runaway

surprised nobody has posted this yet: http://www.autostraddle.com/tag/queer-girl-city-guide/

Thanks, annieca! I think part of my problem, too, is that the schools I'm looking at are all fairly similar. Same region, all fairly urban, places I know I would like to live. So it's hard to find 'dealbreakers' that make them easy to cross off my list with no regrets. And then there's one school that's not quite the profile I would like (suburban, small grad program, etc) but has the POI that's far and away the best fit for me. So that's frustrating too. Maybe I should just start working on the application and writing my SOP. It might be a good way to feel out whether I'm really enthusiastic about each school or if I'm just trying to make myself sound like a good fit because the school seems like the right place for me on paper...

Hey everyone-- haven't posted for a while, but I'm (finally!) getting into the swing of checking things off my application-to-do list. First up: narrowing down my list of schools, and deciding whether I'll be applying to Art History or History programs (although likely a mixture of both.) After going over all the logical things (fit, POI, location, etc) I have found myself starting to make ridiculous pro/con lists that include everything from funding opportunities to my opinion of the mascots. My list is still far too long. Any advice?

As a Latina immersed in Central/Eastern European/Jewish history, I can vouch for that. The only surprise I ever get is, occasionally, "Oh wait... you're not Jewish?"

I've been taking mental notes of what books friends in my field have read for quals and have started looking out for them cheap/used. Also, I get anything available on Kindle. Being able to search through notes and highlights is pretty much the best thing ever.

@hbeels: thanks! I guess it bothers me because I don't see applying for PhD programs as applying for school as much as applying for a long-term job... one that I'll love for all the reasons you described. One reason I've always valued this particular friendship is that she's very in-the-moment, whereas I'm quite the opposite. She's always helped me keep perspective on things. And I've always admired that in all her choices she's stayed very true to herself and her free-spirit nature. It's an awkward subject to bring up, but maybe I should figure out a way to tell her. I'd hate to be the kind of person (read: elitist b*tch) who can't sustain friendships with non-grad school people.

Thanks Safferz! That makes me feel a lot better, especially knowing your record. I guess a part of me is worried that the 4 was below some cutoff, given the percentile, at least. But I had a lot of trouble preparing for that section of the GRE and definitely wouldn't look forward to doing it again. I just can't revert back to writing 5 paragraph essays.

I was catching up with an old friend of mine who never finished her BA and told her how I was planning on applying to PhDs. She made a flippant remark about how I'm a "career student" and... well, it stung more than I expected. I always supported her even when we made radically different educational choices, and I guess I expected that same kind of encouragement back. Anyone else experience something similar? How do you respond? :/

@unforth Hell yeah, Mets! I was at Citi at least once or twice a week last season... maybe we crossed paths at some point I keep going back and forth on whether to take the GRE again. I broke 700 in both sections (old GRE) so those scores are fine, but I only got a 4 on analytical. I know my writing sample can make up for that, but I'm already worried as it is about my writing sample being good enough! Maybe re-taking the GRE would be worth it just for confidence's sake?

A lot of these programs (like Zotero and Evernote) are free! Papers2 is reasonable w/ the student discount-- I think it's $30?

annieca, we're in similar shoes. I'll be in England when I submit my applications this fall. I've decided that I'm going to complete as much as I can of them, knowing that at this point, everything but my SOP and CV will be static. I'll get my CV as ready as possible and make minor changes as needed before I submit close to the deadline. My SOP... well, I'm planning to have a very good draft that I'll have to take time to shape once I'm a couple months into my MA program. As for POI, I'm planning to draft emails and send them in September. At first I was trying to figure out a complicated way to be available back in the States to meet with people and then realized it was just impossible. Email and Skype will hopefully serve me well through this process...

I have a convoluted system that's evolved over the years and will probably change when I start school again in the fall. I actually haven't tried Mendeley, but I use both Papers2 and Zotero. Papers2 I use for organizing and reading articles in PDF form. Zotero I mostly use to keep track of non-PDF web sources, like newspaper articles, that I want to come back and read later or have bookmarked for reference. I'm a huge fan of Papers2 and the organization structure. I tend to have separate folders for each project I'm working one, another for theory and other articles I tend to reference frequently, and now one for POI whose work I'd like to read. My favorite tool, though, is Evernote, which I use for pretty much everything, both academic and non-academic. I love it for outlining and brainstorming on the go (via my iphone) because everything is already back and waiting for me on my computer. It's also how I keep track of book recommendations, names of professors, or anything else that someone mentions in passing that I want to go back and look up later. I've started buying a lot of books on Kindle, not only because they're usually cheaper, but also because the Kindle for Mac app is so great. It does a good job of organizing your notes and highlights, and I love that when you copy and paste a quotation, it automatically adds in a citation. I've heard great things about DevonThink from other historians, but I haven't actually tried it yet.

