history110

Thank you so much, I will check it out!

1) Unfortunately, there is no formula for a good intro paragraph. I am not good with first paragraphs, so when I applied I used this annotated sample from Berkeley. Notice that the first paragraph does not linger on the author "passion" for history. If you are applying for grad school, we can agree you are passionate about it  .
2) I think you should mention your job as formative to your research experience and research questions. Remember the SOP is an argumentative essay, so use your job as evidence to support your argument (that you have interesting questions and you have the potential of becoming a great scholar). 
3) Anyone who is saying they know, they are lying. Nobody knows. We barely knows what's happening in the Fall (and we are preparing multiple scenarios). 

Are there any other incoming international students who were informed by your departments that classes would be 100% online for the fall?
if so, did they comment on how that would affect eligibility for a student visa since DHS regulations limit the number of online credits a student can take to maintain visa eligibility?

Someone complimented me on my jumpsuit today.

Ditto to @Sigaba's points about TA responsibilities.  Since TAing for online classes actually involved MORE work than in-person, do your due diligence to keep track of your active hours so you are not going beyond the maximum time limit (generally 20 hr/week for 50%/.5 appointmnt)

If your program is going to be on line, and especially if you're gong to be teaching, I very strongly recommend that you ask your department in writing for policy on how to use technology. The policy should have enough "how to," "do-s", and "do nots" that allow you as end users to protect your risk. IMO, the policy should answer questions including:
What are a T.A.'s responsibilities as a T.A. if a student does not have access to Zoom? What may T.A.'s do if a student broadcasts from his or her residence wearing controversial items of clothing, or displaying firearms, or is disruptive? Ideally, the policy will include measures for you to be reimbursed for license fees if not also network access and technology. (It's my position that departments should subsidize fully professional accounts that T.A.'s use and mandate that all section meetings be recorded., and that T.A.s be issued equipment that belongs to the school.)
I understand and share some of your frustration. I do ask that you understand that many academic institutions are realizing how dependent they are on revenue generated by people being on campus and the revenue generated by taxes on a municipal, county, and state level. In some cases, institutions may be deciding that they simply do not have a choice -- either open campus or start firing people as a broader plan of shutting down entire programs and departments.

My university is online for grad programs and "hybrid" for undergrad--although every course that is offered on campus must be made available online if a student requests it. I'm ABD so I'm not worrying about classes, but I'm grateful for an active dissertation writing group that meets virtually on Mondays. We do Slack text check-ins on Friday. This has provided the pandemic with some sense of normalcy. Our HGSA is active and keeps planning virtual movie nights or Zoom happy hours, which is nice. I'll be teacher of record for the first time ever this fall--so, not ideal time to get my own classroom, but excited to have final say over ethical decisions related to COVID in my classroom instead of having to run it up the TA food chain. I'd definitely suggest trying some Zoom events for fun instead of just for work! Makes a world of difference.

My uni still hasn't made a decision. The grapevines are saying that we will be hybrid, but all graduate students will be expected to come to campus at least once a week. This whole situation is a mess and is not getting better any time soon. Yet, unis are pretending it is over for the sake of money. *sigh*

Haven't heard anything official but it sounds like some might be 100% online while others could be hybrid. 

I'm jealous that your university has gone online.  Trust me, you do not want to be on campus with thousands of undergrads who will not let COVID19 stop them from socializing and partying. As a friend puts it, campuses are petri dishes.
There is no harm in emailing grad students and faculty for a Zoom coffee chat  You will also see who else is attending Zoom events in your department and try to build conversations from those points.

Hi! I was accepted to both and ended up choosing UBC -- it was a difficult decision, both seemed really great. 

Have you been accepted to UBC or SFU? They are both great programs, but they differ when it comes to cohort size of course.

