Venus_of_Urbino

I could never live in Ithaca (although I am headed to Minneapolis next year), but my best friend from college loves it there. Also, something should be said about the status of a school especially on the east coast. Getting a degree from an Ivy on the East Coast will help you get jobs on the East Coast, if that is what you want.

;-)

I started my MA convinced I wanted to do Northern Ren. It was the best thing ever. I did a TON of coursework on it. I wrote a 100 pg, published, and award winning thesis on Hieronymous Bosch. This was going to be my LIFE. And then I got to graduate school. My thesis is on John Singleton Copley mostly because I find early American painting fascinating and I get along super well with the Americanist at my school. (Hold on to your relationships to faculty that are particularly strong.) I am giving a paper this May on the cognitive theory of the ritual use of Islamic prayer rugs. I am going to Minnesota next year to write a dissertation on the economics of Roman printmaking in the earliest years of the Grand Tour, using Salvator Rosa as a case study. My primary interest, however, is the application of theory to early modern subjects, which is half the reason I wanted to go to UMN--the program has an Italian Baroque scholar and a young scholar doing wonderful work on theory. The moral of my too-long story? Have an area of specialty in mind, but use your time in the MA program to explore tons of different things. You might take an Islamic art class or an Indian art class that will change the way you see your own field. Moreover, you might find a field that impassions you more. At the least, you will demonstrate a capacity to think across the discipline and will appear well-rounded--this is really important for applying PhD programs. You want to be seen as versatile as possible, especially if you are a modernist. There are so many modern and contemp people and the competition is so stiff. Plus, in my experience, modern/contemp people tend to be adverse to taking anything pre-1800. You will look really awesome if you have a breadth of coursework.

If UT called you, it means you were on a shortlist and the grad directed wanted you to know you weren't rejected because of merit. This means you are on their radar. If you apply with an MA to UT from UTSA, you will definitely have a good chance of getting in. They know you.

Apologies if you read it this way. However, my tone was completely informative.

I don't know what it's worth, but I am at UT-Austin, a mere hour away from UTSA and I had absolutely NO idea that UTSA had an art history program. UT is a top PhD for Latin American and we have no students from UTSA, though that doesn't mean anything. I have heard of the MA programs at Texas Tech and Texas Christian, but nothing about UTSA. Where do their students go for PhDs? That would be a relevant question to ask.

With all due respect, this is bogus advice. There was a discussion of this on the main thread. Getting a funded at MA at a respected school and then moving to a strong program for the PhD is a totally legitimate option for getting one's doctorate. I am at a terminal MA program and my cohort were all accepted at top programs for their fields. Getting an MA at Williams gets students into top programs as well. An MA is often an option for students to work with great faculty and explore their interests at a broader level. I turned down several straight PhDs to go to UT because I wanted to work with the awesome faculty here and really explore my interests. I wanted to make sure that I really wanted to work in my area of specialty. Lo and behold--I began in Northern Ren (with a top scholar with tons and tons of connections) went over to Early American for my thesis (with an established scholar in this field--surprisingly hard to find since most of the top scholars are at small colleges) and am now doing a diss on Italian Baroque. Granted, I am interested in trans-atlantic, transnational exchange in the Early Modern, so this all fits into this interest, but having the ability to work with several different faculty members without worry of stepping on someone's toes was a great benefit of being at an MA program. I was accepted at 2 top programs for this field (I only applied to 3) and have made tons of contacts while at UT. Getting an MA at one place and a PhD at another is a great way to have contact with a lot more scholars. Moreover, having experience with many fields helps on the job market and PhD programs love students with intellectual curiosity. It means you won't be a one-trick pony. Going straight into a PhD program is a great way to get a doctorate, but it isn't the only option. Both tracks have their benefits and we shouldn't discount the merits of each. A generation ago, getting an MA wasn't a serious option, as fewer people wanted PhDs in art history and the field was much smaller. However, the field is changing. We should be careful not to characterize it through the old system.

