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.

Gosh, y'all are fancy. I'm an index card/legal pad/shoebox kind of guy. I used my phone to take pictures of documents when I needed to, which wasn't ideal, but I made it work. Scanpro (or whatever it's called) and its function that lets you create pdfs from microfilm slides was also a lifesaver for me. As far as a tablet goes, I don't even own one for personal use, so I'm not sure what advice to give. I think my wife likes her iPad Mini, but she's not using it for archival research.

That's what she said. No, seriously, I was on fellowship and not teaching for three years out of five and almost all of my resources were conveniently collected in one place, so I didn't have to travel to a lot of different places. Plus, my actual dissertation was only about 275 pages, which is well below the median for history, I gathered. As far as the job market goes, I'm not sure how much support there is to give...it's pretty rough. I still have a few opportunities I'm hopeful about; a couple of postdocs and a couple of TT positions.

Thanks, y'all. I appreciate the kind words. Now if only the job market were so kind...

Just thought I'd let you guys know that I passed my dissertation defense on Friday. Committee wanted a couple of revisions but that's about it.

Did my B.A. at Auburn. Feel free to ask any questions. War Eagle!

Well, if you think you know better than those who are employed in and publishing in the field, then more power to you.

Good luck with that. You won't be doing yourself any favors by being rigid and inflexible. You have to be willing to look at scholarship written by non-historians in addition to the historians of your period/geographic area if you want to be able to do graduate level work in your field. The attitude you're displaying about this and in other threads, if I may be quite frank, does not bode well for your potential as a graduate student. If you come into a program with the idea that you know more than other people just because they may be journalists or sociologists, and you are unwilling to abandon your preconceived ideas on the subjects you're studying, you're not going to be successful. I realize this isn't very nice or politic, but better that you hear it now than find out the hard way. And yes, if you don't have the language skills in Arabic or Hebrew, you're going to need to bust it on those during your M.A. At least for Arabic, I would suggest that you might want to look into Indiana University's Summer Workshop in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian languages. Despite the name, they teach first through third year Arabic, as well as first and second year Kurdish and Turkish, should you decide to move in those directions. It's not too difficult to get funding to study languages there, especially if you're doing graduate work in a field that requires use of one of those languages. I didn't pay anything out of pocket (including room and board) for the summer I spent there studying Romanian, thanks to Title VIII. You can also apply for funding through FLAS, I believe, and your funding from one summer can often be extended to a second. Obviously, it would be ideal if you could do your language work at your home university, but if you wanted to supplement your language study during the summer, SWSEEL is a really great option. Here's the link: http://www.indiana.edu/~swseel/languages/

Another good labor history program to consider would be Wayne State University in Detroit. However, I think the primary focus there is on American, rather than European labor history. That said, my European labor history professor got his Ph.D. from Wayne State, so it might be a worthwhile place to consider. It's not a big name in the field of history generally, but its labor history program is pretty well regarded. Also...Huzsvai? Beszel magyarul?

I didn't have courses during the summers, but I spent basically every summer working on language study or on research travel that I couldn't fit in during the school year. I also went to a couple workshops and conferences during the summers.

Oh man, this was two and a half years ago, so I really don't remember what exactly was on my reading list for comps. My major field was Modern Europe, and my minors were Holocaust Studies and Modern Middle East. I could try and dig those up if you're actually interested.