Riotbeard

Sorry Sigaba. In hindsight, it was unintenionally harsh phrasing on my part and I genuinely apologize, but we fundamentally disagree on how to navigate the social world of academia. I just think you are making it seem like conferences are like some crazy, shakespearian affair. Just be a normal, nice, and social person and you will be fine. You don't need to read books on how to exist in academia. Also, if I were givin that advice going into my first year it would scare all the swagger out of me. You are right about a lot of things as far q & a. There is nothing wrong with saying I don't know. Just my 2 cents, but I think overpreparing to be a normal, social person could add a lot of unnecessary pressure to these situations. Most professors tell me that it when comes down job interviews and campus visits, people want someone who is both smart (everyone who makes campus visits is qualified and has relatively interesting projects) and they can imagine getting a beer with, or chatting with everyday for the next 30 years. Reading all these books seems like a recipe for becoming stiff.

I agree with cagefree and sigaba. Research experience is implied in activity, i.e. grants, presentations, and publications. Everyone with an MA has written a research paper, so to list them or explain you have taken research seminars is unnecessary. Most people do list their masters thesis (although eventually, this comes off your cv).

Wow... This is weird. I know a lot of ivy league graduate students. Most are normal people with a sense of humor and not crazy, plotting backstabber from the oldest wasp families. I am sure that is true of some, but not everyone. I doubt they read books on how to behave like white-bred creep before entering grad school. I also know a couple of ivy leagers who really lack swagger, which always blows my mind. Sure, already attending as your status is a bit presumptious, but you are excited and proud of where you are going, who cares? One thing that did ring true, you should have swagger and confidence. Fake it until you make it. So many academics are socially inept and being able to carry on a conversation and occasionally discuss things other than your work will go a long way at academic social events and about 50% of conferences is sitting around chatting with grad students. Networking is like chatting up a bird (Sorry for the ironic, british-english slang), the more you do it, the easier it gets.

I would say, in your first year, it could be good to present at a grad conference relatively close by (no need to spend a lot of money travelling to a grad conference IMO, they are fun and useful, but don't mean much on the cv). Most of these (outside of a few small seminars) are very low pressure, and it's a good way to get comfortable with the concept of presenting at a conference. In general, I would suggest presenting at a grad conference first, even if you wait till your second year. No one is going to bring up your performance at the 2015 windy city grad conference at a job talk. Presenting at grad conferences helped prepare me mentally for speaking before my peers and superiors at the AHA, etc. Other than that, once I got the monkey off my back, I have presented once a year. I am starting my fifth year, and now slowly moving towards having to thinkg about jobs (still have 2 more years of funding and am going to apply for year long fellowships again this year, come on 7 year plan), so I am going to present twice this year one at a big conference in one of my subfields, and another at a smaller seminar style conference. Next year, I am planning on presenting at a big subfield conference which lots of publishers attend. You will figure out quickly what the main conference is for your subfield(s) by getting to know your cohort.

Sorry for jumping on you a bit .

Why not ask for advice from one of the two faculty members who you think would be very willing to write you a letter. They know much better the politics and personalities of your department than anyone on this forum. This is my number 1 suggestion. Re: other people's unsolicited advice that you wait a year to apply. I don't see what it could hurt to throw in a few applications this year. Just don't beat yourself up if you don't get in the first time. That is what happened to me, and I learned a lot that helped me with my apps the second time around that I wouldn't have necessarily known otherwise.

Writing sample, LORs, and SOP are the most important things as long you hit the numerical cut offs for GPA and GRE. What type of publications are you talking about? Peer reviewed academic journal? In which case that could be HUGE. Undergrad academic journal, it would look good, but hardly be a determining factor IMO.

What do you study? Most of the writing fellowships I applied for this year were narrowly directed toward my research interests, i.e. early America, history of science, history of medicine. At least for history of science, there are a good couple in residence dissertation writing gigs, and I would imagine this is true for other fields. Question would be best directed towards people in your field...

I would say you go honest and start with your problem change and research and ask your adviser what he/she thinks is best, you should even propose transfer, but I wouldn't frame it as I want to transfer, so much how do we solve this problem. If you really can't complete a dissertation there, it should be too awkward...

Not sure, whether to mention it. Does your current deparmtent have a stand alone masters or only PhD student. You might not need to mention it if there are both masters and Ma/PhD students.

You will probably need to get a terminal MA from your current institution then apply as an MA student. I will say, that I have been in a similar situation (started doing history of medicine in a school with little to know faculty there, and an adviser to does religious history), and you can pull it off from your current institution. And not everyone in your current institution will necissarily be as excited about you transfering as you are. You do need to think carefully about how you handle the politics in your current institution because those are your letter writers.

I agree that comparative is going out of fashion, but all you need to do is tweak your methodology more towards a transnational approach. I suppose some people have traditionally had issues with contemporary history, but haven't heard any recent major historians critiqueing. Then again I do 19th C., so maybe I am not paying attenion to late 20th century historiographical issues so much.

I think late 20th century doesn't hurt you "legitmacy" and have never heard that before. I would also say with the popularity of transnational history, that your work looks beyond just the U.S. would only help you. That being said, late 20th century in general and post-war U.S. even more so is most competive, toughest job market, because so many people work in the field.

I know some of her students. Hadn't heard she was leaving, but I'd like to see who beats her out for the job.

