Henry Hudson

I have thus far had the advantage of only TAing in Canada, where there is generally a bit more of a baseline level of respect and decorum (and decent spelling and grammar). As I will be heading back to the States, I suppose I will have to readjust to a less polished undergrad student body. I definitely like the idea of mandating protocols up front, as well as letting them know you are not obligated to reply instantly to any query. Some of my peers have set online office hours, that they will only reply at certain times. I like that idea, particularly when ones student head-count exceeds a couple dozen. I myself favor tolerating one single digression, along with a polite but firm reminder of acceptable procedures. It might be advisable to write up a standard reminder that one can cut-and-paste into emails. Or maybe a blog entry one can send them the link to. Once a student shows they are conscientious and/or dedicated to their studies, I tolerate a bit of informality, but that has to be earned.

FemmeFatale, I could not agree more with telkanuru. There really seems to be a major disconnect between your undergrad experience and the program you are in, that there is more amiss than your original query. The sum of all your input suggests that you are approaching this disconnect on a one-symptom-at-a-time basis rather than addressing the root problem. Apologizes if I have read too much into it. Given the time limitations you mentioned, you and your advisor really need to get this sorted ASAP, to complete the program and your project. Be honest about where you are at, be ready for an uncomfortable, blunt truth, and be prepared that it may even be quite discouraging... but you made it this far, so you do have the tools to re-calibrate and get going again. Once you choke down that bitter pill, the way forward will be clearer and will be feasible. From my own experience on other matters, avoidance of the problem can be worse than the actual solution.

aw, you 30-somethings are sooo cute! j/k yes, calli, I'd say you count.

no, good questions. it can depend on the program. I know one program that does not think of anything more recent than 50 years as actually history, yet in other schools the 1990s are fair game (ideally with consideration of historical roots/aspects, of course). Certainly projects with relatively recent foci can face a bit of skepticism. At my last U, someone was doing an MA on 1990s Northern Ireland; a visiting prof told her she was basically being a journalist! my own area of research does not really have an endpoint and can certainly approach contemporary times, but I myself am mostly focused on 1945-1985. I am aware of some who place the war on terror into long-term historical perspectives, and neo-orientalism by the term itself implies such a connection too. As you make contact with potential supervisors whose work overlaps with your interests, they will be able to give you better advice. All I can say is not to rule yourself out, and that there is pretty much always a way to make it work, whether as 'pure' history or something interdisciplinary. There is certainly nothing wrong with your other areas of study continuing to influence your own approach. I would also suggest seeking out a specific historiographical work on or close to your research area to get a better sense of how historians are already approaching your interest areas.

I have had situations where recommenders did not get their letters in by deadline. It does not seem to be that big a deal, as long as they are along within the next week or two.

I fully agree. As I understand it, loveyourlibrary, British-style PhD programs are pretty much entirely focused on the dissertation project itself. In the US you will be able to get coursework in theory and methodology, grad-level coursework in your general areas of interest, and also be more engaged with a cohort of grad students in the same program. he North American system will round you out in a way that will address your concerns. Since a lot of US PhD programs accept people from disciplines similar to yours, and people with BAs (generally you get the MA along the way), your background will not hurt you, and indeed may actually help you. But if you do delve into some theoretical works on History beforehand, and/or follow some of the journal discourse on your particular areas of interest, that will certainly help as well. Do not be shy about approaching a historian you want to work with. They are generally quite happy to advise, even if they are not taking on grad students.

I guess this is my 3rd or 4th go, maybe even 5th, depending on how one counts. 1st: MA apps, 2008-09 season. accepted 3 out of 4. 2nd: phd apps, 2010-11 season. accepted 2 out of 3. Next: January 2013: after much disappointment at my chosen school, and given limitations of time, resources, and remaining deadline windows at the time I came to a decision to apply, I made a single app to a school that already had most of my transcripts from round 1. Thus 0 out of 1. Next: early fall 2013: delved into a posted offer for a funded PhD program in New Zealand. Did not pan out. 0 out of 1. Next: late fall 2013: current round of apps (3).

some officials are hard to reach during app season. I have encountered that a few different times at schools small and large.

Flash Gordon

I was part of the third cohort in my MA program (in History). The original grad chair was also the prof for the core course, and every year there were still course corrections (and sometimes over-corrections) being made. It has gotten a bit smoother since then, with accumulation of experience, separation of grad chair and core course instructor, feedback from program participants, etc., and both completion rates and on-time completion rates have steadily improved. So basically, even though a different discipline, I would communicate in advance to your supervisor and the program chair your uncertainties, inquire as to receptiveness to remedying problems, and suggest a continual meaningful dialogue between grad students and faculty to discuss problems along the way, allowing room for reasonable correction. I also strongly recommend someone who has served as a program chair for a similar program at another school to serve as an outside reviewer at least once per year (maybe more often in the first year). Yes, this will take money, but in my opinion any new program should budget for something like this from the outset.

I have had transcripts requests die on the vine (the school never sent it out) or vanish in the mail, but not from a school that granted a degree, just a school where I did a one-year exchange. In those cases, a missing or late transcript does not always affect the total app. I don't recommend skipping such a school in transcript requests, but my grades from my main schools were of such a caliber that my side schools were apparently not that big a deal.

Rutgers has a decent reputation in History. not U Michigan or Ivy League, but pretty high nonetheless.

Finished up my third today, Rutgers. I have intended to apply to one more, but might just call it quits.

wow. I do not have much to add except for admiration for your spirit! if you are going to do an online degree, that sounds like a good one. Skype with you advisor regularly, and look for ways to engage with other grad students in your field. Good luck!

