for months. If you open the pipes and hear a rattling sound, immediately ask the landlord how long the water was shut off to the apartment. 9 times out of 10, the sound is merely air being forced out of the pipes, but it could also be a much worse/hidden problem. If you live in the Northern US, make sure to ask the landlord if the pipes ever froze shut. Today, most homes never experience their pipes freezing, but it can happen frequently to older homes, which may lead to problems down the road. As for electric outlets, make sure they are flush to the wall, secured in the wall (or to the wall, depends on the type of outlet), and the cover is not damaged. If the cover is damaged, ask to see the outlet itself to ensure that it is only a broken cover and not a broken outlet. Broken outlets can easily start fires for any reason, a simple surge could spark the carpeting, wooden framing, or the drywall. The last thing you need to know, this might be more of a post-move-in thing, is the layout of the house and the location of breakers according to the rooms. Overloading and causing a breaker to trip is normal and not a problem, but can become one if you do it on a regular basis. Termites/ants/insects are the worst problem, in my opinion. Here are the signs of termites. If there are any insects, leave immediately. You do not know if the insects just arrived or have been there for several years. If they have been around for years, then you can bet there is structural damage to some parts of the area they are in, mainly doors, windows, and wooden framing. Sure, you can fix the problem, but remember, you are renting, not rent-to-own or owning. I don't mean to scare anyone into not renting, but you need to be informed when renting. The rights of renters vary greatly across the US and you need to know everything about a potential space before signing your name. The absolute last thing someone needs in the middle of graduate school is a major problem with their home and no means of recourse because you did not point it out to the landlord before signing the contract.

It may seem like I am beating around your question, but the truth is that there is no direct answer to your question. Some years, the committee will look for awards while other years they will emphasize research and related experiences. I did not win any awards and did not write a senior thesis, but I was still accepted into an MA program in Germany. If you are going to be applying to an MSt program and hoping to transition to an MPhil, then you will still need to check boxes that are not written on their website, which is why I dived into languages, theories, and subfields.

Grades don't mean squat once start applying and get into graduate school. Yes, they are important initial checks that applicants need to fulfill, but there is so much more to the process than grades. You check a lot of the boxes for acceptance, but there are a ton of unwritten/invisible boxes that you also need to check. It took me three cycles to learn that and I wish I had done so sooner. I'm not an expert on the transition from Early Modern to Modern history, but I would presume that you will need at least French, if not also German, to create a solid Ph.D. dissertation that lands you on your feet in the job market. @psstein and @telkanuru might be able to help you more with that aspect. As for the theories and historiography, you need to show knowledge of the field. From your brief description, it sounds like you will need to dive into theories of the state and state formation quite a bit. From there, you will need to choose subfields that interest you and read up on them. Historians no longer research on a topic and only teach within that topic. We must be able to sell ourselves to a wider audience than before, even more so if you get a degree from outside the USA. You will need to branch yourself out from the political and legal word to include other fields. Global history, the Atlantic world, ocean histories, empire and power, and even intellectual history are all aspects that could fit well with your interests. This is how you start checking those unofficial boxes (there will only be more if you do pursue a degree in the UK).

Ummm...okay, that leaves most of the field wide open. What is your time frame and region of the world? What subfields do you envision yourself fitting within? How does your work relate to the field in general? What theories do you subscribe to/use in your research? Do you have the necessary language skills to perform your research and engage with secondary literature?

I don't take notes in seminar discussions. Instead, I mark up the given articles or books that we are discussing. I'd assume this can be done by printing them out and using a pencil, but it'll be slower and not searchable. I found having digital copies available with my annotations helped me more in seminar discussions than good old fashion paper and pencil.

I have a quick question about housing. I found an apartment in Ypsilanti for August 1. I held the apartment and I'm waiting on the landlord to send me the rental contract, so I'm starting to get a bit nervous about not having a place come August. How easy is it to find housing in Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti in July for an August move in date?

I'm planning on using my first summer to improve my foreign languages, do a bit of relaxing with family visits, and planning research trips for year 2 and 3. Luckily, I have summer funding in addition to my stipend so I can afford to do a bit more my first summer. I think it comes down your workload and what you want to accomplish outside of the chaos of the semester.

@maxhgns, @PaulaHsiuling, and @MoynihanBreakerBurkina I have taken all of your advice and have steadily worked to try and improve the piece while also ignoring some of the harsher comments. After reading through it another time (I don't know what number I'm on), the reviewer does have valid points of criticism, but I still stand by my original statement that some are completely out of line for academia (my idealized version at least). Regardless, I learned to thicken my skin and prepare for the brutality of the peer review process.

