thepoorstockinger

Funnily enough, I seriously considered applying to geography programs at one point. I do urban history so I read a lot of urban geographers and it seems to be one of the last places where there are still lots of Marxists running around.

It is included on the online notice of acceptance:

canuckgrads I think.

I ask because what you intend to do with your graduate degree should be a pretty integral part of deciding what degree you want to get, and where you want to get it. If you don't know why you're doing it how would you know what to do? Things that pop out that I'll randomly comment on: - Can you get more geography courses? Three undergrad classes seems like a pretty serious lack of preparation given how technical geography can get compared to some other humanities/social science disciplines. - What is the reference letter situation like? Do you think you get good ones from people who actually know you? - You need to narrow down your research interests. They still seem very vague. - Your language skills could be a pretty huge advantage if you're planning on studying a topic related to those regions or related to human geography and immigrant populations who speak those languages. - A low GPA is not a huge deal if your recent marks are good. Most programs tend to put the emphasis on the last two years of course work.

So do you want to work in the academy? For government? For NGOs? For corporations?

What do you want to do with a graduate degree? What exactly would you want to study within the very broad discipline of geography?

What's so unorthodox about your methodology? My school is one of the only places I've ever heard of that makes us defend our undergraduate theses in front of a committee (fortunately it's a closed defense). I knew my defense was going to go strangely when my first question was "Is this a history thesis or a political tract?" I could have made my life easier by not responding that I think all academic writing is political and that all the existing writing on related topics to mine have been politically liberal (not in the conservative/liberal-left/right sense). My second question was "Why do you use Marx to talk about capital accumulation? Why not Keynes?" Third question: "Why haven't you talked more about discourse? Why do you assume the importance of material conditions? Why not start just with discourse?" I was super frustrated right afterwards, but now I figure it's better to get used to this now rather than later. The fact is that when use methodologies/hold beliefs which aren't currently in vogue in your field you're going to have to defend them. This made me realize I need to be better prepared for these sort of challenges in the future.

My understanding is that you can get a SSHRC for the second year of your MA - someone I know applied this fall while they're in the first year of a two year program. I could be wrong on this, though. I get what you're saying about your research changing: I wrote one proposal for SSHRC/OGS and a totally different one for my MA applications since in those two months I had decided to change topics (and actually went from a Canadian topic to an American one). The SSHRC application is as much about your ability to write research proposals as it is about the actual content of your research.

Huh?

I got it too! (applied as an out of province student, not through my school) Yes! This makes SSHRC waiting a bit less stressful since I have a back up pot of money.

Just an attempt to make sure I don't muck up the SSHRC thread. Someone on livejournal says that the secretary at their department sent them an e-mail which said: "The website will be updated on Saturday, April 18, 2009 and students will be able to view their results on line shortly thereafter." Seems odd that it would be updated on a weekend so I don't know what to make of that.

That's crazy! I can't believe stuff still isn't in the mail. With Canada Post being as slow as it is we might not even find out next week. I really wonder if this late notification is the fallout from budget uncertainty (i.e. they have stuff ranked but have no idea how much money they're allocating to certain programs at the moment). I've heard that faculty applying for SSHRC grants at my school still haven't heard their results yet for the coming year so lots of people are sitting around still unsure if they can make trips to archives that they had planned. Did you online status get updated? Mine still says that it will be changed on the 14th. (folks on livejournal are saying that it will be updated on Saturday).

Optimism is such a waste of time.

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So... uhhh... this didn't sound like it went well: http://www.vancouversun.com/News/News%20sponsored%20parties%20fail%20ignite%20popular%20uprising%20among%20conservatives/1499732/story.html

hahaha well that was slightly creepy.

I am going to go with April 16th. OPTIMISM!!!!!!!

Ideal world: Get a tenured position at one of the universities in NYC which pays enough to rent in Manhattan. Defend historical materialism against post-modernism. Publish a book which makes its way onto comp lists. Write politically engaged academic work and articles which engages people outside the academy. Supervise graduate students who do interesting work. More realistic: Tenured position at a good but not top tier Canadian university with a graduate program so I can supervise at least MA students (PhD students in my field should go south of the border). Ideally in a city (Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, or Vancouver) and in a department which is not toxic. I'd like to be somewhere where there's a lot of freedom to choose what courses you teach. I want to teach big first/second year survey courses in my field in addition to interesting and specific upper year undergrad and graduate seminars.

It might help to actually tell us what school it is.

Okay, that makes sense. My partner and I applied through our schools (different schools) for the MA awards and were forwarded to SSHRC... no word yet but we freak out every time mail comes through the mail slot.

A PhD is limiting because you spend 7 years doing one thing in one field of history (your comp fields may be different but they generally relate to each other) using one or two archives, reading the secondary literature on one field and that's pretty much it. You learn languages (often dead languages) that you need to conduct your research. After graduate school you teach in that field (if you can get a job) and then try to publish what you know. You read the journals in that field to stay current, you attend and present at conferences in that field and you hang out in archives that have holdings for that field. You can dabble elsewhere but getting a PhD and being an academic is very much about immersing yourself in a rather narrow field. People move between specific time periods and national contexts but usually within a thematic area and most people keep pretty tight research interests. The reason why it is limiting is because you need to have an absolutely insane amount of knowledge to regularly publish in a field and it takes years and years to amass the sort of expertise that's expected of academics. A PhD is a good foundation branch out from, but it takes so long to acquire it that unless what you want to do requires a PhD there is no reason not to pursue other avenues to get a similar foundation. I sort of feel like your response was a refutation of my comments more than anything else, which is odd since you asked for advice. You asked a question at the beginning of the thread and my answer is basically that I am totally unsure of why what it is you want to do (i.e. not be primarily a scholarly research, not be a tenure track university professor) requires a PhD as opposed to a graduate degree in creative non-fiction or journalism. You will not be able to be a scholar on the modern Middle East without modern standard arabic (and perhaps farsi and/or french)

Queens University (Modern Canadian History) Simon Fraser University (Modern US)

I just got home after spending the last few hours at one of my reference letter writer's house. We were watching basketball and talking about comic books, grad school for next year, what he's teaching next year and historian gossip. We hang out and go see movies, plays, sporting events, etc. and he's been here for dinner more than a few times. He's on sabbatical and when I was actually taking classes with him we weren't as close... I helped him move once... he's a friend who I happened to meet because he was one of my professors. My supervisor for next year has offered to let me and my partner stay at his house when we go up in a few months to look for an apartment. He's called me and we've talked on the phone. I also met his partner (who also teaches in the program me and my partner will be entering in the fall) for coffee a few weeks ago and I am friends/co-workers with her son/my supervisor's step-son. It really depends on a lot of things. Everyone is different and everyone's professional/academic relationships are different.