I used to live in New Westminster, near the Columbia Skytrain station (where the two lines separate on the map above), and it was about a half hour each way to Burnaby campus (half train, half 145 bus) (sometimes only 20ish minutes, sometimes 45). From New West, train and bus connections are pretty good to most parts of the metro area (western Van or the North Shore excepted, of course), and the neighbourhood is walkable, with business districts and parks nearby. There are affordable places. The best times to commute to campus are very early mornings and early afternoons. Despite what the other person said, there are lulls. I would either head up 7-7:30 in the a.m. to beat the rush or wait until early afternoon, because the sardine-packed buses of peak hours really got to me. There are 4 buses that go up the mountain to campus: the 145 (from Production Way-University train stop on the map above. Yellow line, towards top right), the 143 (which goes eastward from campus to Port Coquitlam, not on the train map, but they are slowly building a line in that direction. Which might mean the end of the 143 bus. This part of the metro area is a bit distant from much of the metro area, but there are schools out that way), the 144 (which goes from Metrotown, the commercial centre of Burnaby. It also stops at Sperling-Burnaby Lake. Roughly an hour to campus from Metrotown, half that from Sperling), and 135 (downtown to SFU through north Burnaby, parallel but further north than the uppoer part of the yellow line above). At peak hours, expect buses to be packed, and the closer you live to campus, the more likely you will watch full bus after full bus pass you by without stopping. Getting on at the point of origin can be a much better idea, but even then there is no guarantee of getting a seat. As much as I hated the 145, it was the shortest bus ride from point of origin. Thus I recommend living closer to the Skytrain than living along Hastings in North Burnaby, for instance (which has some great neighbourhoods, but friends who live along there always seemed to have greater bus hassles than I did).

Hi all! I am 45 and have been a grad student i History since 2009 (and an older undergrad 2006-2009). I have been in one MA program and one PhD program, but will hopefully be starting a different PhD program in the fall. There can be cohort issues as some have noted, but there are plenty of older students around as well. In my MA program there was a woman my age plus another 10 years older. In my recent program there was less of a sense of community but there were several older students, some I TAed with and some I shared the same supervisor with. Many of us are out there doing it, whether those entrenched in local life going to a local program or those of us uprooting and moving several time zones from prior places of residence.

Getting funding for UK MA programs seems like a wild goose chase, based upon comments I have heard from well-qualified North Americans who have made the effort. Canadian MA programs can be decently funded, enough to live on and eke through, although Ontario schools have become less well funded for non-Canadians in the past few years.

I have no publications. at the time I applied for MA programs, I had done one undergrad conference (but I noted a 2nd one was upcoming), and was accepted into 3 of 4 programs. when I first applied to phd programs, I had done 2 undergrad conferences, a pretty big conference (although on the final day, a Saturday set aside for grad students after all the big guns were gone or at least scarce), and got into 2 of 3 programs applied to (the third was UMich, tough enough in its own right). I have since done two guest lectures in 100-level courses. It seems to me, the more you do, the better, but many who have done nothing still have a shot. maybe call a local historical society and ask to do a public lecture, and then put that down as an upcoming event? That shows you are making a stab in that direction.

for me, it was an actual F; it was an online course and I gave up on it after some miscommunications with the prof which she showed no interest in resolving. I retook it the following term and got an A-, but too late for my MA apps. So the F in an irrelevant course didn't matter for me.

I lived there for two years. I did not find the rain to be too bad. Rarely torrential, rarely thunderstorming (2 or 3 times in the whole time). Autumn is rainy, and spring goes back and forth a bit, but summers are incredible without being scorching, and winters are mild.

I took the train once from LA to Riverside. It was a couple of hours, as I recall (Google maps says 1 hour and 37, but I thought it was longer), so something around Anaheim or Yorba Linda could be nice, with less than an hour for each of you. I certainly wouldn't drive between the two on a regular basis. That seems like a nightmare of an idea from what I have experienced of traffic in the area.

I had one when I was applying for MA programs. It was in Statistics; the rest of my courses were all As, with an occasional A- or B+. The only program I didn't accepted into was very small and apparently gave preference to people closer (I was three time zones away). So my NP was clearly an outlier. If you are in a similar place, I wouldn't worry.

okay, after a bit of uncertainty I am throwing my hat in the ring again. My last PhD program (Simon Fraser) did not work out, and my 2013 app to York (Toronto) did not work out because they have only one slot for foreigners. So far, U Michigan and Queen's U (Ontario) are on my list. UC Davis is a likely add. My main areas are indigenous peoples and medicine.

I did my UG at a SUNY school, and I was warned away by a prof advisor (someone who does Early America, too) from doing grad school at any SUNY school (except maybe Stony Brook), as they do not have very good job placement rates. I am also from your area, red4, as my handle suggests. I'd love to return to my home area for a PhD, but nothing lines up for me. I did my MA in Canada, and contrary to what is posted above there is often MA funding (not as generous as a PhD program, but some). I cannot speak for McGill at all, though, except that Montreal is one of my all-time favorite cities and the McGill library and staff are excellent. Ontario schools are making things harder and more expensive for foreign grad students; we pay the brunt for part of the U cuts. If anyone suggests York U (in Toronto) to you, do not bother - they only take one foreign student per year, and prefer someone studying a non-North American topic. Have you considered Yale?

a lot of good advice here. as alienated as you feel, remember you're still at least in your own country! Their group-cohesiveness is at least in part a too for them to deal with their own culture shock. If I were in your shoes, I'd try to find some one-on-one bonding, rather than waiting to be part of the group. Help them as individuals, bond with them, and yes, learn some of their language from them! If your field is seeing a great shift in terms of other nationalities' participation, you'd be doing yourself a favor by being able to connect with more of them - and maintain ties with your current cohort as you all go forward in your professional lives.