kotov

This happened to me, to some extent (the book had been published while I was still in high school, and I just overlooked it initially). I ended up actually going through and reading the book and identifying something that got overlooked (or was at least outside the author's main focus in the book) that was still an important topic and about which a large body of documentary evidence existed, so it ended up becoming a pretty good research project.

I used a 15-page essay that I had written the semester prior to writing my thesis (most of my applications were due before my thesis was done). It was tangentially-related to my thesis topic though (and I ended up giving it as a conference paper later on).

This is *great* advice. Even if you don't have a specific topic in mind, broadening your historiographic knowledge in your general area can only help. Obviously, if one can work on languages during the summer, one should do that as well (I did during my first two summers of grad school).

Jewish forced labor in Romania during WWII.

I'm gonna be working on turning my dissertation into a book. Not necessarily doing new research, but going back over some of the old documents that I read back at the beginning of my research for this project (three years ago now -- good grief!) that I want to reconsider and possibly put different weight on and interpret differently now, with the perspective of the completed project. But, more or less, I'm trying to get enough of the book together to be able to send out the proposal to a press by the end of the summer.

I obviously don't know much about getting into higher level programs, but one piece of advice I'll give you is the one I give to everyone here, which is DO NOT pay for a graduate degree out of pocket. I wouldn't even do that in a STEM field, much less in the humanities.

Architectural history of...Europe? The U.S.? Somewhere else? I'm asking because in the U.S., if you do European history, most places will want you to have reading competency in two foreign languages, even if you're not necessarily doing research in both.

You'll be fine doing it pass/fail. A lot of the time in grad school you'll be doing language prep on your own or in classes that aren't going to count toward your credits/GPA so it's not a big deal for you to have a nice shiny A in French to point at. I made a B in German as an undergrad and did just fine with it in grad school when I lived/studied in Germany for a year. Do you have a plan for a second language yet, or are you U.S. or something where you'll only need one?

I've never run into an issue as far as German librarians, etc. letting me photograph things, but I was also working mostly in libraries and not government archives. Thankfully, as a student, I was paying the copy fees as set for students rather than what they might be for an independent researcher, but I've heard those can be quite steep.

My advice is that you absolutely do not pay for a graduate degree out of pocket no matter what.

I spent 5-8 hours a day 4-5 days a week at the library looking at microfilm and translating/taking notes and made a few trips to DC to the Holocaust Museum. I picked up some stuff from the Romanian National Archives in Bucharest and did some research in the German-language secondary literature while I was living in Europe but most of the real work was in the library snuggling with the microfilm reader. As far as taking notes goes, I did it by hand on a legal pad and/or index cards and kept them in file folders. I kinda wrote as I went, which in retrospect I wouldn't do.

Hey, no worries, I'm about to be finished with my Ph.D. and I still feel that way a lot of the time. Part of it in my case is being at a tiny school (and having come from a state school for undergrad like you have). The rest of it for me is probably just my personality and way of thinking though. Probably the biggest thing that will help with those kinds of feelings is once you get started somewhere and start forming relationships with your fellow students; it helps to have a sense of belonging socially and that will, in my experience, carry over to the feeling that you belong intellectually as well. If you're accepted somewhere, like someone said upthread, it means that the people on the committee obviously thought you were good enough to do the kind of work that is required to finish a Ph.D., which you should absolutely interpret as a validation of your intellectual and analytical chops. Basically, I wouldn't sweat things like this so much at the stage you're at. You're still developing in terms of your analytical and writing skills; that's the whole point of completing a Ph.D. in the first place. Once things are in place for you, though, I think some of these negative feelings will subside and you'll feel more comfortable with yourself and your abilities.

Couple of journal articles, some entries to one of the Holocaust Museum's encyclopedia projects, and a book chapter. Not phenomenal, but not totally absent either.

If y'all are wondering about the European job market, I've put out somewhere between 50 and 60 applications and haven't gotten an interview. So.

I was never asked for more than one. I would honestly be surprised if anyone wanted more than one, since that's just creating that much more work for admissions committees which already have a lot of material to get through in a limited amount of time.