I'm tempted to start a theory/canon airing of grievances thread. It seems like we could use it.

Czech! I'm in Prague right now, and was amazed at how helpful my Polish was. Czech will definitely open you up to learning Polish and Russian more easily in the future. Hungarian is not linguistically related to any other language in the region, so it might not be the best first language to tackle. Romanian would probably be the easiest for you, though.

SToF -- I agree with TMP. There are several people off the top of my head whose work I loved once but who I now think about quite differently. You never know how your own thinking will evolve, and it would suck to suddenly be less enamored of the most significant reason you picked a program. And if not, it sounds like you've already been in touch with that POI, so they can still be a resource down the line, right?

I'm also planning on Yiddish eventually (after German and Hebrew, probably)... have you looked into which program you might do, kotov?

German annieca Spanish annieca French Hebrew uhohlemonster Italian Latin Greek Russian Polish runaway annieca-- I would start learning a Slavic language if you can. The grammar has quite a learning curve but getting the hang of one will make others much easier in the future, if you realize you need them. Romanian, at least, is a romance language, and shouldn't be too much trouble for you down the line if you already know Spanish! (Comparatively speaking, of course.)

I probably should have been clearer since that's what I meant by 'doing research as fellows'-- but since we gave essentially the same answer it's reassuring to myself that I'm not giving bad advice

oh wow, I didn't know LinkedIn could do that! very cool.

If that's your attitude towards art outside your preferred time period, you'll have a ball when it comes time for Quals. I'd stay away from CUNY.

@mattmcg: I'll PM since I don't want to further hijack this thread, but I don't mind continuing the conversation. I posted the FT article because it puts nicely why the debate we're having now is ongoing. Sure Berger is outdated, but there's a reason he's still taught in undergrad-- both for theoretical and historiographical reasons. @crossedfingerscrossedeyes Now if only that would do for my SOP!

1) It's Untitled (Perfect Lovers), which isn't exactly an obscure work of art. 2) You characterized a large group of females as naive, passive, undriven, and lacking self-actualization. To make such a blanket statement is inherently misogynistic. 3) It's incorrect to say that a Freudian reading is not far from a phrenological one. See, for instance, the many recent applications of his unheimlich. It's one thing to disagree with this application of theory, but your statement is untrue. 4) As an aside: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/928cc6cc-78bf-11e1-9f49-00144feab49a.html#axzz1r6a6i2eq (Fun fact: The National Gallery sells a postcard of the exact crop of Botticelli's Venus and Mars that Berger makes in Ways of Seeing.)

Sure there's bad scholarship; that exists in every sub-field. There's also some very good scholarship. Your offhand dismissal of a large body of work is rash and irresponsible, especially given your snide misogyny in reply #4 and your own admission that your experience is very narrow. My user icon is Felix Gonzalez-Torres, so that's quite a hint as to my research interests. But then, I suppose it's bold to make assumptions about others' deductive reasoning. I hate to hijack a thread with very good intentions and purpose, so perhaps it's a good point to go to DM if you'd like to continue this conversation. My apologies to others.

Aha, clever, that subtle insult to my intelligence behind the mask of anonymity! I use the plural 'histories' because it's accurate; the very basis of the subfield resists the singular canonical history that has predominated for so long. For my part, my classes were predominately female because I attended a woman's college. I don't know a single student who majored in art history because it was easy-- instead, the major was quite small and weeded out all but the most dedicated after a couple 200-level classes. Of those not continuing to graduate school, I know my program placed quite a few recent graduates in jobs at major New York museums and art institutions. My significant other also happened to be an art history major at my college, but believe me, a MRS degree was the very last thing on my mind when I chose my major. My motivation for pursuing a PhD is, simply, that I can't imagine doing anything else. I am happier in a museum than in any other place on earth. I have specific research interests that deserve examination and the interest and drive to do the work. And art always interested me more than physics, although I do admire the work of a dear friend who's currently in the midst of her physics PhD program.

I am going to take a wild guess and posit that your forte is not gendered histories of art.