synthla

I know your cat will appreciate it. I think ours are of a size where they can fit under the seat, but I think a mild sedative from the vet will probably be a must, at least for one of them. Do you have any experience with that?

The move is the part I'm dreading most myself, but I've resigned myself to spending about $5,000 to do it because it would cost several times that much to replace all my stuff. But material items aside, it's the two cats and two cars (I'm also moving with my SO) that will be trickier. Obviously it will be far cheaper to drive the cars than to pay for them to be moved, but the cats would be easier to move by airplane because two cats in a car for two or three days sounds pretty much awful. So I still haven't figured out the logistics of it all... much less finding a house, ideally before showing up in the new locale.

I currently live a few blocks from the beach and walk everyday to my office on the beach, with a Pacific ocean view I can stare at for 10 hours a day. If your experience tracks mine, you'll love it for the first year or two, brag about it to your friends and family until they want to slap you, and then you'll find that you take it for granted, you're annoyed with the tourists that flood the place in the summer and on weekends, and it will be no different from any other place you've lived, at least to you - though visitors will still tell you it's a dream location. The pure dollar amount of your potential stipend is no joke, and the research opportunities are nice too, but I wouldn't let the beach by itself sway you away from attending a program that is better for you in every way.

Well put - I'm the same way... already completed one graduate program and had that career during the best economic times I could imagine for it, now I'm moving on to something else. I sincerely hope that I find a great academic job after getting my Ph.D., but I'm studying history because I love history so it will be worth it for me regardless. If I don't get such a job, there are many, many other things I'd like to do before I die.

I'm admitted to UCSB, but funding is not looking good, although I haven't received official notification one way or the other, or about waitlist details for that matter. I've heard informally that they've had to cut back funding severely this year, including the number of TA positions in general (not just offers to incoming students), which, from having visited and spoken to grad students, it seems many of them rely upon getting on a year-to-year basis. If that's true, I can't imagine how much it would suck to be 4 years in and then have that happen. But such is the state of affairs in California right now. On the other hand, if you get it, some funding is better than no funding at UVA; although at the end of the day if you had to pick one or the other to attend without any funding guarantees, I'd lean toward UVA. Not sure what Virginia's fiscal situation is like, but it can't be worse than California's - the LA Times headlined today that the budget is in even worse shape than predicted, with a deficit that will grow from $8 billion currently, to more than $20 billion by 2013 (i.e., 4 years into your Ph.D), and this takes into account the stimulus. They already cut funding to higher education THIS year... I can't imagine what sort of pain it will endure over the next 5 years unless things unexpectedly change for the better. And that seems doubtful - hell, I'm not even sure when or if I'll get the tax refund I'm due from California - they're just not paying them right now because the state can't even get people to buy its bonds on Wall Street and they've stopped paying out refunds to conserve money, and put most state workers on mandatory partial furloughs. Which is why I'm probably headed to Indiana where I have funding, and even if I had an equal package at UCSB, I'd still be leaning toward Indiana for all the aforementioned reasons.

Well if you start a history program this fall, odds are you probably won't be entering the job market for another 6 or 7 years, at the earliest, so you can take comfort in the fact that there is a decent chance that the economy will have turned around by that point. But really, it is, to a not inconsiderable degree, a leap of faith, I think. Personally, I've been working in a completely different career path for the last 5 or 6 years, and I can tell you that if you're not following your dream, you're less likely to be satisfied with whatever it is your doing, no matter how much more stability or financial reward is attached - so if you have a passion for history, you probably need to pursue it, if you're comfortable with your school options. Luckily, I can always fall back on my current career if needed, so I've been able to approach the Ph.D process from that perspective - that is, attaining the degree is worth it in and of itself; how many people have the chance to focus on exactly their own interests? Not many; I'm excited to be one of them for a few years. Obviously, that's easier if the school is providing you some guaranteed funding, but while the economy may impact the amount of money available, you'll still know about that aspect before you ever accept a school's offer. So this has been a long way of saying: undaunted, personally.

I actually enjoy learning languages, but, at least in my experience, there is unavoidable frustration in the sense that no matter how good your memory or natural language ability, you can't just read a grammar and know the language. A lot of (seemingly) mindless repetition and lots of practice is just a mandatory part of the process. (I'm sure there are a few language savants out there who have it easier, but I'm just talking about the average case.) So for me, boredom is more a threat than actual difficulty of a language itself. But I like the challenge and the satisfaction derived from being able to understand formerly incomprehensible text. Lately, I've probably been working on languages 1 - 2 hours a day.

Yeah, the minimum requirements aren't usually too high, but I haven't talked to one professor who hasn't emphasized how much better they expect you to be in reality, at least for your primary language(s). Not being able to read the language of your primary country of interest would be a serious hindrance in graduate-level work, at least from the perspective of many faculty.

For Americanists I look at it in terms of generally being a part of the scholarly community. That is, for example, I'm going to be studying French history... obviously there are many French historians out there who are probably working and publishing in French, so it's important that I know the language. At the same time, my work and writing will be done in English even though I will be studying France, so many French historians would find it useful to know English because I'm not the only one doing that. So the same would apply, I think for American historians working in English - it will still be useful to know one or more foreign languages because there may be people working those languages even though they're studying American history, and you might want to read their work. Most universities with graduate programs offer language courses specifically focused on reading proficiency, so if you're already admitted and don't have to worry about demonstrating sufficienct proficiency just for the admissions process, I think you'll be able to take advantage of those classes.