I have used the camera on my smartphone for most of my pictures and the photocopying service of the archive for documents that I could not get a good picture with my phone. I also second telkanuru's advice about reading up on all of the archive's rules. I misread a paragraph about the use of phone cameras for one archive and broke a German copyright law from the 1970s. I ended up apologizing and paying the fee I missed, but I could have saved myself and the archivist a headache if I read the rules a second time and then disclosed the photos on my phone.

Yes, but with a bit more oomph. Some 2-in-1s are starting to have specs that are similar to typical clamshells, which is why I am debating buying one. Having the ability to type a paper on a keyboard, read articles/papers/books on a 13/15-inch screen, and switch to a tablet for annotations, note-taking, or traveling draws my interest. In general, do your departments offer discounts or additional funding for the purchase of laptops/tablets for research and writing? I found my department will offer candidates a small amount of money to replace old laptops as long as you buy a university approved laptop and can show a need for a new laptop (no clue what this exactly entails, but its there).

I'm currently looking for a new laptop to replace my oldish laptop (2 years). I abused my laptop during my MA and it needs to be replaced before I begin my PhD this August. At the moment, I'm debating between a classic clamshell, 2-in-1s, and a Chromebook. After googling, it seems like a lot of discussion focuses on the sciences and art/design fields. So, what kind of laptops are current graduate students, postdocs, and professors using in history programs? Personally, I am leaning towards a 2-in-1 laptop. I have a custom built desktop at home, which I will be upgrading come November. It does everything I could feasibly want a computer to do, so the laptop I purchase will be for library sessions, office work on campus, archival trips, and general browsing while not at home. After reading a ton of reviews on Chromebooks, I feel like one would not adequately support a young academic, especially when WIFI is not accessible or painfully slow. Lastly, a clamshell laptop tends to be heavier and more costly than a 2-in-1 laptop without a significant increase in efficiency and power. While a 2-in-1 has its own issues, I think they might provide the versatility, price effectiveness, and longevity I'm looking for at the moment.

Vienna is a beautiful city and in a great spot travel within Europe. Also, I know a couple of the PhD students at CEU if you ever consider doing a PhD there or just want to meet other graduate students. Best of luck with your MA!

You are better looking outside of AA. I found a few apartments in Ypsilanti that meet your requirements. You need to be willing to take public transit, which is not bad in comparison to the rest of the US.

I'm in the middle of turning my MA thesis into an article and have received feedback from a journal that is blind reviewed. The editor was extremely kind and helpful with some general advice on how to improve my paper. As for the comments from my blind reviewer, well... they were nasty and not helpful at all. While I can understand some of the theory and framing comments, there were a handful of comments that questioned my intelligence and commitment to my work. I figured that I still had quite a bit of work ahead, but I wasn't expecting to be told to go pound rocks. Without going into them, how does one handle these type of comments? How do you try to improve your work and stay motivated? Do you move your article to another journal without making some changes?

@TMP and @psstein have been hammering the writing aspect pretty hard for a very good reason. We need to uphold our end of the contract (TAing, exams, research, etc.) and the university needs to uphold their end, too. I also recommend reading the fine print in both your funding letter and acceptance letter. You will learn how the funding will change according to a change in tuition, and even how/why your funding may be pulled - plus a boatload of other small, but important facts about your program and contract. The fine print will be in legal terms, but read it and take it to heart. For example, I learned that my funding will be adjusted to inflation only if the annual inflation rate jumps over 3.5%, which it has not done in almost 40 years. Anything below 3.5% is considered as a big old LOL. So, my funding seems like it increases every year, but that is highly dependent on the state of the economy, not my overall progression through the degree.

Honestly, no. You have a PhD offer and they are extremely hard to come by. Even if you complete a highly competitive and prestigious MA, you could still not receive a PhD offer because POIs move, lack of funding, cutting down the size of cohorts, etc. Your current offer may not be from a crème de le crème school, but you have 7 years to mold your research interests and skills, network at conferences, teach your own lectures, go on research trips to different countries, and so on. Instead of going backwards on a maybe, I suggest that you go forward and make the best of your PhD offer.

I accepted my Michigan offer today and withdrew my application from NYU. Michigan's offer is too good to turn down in my opinion. With my name off the wait list, hopefully, someone from here will get that acceptance.