A few thoughts: 1) I have been to all three of those collections. They are good, but they are by no means "world class." They are impressive for being in the boonies. There are TONS of out-of-the-way museums in New England with interesting and peculiarly good collections like the museums in Williamstown. The Worcester Museum of Art, the Springfield Quadrangle, the Fogg, the Gardner, Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum, etc all have surprisingly good collections. SMU and Rice now have PhD programs. UT sends many people to these collections. I know a lot of people are east-coast chauvinists (I am admittedly one), but Dallas and Houston have multiple collections that rival those on the West Coast and rival any of the museums on the east coast except for maybe the Met and Moma. Plus, these museums don't have the crazy competition for positions like on the East Coast. 2) Tons of other programs have the option for museum experience. I am at UT-Austin for another couple of weeks. I know several people curating events in the Early Modern department, in modern, in contemporary, in other departments. One of my adviser's students is the head curator of a wing at the Kimball. She graduated less that 10 years ago. The University of Minnesota has TWO very, very good collections in addition to their own museums. The Walker is one of the best contemporary collections in the country. Those students all have access to curating experience from the beginning of their MA if they want. That program is particularly small, too, so there is minimal competition for positions. 3) We also shouldn't discount working for university collections. I know several people in curatorial positions who got their jobs from curating in university galleries. Your first job might be at smaller institution, but I know that many curators receive much nicer gigs from experience in small collections. The Asian arts curator of my tiny and insignificant college museum is now the Asian art curator at a major museum. Williams is an AWESOME program. No doubt about it. But if you have minimal to no funding, it isn't worth the debt. There are plenty of good programs for cheap. Williams might be a stepping stone to curating, but other schools have similar curating opportunities at arguably better collections. AND if curating is one's goal, s/he will have to get a PhD. A generation ago, one could go to Williams and get a curatorial job, but that simply isn't the case. I would say Williams is a great place to get museum experience AND it is a great stepping stone to a good PhD program, but it isn't anywhere close to being the only MA program to do this. It might have been a generation ago, but our field is growing considerably and the system is changing.

Williams is an awesome program but it is expensive. If you have funding somewhere, go there. Or, get an MA at the CHEAPEST school possible. People get into top programs with MAs from well-respected public schools. You need to work hard, do some professional stuff (conferences, etc), and have an established adviser who will advocate for you. Also, Williamstown is in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. I am from a town considered rural that area, and Williamstown is still considered the sticks. Also, the arh program is the only grad program. The only other people there sort of close to your age will be undergrads. And there are like 1200 of them. Just sayin...

Now that in the other thread, we have debunked the whole myth about having an MA hurting your chances of getting into top choice schools, can we perhaps discuss this grades/GRE obsession? If you have good GRE scores, they can help you, but they are no guarantee of admission. In some schools, GRE dictates funding, but in some schools it means little. Same thing with grades. Phi beta kappa? Great! But that doesn't guarantee admission. Grad school admission in art history is much more complicated than that. It depends on subspecialty, research experience, undergrad program, language prep, (surprisingly) travel experience, who needs students, who doesn't want students, etc. It is a very complex web of factors. Case and point: I had low GRE scores (600V/540M/5.0W). My GPA in undergrad was a 3.4. I had ZERO museum experience. But, I went to an elite liberal arts school, had worked as a research assistant, had an outstanding BA thesis, a major conference, a publication, and a great writing sample. I got into several straight PhD programs right out of undergrad, including a super-top-tier school. I don't intend to brag. I just want to let all y'all out there know that scores/grades don't mean everything. It is a very nuanced process!

I go to UT. People from our MA program regularly go to first tier schools who are thought not to take MAs...or so people say on this site. I think it depends on what work you do at the MA level and where you get your MA. Unfortunately, I think name matters in a lot of cases.

Austin is the best place to live ever. I am from Massachusetts and used to be an East Coast snob. I loved living here SO MUCH. And it is one of the few awesome cities in the country that still has a low cost of living. I live in a 2br apartment less than 2 mi from campus next to an awesome grocery store and a great bar and I pay $400/mo. Also, if you have never lived in a warm climate (I hadn't until I moved here), don't underestimate how awesome you feel when you can be comfortably outside all year except maybe Dec/Jan. It feels so good. I am dreading moving back to the cold.

UTexas has an AWESOME art history program with a very good and diverse faculty. Many professors are doing interesting work on theory and material/visual culture, and many faculty in other departments are doing interesting work on theory--especially Anthro. You can also do a certificate program in Women's Studies. The MA program at UT can be very general (or specific, depending on your needs) so you have the option of exploring your ideas through many different channels and faculty members. I certainly benefited from the ability to explore my interests with such an awesome faculty. UT students also have great luck getting into top schools--one girl in my class is going to Princeton, someone recently went to Yale, we had a Columbia waitlist. However, even if you are a SUPER qualified candidate, getting into an Ivy is still a crapshoot. The people I know who got into Columbia/Princeton are both highly, highly qualified, but tended to have very unique interests that fit absolutely perfectly with senior faculty members' interests. I got into several good programs, but my academic interests (Italian Baroque) are in a dying subfield, but I have a fresh dissertation topic and the language and travel experience needed to undertake such research. I think the few Italian Baroque scholars at PhD granting institutions (of which there are only a handful, surprisingly) are senior faculty and are hurting for students. I think I got extremely lucky with my interests and the state of the field in general.

Where in Ned are you from? I am in art history and study Early Modern Europe--including the Low Countries!

At least in the Northeast (where I am from and did my undergrad), it seems like the Tufts program is on the radar! And you usually get that first job in the general region where you did you PhD (especially for programs that are not the big 8 or 9). New England has so many great liberal arts schools and small colleges. It seems like there would be a lot of good opportunities to get jobs!