Hi all,
I'm graduating from a MFA program in Architectural History next year (spring 2021) and have been seriously considering applying to PhD history programs, most likely for admission in fall 2021. I'm an older student (late 30s) and my career has been focused in architectural history up to this point. I love research and writing, and have done a significant amount of it in my career, but I've lost my interest in the built environment. I've always been an amateur social and cultural historian and want to focus on that in a professional capacity. It seems that going on for my PhD is a means of achieving that. I do have a strong desire to educate; I'm very into public history (researched and developed my own historic walking tour, started a history podcast, etc.) as I feel it is integral to making a traditionally stuffy topic more accessible to the general public. To that end, I'm flexible about how my future career takes shape. I understand that history teaching positions are drying up, so I would be equally happy in a museum setting.
I'd like my primary field to be women's history (late 19th and early 20th century America and Britain), with secondary fields in social and cultural history (American, British, European). Primarily, I've been looking at schools with women's history faculty. I have a running list of programs and the professors that I would want to work with, and general idea of the requirements. But am I wrong to assume that getting into a top 25 program is an absolute necessity for obtaining a teaching job (if I were to pursue that route)? I've been using US News' list of top history PhD programs to do my research--is that list valid? Right now, my top choices are Johns Hopkins (my professor "spirit animal" is there) and UNC-Chapel Hill (all around strong women's history program). I know University of Wisconsin is known for its women's history program, but I have been a little reticent about that due to the location. I'm on the east coast would prefer to stay there or at least be able to fly back and forth regularly. Are there other programs I should be considering?
Now that I've read some threads on here, I'm definitely more nervous about applying. The only way for me to do this is to be fully funded (tuition waiver and stipend). My undergrad GPA was 3.45 (3.8 major), which I thought was good, until I read on here that it might not be? So far, my GPA in my masters program is 4.0. I should note that the school that I'm doing my MFA at is an arts school that is well regarded...but it's an arts school. I haven't taken the GRE yet (it wasn't required for admission for my MFA) and I'm terrified. Honestly, I'm a terrible test taker and know that my math scores will stink because there is a giant black hole in my brain where anything beyond basic math skills should be. My verbal should be good. I hope to take and pass the reading exam for French before applying. I've presented a paper at one conference and am applying for others--will that help my application? Any other suggestions for ways to improve my chances at acceptance? Do I need to start reaching out to the professors that I would like to work with? It seems that gaining their favor also improves acceptance chances?
I feel like I'm very prepared for all this but then some days, I feel like I've got a blindfold on. Any advice and/or suggestions are appreciated.
 

No. Because the toes stepped on have to respect the hell out of my work and my prominent external recognition. 
Maybe my perspective is based on being a WOC, who learned very quickly that the institution of academia regularly grinds out POC. Not to mention that I would not have the CV I have without these core values being at the forefront of my work and experience. 
I'm curious about what two ways of transformation you mean. Personality wise? Public speaking? Writing skills? Or is it just intellectual?

I must admit that I steamrolled over my department culture to get my way on the topic of alt-ac training. Have I stepped on toes? Hell yes. But the pros of taking care of myself and connecting with people inside and outside of academia who valued the type of work I value outweighed the cons of diminishing myself to jump through hoops that have only wzbeen maintained by "tradition." 
I also was very explicit in my personal statements about how vital my work experience has been to my scholarship. Mostly because I was naive about the resistance to PhD students who are ambivalent about academia haha! The coronavirus pandemic may make graduate admissions tighten their belts against "ambivalent" students or it may be more eager to accept students who aren't dead set on a tenure track faculty position. Either way, it's always better to be yourself and to go into this knowing what you want out of the experience. 

@gsc you've made excellent points. I agree, the structure of programs and the academy more generally is such that it disincentivizes preparing for a non-academic career. It's frankly the biggest struggle I've had when it comes to going back.
@Sigaba, I hadn't thought about the finance angle of things. I'll have to see if I could fit that in, should I choose to return.