A little bit later 19th c. but obvious, Stephen Hahn at Penn plus they have Stephanie McCurry (that's also a pretty nice department in my experience doing research in Philly). Walter Johnson and Vincent Brown at Harvard are both incredible scholars. There are good faculty at Emory, Rice, Tulane, and Vandy for history of slavery. Not 100%, but I am pretty sure William and Mary has some people for colonial stuff. I think Ira Berlin at Maryland no longer takes grad students, but it goes without saying, he is a leader in the field, thus worth at least looking into. I think IU Bloomington may have a few people. I am a big fan of Stephanie Smallwood's work, and she is at Univ. of Washington. Duke probably has some good people, but no one specifically is coming to mind.

Really depends. I have some Profs that I get drinks with whenever I am back in my college town, and keep up with via facebook. Others the occasional letter/ drop in their offices when I am back in town.

Child slavery very very little, as far as I know. I have a friend working on Childhood on the plantation (black and white), and from what I hear it is an absolute nightmare! Slave trade: Walter Johnson. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (a personal favorite book of mine) I think Johnson's new book also deals with this a lot too Edmund Drago. "Broke by the War": Letters of a Slave Trader Robert Gumestad. A Troublesome Commerce: The Transformation of the Interstate Slave Trade You might also be interested in articles about the Creole revolt. An interstate slaveship in which a mutiny resulted in the freedom of the slaves. Walter Johnson has an article on it called "white Lies" can't remember the subtitle. Johnson also edited a volume about the interstate trade called The Chattel Principle: Internal Slave Trades in the Americas. Searching Amazon with "Interstate slave trade" also yielded a lot of other books. Good luck.

Yes, my adviser does something very different from me overall. As a professor at a different university from my own told me, you will have many advisers throughout your career. Yes your departmental adviser is important, but they are not the only person whose help you will need. This was said as encouragement, since my work (history of Med) does not traditionally fit well in my department, although I have been able to compile a committee where each member's expertise is able to speak to a different field that my work fits into.

Ditto.

This. Gr8pumpkin's post seems to have nothing to do with fit, and more about teenage rebellion. Fit means being able to have a dissertation committee and hopefully a few grad students who you can discuss your work with. It also means having a department that broadly speaking supports the type of questions you are asking. Another type of fit has to do with culture of the department, in terms of personalities and social life. This is much harder to determine, and honestly has to do with luck of the draw. Do people like to drink? Are the students workaholics?

One thing about Temple, since you will be in Philly, you would also have opportunities to go to events and network at Penn. Temple also has a solid PhD program. On the other hand, for a stand alone MA en route to applying to PhD programs, saving money at SUNY isn't a terrible idea either. I don't know anything about Vermont.

Depends on where you go. That is why I said it depends on whether you have heavy service requirement. I only had to ta for one semester and teach courses for two out of five years of funding. I would agree that it's not great if you are a grader for four years to get funded. That is definitely less pleasant.

Agreed, Mean is a synonym for statistical average not median. For all the complaining, it is worth noting that people are talking about getting paid to go to school. It's different if you have heavy service, but to get paid over 20k a year to go to school is pretty sweet deal. Although a lot of grad progams that pay well below 15k...

I am confident there are both english departments and history departments that could accomidate your needs.

1. I think people should stop lampooning the guy for presenting advice that is broadly accurate and useful. Everyone should seriously consider, if this is what they want to do. For those of us deep into graduate programs, how many people do you know who should have seriously asked themselves this question. I know for me, it is more than one at multiple schools. This post is not inherently an attack on you if you are applying or in grad school, so no need to act like it is. 2. Being at the dissertation phase, I am very happy with my choice and have never liked what I am doing more, but I am not sure I would feel the same way at any program. In my opinion, one of the most important things is not ranking but funding schemes. By scheme, I don't mean just a number, but what service are you required to provide? Do you have to TA most of the time, do you have to work while doing dissertation research and writing? More than any single advantage, most elite programs allow you to actually work on a dissertation. My opinion is based on the fact that myself and other people in my cohort have gotten very prestigious grants in spite of not being from elite programs. 3. Why? Tulane is not an "elite" program, but it has elite funding. For the last 10 months I have been doing research in various locations (8 different cities, 3 months alone in philly), on mostly my tulane fellowship and a few small grants. I have also had enought time to apply for big grants and fellowships on the side, not having to TA or anything. This extra time has allowed me to get (hasn't started yet) a 15K research grant, and line up a dissertation writing fellowship for next year. When I write my dissertation it will be based on 14 months of ~40 hrs. a week in the archive, and since getting an additional year of fellowship, after finishing research, I have two years (I am a fourth year, so I still have another year of Tulane funding), where all I have to do is write, no service required. 4. Knowing people (really smart people) at programs with huge service requirements, the questions has to be asked, how can your 2-3 months of research compare with someone's year to year and a half of research? How much time will you have to devote to fellowship apps, etc. if you are working 20-30 on TAing and writing a dissertation? I met one person who had traveled approx. 6 weeks for his dissertation, the rest of his research had to be done at or near his home institution due to teaching requirements. These are probably the second most important questions. Will this program actually fund me to be a good, high functioning academic or are they looking for cheep labor? Can I write a good dissertation at this program, and do I have enough time to work on things like articles and big grants, that will separate my application from others? Also, it is true that most people have to post doc/visiting prof/adjunct for a year or two at least in order to get a job, it's the nature of the profession right now, although, while I wouldn't hold my breath, the baby boomer are supposedly, actually, finally retiring. Also, unless it's the only way you will be happy in academia, don't do 20th century U.S.