Glad it brightened your day a bit. Sorry to hear about your recent loss - I too am unable to explain vets at times. Given that they tend to charge (at least in our urban area) the sort of fees and costs that one expects to be charged for human care, I don't understand why they seem so ... incompetent ... at times. But I suppose there are bad human doctors too.

Yeah we just had one for a year or so, and one of the nice things about cats is that you can leave them for a weekend and they'll be fine, but a cat by itself will still get very lonely, so we got the second one and now sometimes wonder whether they even notice our absence. I believe it's a common misconception that cats are solitary though - they hunt by themselves, but are otherwise naturally social animals.

I managed to get into UCLA as well as UCSB and Indiana, but Indiana is winning on the money front. I made a serious mistake in focusing on a lot of UC schools because they've been completely devastated financially in the time since I submitted my applications. But I'm strongly leaning toward Indiana at this point anyway - in addition to the funding issue, the school has a number of fairly unique aspects... the presence of the American Historical Review's editorial offices provides another employment/funding opportunity besides just TA-type work, and the cost of living is so much lower than Santa Barbara. Although I wouldn't have the beach, I think I'd ultimately be happier if I wasn't living by the absolute skin of my teeth. I also visited Indiana last week and everyone I met was great from start to finish - the department seems like a very congenial place in addition to having great scholarship. Bloomington also has quite a bit to offer culturally because of the huge presence of the University. I'm just dreading the cost of moving the contents of my 2 bed/2 bath condo 2000 miles. :wink:

Inherent genetic predisposition? Some people will never be happy. If I had that string of acceptances, I would have stopped browsing gradcafe long ago.

Congrats again - glad you're racking up some late-season good news. I started strong and have finished weak. But I suppose that's the less stressful way to go. I always got the impression that you were more keen on Temple?

Congratulations on your funding package, that is fantastic! And rare this year apparently. I unfortunately got word that that there won't be any money for me from UCSB, which is disappointing because I felt very positive about the school and the department, but luckily I have other options and I suppose the silver lining is that this makes the ultimate decision just a little bit easier.

I think you're probably right on both counts, and your instinct on this latter point is good - anecdotally, it seems like people who already have an MA, whether it's from a "top" (whatever that means) school or not, have a lot of success then moving on to PhD programs, and like you point out, you can avoid burning bridges by going with the terminal MA. The other advantage of the MA would be the chance to further refine your interests - although other people have thoroughly discussed that, after visiting a couple of schools and talking to faculty, I can see how it would be a real advantage. It seems that though adcoms want to see flexibility in personal statements, people who substantially change their focus after entering the program are in a distinct minority.

A bit delayed because I just got back into town, but congratulations!

Congrats riss! That is fantastic news!

I definitely see your point; from what I understand Bloomington is a very accepting place, but I know you were mostly worried about the smaller towns outside of the city itself. That's a tougher issue admittedly... although you may not find many reasons to go anywhere other than Bloomington and Indianapolis, which has a significant non-white population. Even though I grew up in the midwest, I've split the last decade between NYC and LA, so I'm a little wary of rural-white dominated area thinking myself (even though I'm white). But I'm leaving to visit Indiana tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have good things to report. And good luck with your decision!

While that's scary and tragic in and of itself, I'd have to think that overall Bloomington is still going to be a safer area with respect to crime than, say, most larger urban areas. You want scary statistics, check out USC. Having grown up in the midwest, I can say that while there are certainly lingering racial prejudices in many rural areas, racially inspired shootings are not a regular occurrence.

If one could drown in snobbery, I'd be gasping for air after this post.

Slawken, thanks for the first-hand info. How was your visit structured? I was told that the primary visit day could run from 8 am to as late as 8 pm including meals, etc., but I won't get my itinerary until I arrive, so trying to figure out how long my day will actually be. Luckily if I go there, we'll be bringing two cars, but if that is a concern for anyone, as long as it's not a licensing issue, I think you could find a cheap, reliable, older car pretty easily there. I also understand that there is a fairly decent bus system in Bloomington for getting to and from campus that is free for students - correct me if I'm wrong slawken...

Will do; I made an informal visit to Bloomington while I was in Indiana for other reasons fairly recently. The campus was impressive and the town seems to get rave reviews, although I didn't get a chance to spend much time checking out the local scene. There is an "Indiana" thread in the Sociology forum where someone posted about a visit last weekend and seemed thoroughly impressed. I've also been reading a lot in the Indiana forum on www.city-data.com - there are some Bloomington discussion threads there as well. It seems like an ideal environment for someone who doesn't need the true big city, and frankly, after splitting nearly a decade between New York City and Los Angeles, I'm one of those people at this point. :wink: Just being in a university town will provide most of the cultural stuff I need to get by. The city aside, I feel the same way about the program itself. My only concern is that early modern europe is not an area with a lot of faculty, but the faculty that are there are really spot on for me. Plus if I do my secondary field in either modern Russia or late antiquity, both those sub-departments are quite strong. In fact there's a large late antiquity conference going on during my visit, which is exciting. Misterpat has a valid perspective, but if you're keen on Indiana, I can't see how it would hurt to squeeze in a visit. I can't imagine that it would hurt your odds (another school told me that a visit even when you're not admitted yet is a mark in your file in your favor, at least at that school anyway), and I would think they'd be receptive, given how wonderfully helpful and accommodating they've been for me.

Good topic - the funding package from one of my schools specifies that the tuition remission aspect covers up to 12 credit hours per semester, plus 6 in the summer, and I was wondering whether that was enough (it seemed low compared to undergrad and law school). Sounds like it is.

I certainly would if they would admit me. I am headed to Indiana later this week though. And even looking at houses with a realtor while I'm there in case that turns out to be the place.