The sad fact is that even when faculty want to support you, the structure of the graduate program is not flexible enough to handle students who want to take time to develop non-academic career skills and pursue internships in their field.
Faculty may sincerely want to help you achieve your professional goals outside of academia, but they probably will not be able to help you, and, in my experience, even dedicated "alt-ac" career officers (for those lucky enough to have them) will be unable to help you with many specific non-academic career interests. So if you're planning on taking six years out of your life to pursue a career outside of academia, I would do so feeling relatively confident about what you need to do to get there, and knowing that you will be allowed to take those steps, and when you will be allowed to take them. I would imagine that contacting alumni who recently did this is a must.
And all of this is assuming these jobs will be available in the medium term.

This can be a real balancing act to pull off. I’ve been ambivalent about academia since I started and tried to straddle both worlds— I’ve fit a couple internships and a very part time (quarter-time?) research assistant/ public history position into my time so far, and my advisor has been very supportive, but in general, I’ve found it difficult to acquire the non-academic work experiences and preparation that I wanted when I entered the program.
In my experience, when you come into a graduate program, there are expectations and claims about how you will spend your time and what the bulk of your energy will go towards: these are dictated by your funding package, by the structure of the program itself, by your advisor and committee, and by the general culture of the program. I think you have to be very forceful, persistent, and organized if you want to override these various claims on your time to do something else (like an internship, or a part-time gig), keeping in mind, too, that some of them (like teaching) can’t really be helped. 
The structure of graduate education often militates against the kinds of things that grad students are often advised to do to prepare for non-academic careers. For example, during the semester, a heavy teaching load will make it difficult to squeeze in a part-time gig and do your coursework or write (which you’ll need to do to finish the program). Summers are incredibly valuable currency and there will be no end of things competing for your time during them: preliminary research to help you figure out what your dissertation should be on, time spent studying for comps, time spent preparing stuff for publication, time spent doing dissertation research, time spent writing dissertation chapters, time spent teaching (you likely won’t get paid in summers, so summer teaching is an important financial lifeline, too). And of course during all this the clock is ticking on your funding package (not to mention, you know, the rest of your life— being a grad student gets old quickly.) So you have to choose wisely, and plan ahead, and think carefully about what you want to prioritize.
I ended up fitting my work experience into semesters where I was not teaching and had already finished my research, or was too early in the program to actually have diss research to do. I was fortunate to have some of these semesters built into my funding package and in other cases I made some of my own: this year I applied for a TAship with a 2-0 teaching load, which made for a busy fall semester and a spring semester free to do a 15 hr/week internship. You might see if you can create these opportunities for yourself during your program: external fellowships, alternative graduate assistantships that aren’t teaching (e.g., working in the campus writing center, or processing manuscripts at the library). (Ask prospective programs about these during accepted student days!)
Also, speaking of visit days, my undergraduate advisors told me to keep mum about my ambivalence towards the academy during prospective visits. This was well-intentioned advice, and there are still advisors and whole programs out there who have not gotten on the alt-ac bandwagon. But in retrospect I might have benefitted from asking my potential advisors up front about whether or not preparing for non-academic careers was something they’d be willing to work with me on, taking the attitude that if it wasn’t, they weren’t going to be a good fit for me anyways. I think in the past five years, and especially with coronavirus, the landscape has changed enough that you can and should freely ask this question. You really, really don’t want to arrive at your program and realize that it’s not going to be supportive of what you need and want.

This.  I was inducted in my final semester of undergrad.  I thought it was something just to put on my CV, which my advisor told me to do for grad schools.  Once I got more awards/fellowships, I took it off since it seemed that a lot of history majors who went into History PhD programs were inducted into PAT.

As @ashiepoo72 and @starshiphistory have pointed out, there are diminishing returns for joining the society as an already admitted PhD student. I want to be part of societies and organizations that I can contribute to, not just passively participate in by holding a membership, and from what I can glean, participation would have been beneficial in undergrad. I thank you for your insight and will take your comments into consideration.

Thank you for your response! I considered asking my advisors if I should join because the questions you brought up are definitely worth considering. And you're right, I'm not trying to pad my CV, I'm trying to determine if this will help with my growth as a historian not just to have a membership to list.
Thank you so much for your reply! Your last sentence also confirms what my friend said: he was an active member in his undergrad and throughout his PhD and he was able to attend the regional conferences held by our alma mater, but that was the extent of it. I think if I had been asked to join during my undergraduate career I may have considered it more seriously, but from the sounds of it, I think I'm going to pass on this one and actually invest in becoming a member in a society that's tied to my subfield (this advice is per my friend).

I did it in undergrad. I was the president for two years -- which was mostly due to me and one other (who became the VP) showing up to the recruitment meeting! We were a pretty small chapter -- the actual membership at my university was fairly robust, but the people that showed up to meetings was a much smaller number. I enjoyed it - I gained leadership and public speaking skills, skills in organizing events, and got to know more the faculty members through event organizing. The events we put on were faculty panels, workshops, networking/mingling events (such as cider and donuts at the department lounge) and field trips to local archives, museums and so on.
I enjoyed the conferences and our faculty adviser would always really seriously edit our conference papers so that was always valuable. I also got the chance to go the National Conference as well as the local ones. The department always found funding for traveling to these conferences. In general, the undergrads were more involved than the grad students because they were so busy with TAing and other duties. My own grad school doesn't have a chapter, they have a history graduate student society instead. I'll probably join that for networking and getting to know my fellow students. 
I think it does really depend on what you gain from it -- if the chapter isn't at all active, that has much less benefit-  you're basically paying for the ability to submit journal articles and apply for scholarships (helpful, but not hugely). I suppose it might be worth asking if there is funding to send you to conferences despite there being no active chapter and asking in general what benefits students at your uni get from it.  
To summarize, it was great for an undergrad, but I can't really say if it would be helpful or not for a grad student. Let me know if you have specific questions because I was pretty immersed in it for two years!

I wouldn't have joined Phi Alpha Theta as a PhD student, but I did as an MA student after a very mediocre BA career. I figured being part of an honors society would help me find a more serious community of students, form a writing group and have a support network on a campus where I knew no one. I enjoyed my time with PAT and still talk to many people I met through it. Don't join because you think it'll make a difference on your CV--it won't. Most people remove PAT from their CV once they start receiving awards and honors at the PhD level. @starshiphistory is spot on: PAT's worth depends on how active the chapter is. Do they put together workshops for writing and presenting at conferences? Invite guest speakers? Do fun things together (movie night was my fave)? How involved are the mentors/professors?
Btw, PAT offers small grants to members who are pursuing a PhD. I haven't applied for one, but I like knowing it's an option if I ever need to.

Is it worth it for what?
I'm a foreigner, so of course I didn't come with any knowledge of what Honor Societies are or what they are for. I don't know anyone in my graduate program who was part of it (even though they all came from ranked programs). I got a TT job.* My friends got TT jobs. 
My understanding is that Honor Societies foster community building and networking. Just to be clear, networking is a very fundamental part of our profession. So, if you feel that you could benefit from a network, I'd take that chance. If you had to choose between PAT and a professional organization, I'd choose the latter.
 
[* that said, because I came to the US with absolutely NO network, I had to work hard to build one --being very active in big conferences, attending events and mingling, being active on Twitter, etc.]

Hello everyone,
I've recently been invited to join Phi Alpha Theta, the National Honor Society in History. I was sent an email from the faculty advisor of my alma mater and I'm curious if it's worth joining. I've been invited to join Honor Societies before, but I didn't know that one existed for the field of History, and I'm curious what benefits come from being a member. I've read the website, but I can't seem to find any definitive opinions on it, though there are some wishy-washy answers.
Thank you for your help!