kahlan_amnell

There is almost nothing you can do with an MA in History without a Ph.D. also. Unless you want to go into public History, then you can find jobs with an MA. Public History is about the only History field that has much in the way of jobs, the rest of the field suffers from the same problems that most liberal arts fields do in terms of oversupply of Ph.D.s and not enough jobs for them let alone people with just MAs.

I noticed this area doesn't have many new posts latley, perhaps because it is somewhat between applications seasons (applications for Spring are done and ones for Fall are just starting). Who is applying for Fall 2015? Where are you applying? As for me, I am planning to apply to: The University of Washington Kent State University Simmons College I'm trying to decide if I should apply anywhere else. At this point I'm just getting started with applications because the earliest one is due in mid-January and the other two are due in March.

PieMonster: I have to mention it to be honest, and also because my transcripts would reveal it anyway. Moving to Europe is really not an option for me unless my husband wanted to go as well, and his current academic job search is in the US and Canada. CrazyCatLady80: I completed a MA at a different program from the one I was working on a Ph.D. at, so another MA would not be productive unless it was such a different field that it made sense to do that.

Thanks for the suggestions, though Winconsin is a pretty tough program to get into from what I understand. My previous insitution is not open to petitions for a re-take, and frankly it was actually a bad fit for me. That will be my justification when reapplying. Also, I am planning to change what field I am working in, so that is additional justification. Europe isn't really an option for me, because I am married and don't want to move far away from my husband. Also, European Ph.D.s mostly lead to European employment, since they don't have coursework and don't prepare their graduates for teaching.

Hello everyone. I used to post on this forum a number of years ago, so probably none of you remember me. I'm looking into reapplying to graduate school after completing three years of a Ph.D. program, but not passing my written exams. I could go into lots of detail about how the process wasn't all that fair, but unless anyone is interested, I'll spare everyone that. I'd still like to get a Ph.D., but it seems that traditional timed written comprehensive exams where you have to write all you know in a few short hours are not compatible with my learning style. At least not ones that require me to memorize the main arguments of about 500 books. I was wondering if anyone had come across any programs that don't have written exams at all, or who offer them in a take home format over a couple of days. Basically anything where the emphasis isn't on a ridiculous amount of memorization. If you are reading this and thinking "I should reply mocking this person because ____" please just move along. Your comments are not needed and will be ignored.

A lot of my information on financial aid is five years old by this point, so it probably has no relevance. However, Fordham had a bad habit of loosing people's financial aid paperwork or being really slow to get aid out. Also reducing people's aid after the first year without good reason, in some cases so much that some of my friends could not continue there. Again, this was only undergrad stuff. I heard a few grad students talking about their funding being reduced, but that was a while ago. If the package you got looks good, it probably is. Anyway, NYC can be a great place to go to school for undergrad or grad school, and Fordham is a good school. Particularly for Medieval Studies, Fordham is known for that! P.S. I like your signature line Venetia! Yay for Discworld!

I went to Fordham for undergrad, and do know some people who have gone there for grad school (including some people in the English department). Also, I grew up in NYC, so I know the city fairly well. On the housing topic: Grad students tend to live near campus in various apartment buildings. I'd recommend you contact current grad students to find out which ones are better than others. Do keep in mind that places very close to campus can be a good idea, because long walks at night can be a little scary if you aren't used to the area. (Even then it is a good idea not to walk alone. It is not a terribly dangerous area comparatively, but crime does happen.) On the cost topic: The Bronx is much less expensive than Manhattan. I don't know how much funding you are being offered, but I imagine it might be manageable. However, Fordham is somewhat notorious for problems with financial aid, at least at the undergrad level. I don't know if the problem has spread to the grad level, though I've heard some rumors that it may have begun to. On the car topic: I'd say bringing a car would not be a good idea, nor would it be that helpful unless you want to travel outside of the very large area that public transit for the New York City area covers. Most parking in that area is on street parking, as I understand it. Unless your car is not particularly valuable, I wouldn't recommend overnight street parking in the Bronx. Parking on the Fordham Campus is limited. Undergrad resident students are not allowed cars on campus for this reason. I don't know what the situation is with grad students, but I doubt overnight parking is allowed. However, you really don't need a car in NYC. Public transit can get to you to any of the five boroughs of New York City (bus, subway, and Metro North railroad), Long Island (Long Island Rail Road), to various locations in elsewhere in New York state (Metro North), many places in Connecticut (Metro North), and New Jersey (New Jersey Transit trains, and PATH trains). You can also take a Greyhound Bus or Amtrak train to almost anywhere on the East Coast and beyond from NYC. Transit that is available within walking distance of Fordham includes: many bus lines, two subway lines, a good number of Metro North lines (though some destinations will require a trip to Manhattan to transfer), and Fordham's inter-campus van (the Ram Van). Hope that helps! I'd be glad to answer any other questions you have!

I'd say lack of time to prepare healthy meals (particularly breakfasts and lunches) and the resulting consumption of convenience food or fast food, along with a lack of time to devote to serious exercise has been the problem among my colleagues.

Well, loosing weight before you start grad school is all well and good. Loosing weight or maintaining your weight while in grad school can be quite difficult. Making time for exercise during grad school can be just as difficult or more so than making time while applying.

The option to edit posts is only available for a certain amount of time after the post it made, and after that the post can not be edited. Don't worry about it. I felt kind of silly posting to point out your mistake there, but I see it so often in student papers that it really gets to me sometimes.

Thanks for your response. I do understand that long distance relationships aren't something everyone is willing to do. I respect your decision not to be involved in one, and I imagine a long distance marriage would be more difficult than a long distance relationship before marriage. I do see what you mean about safety schools. It is a little different in the sciences than in my field, History. Congratulations on the acceptances, and I hope your husband hears some good news soon too!

No, you are not the abstract concept of bias, though you could be biased. (Sorry, grammatical pet peeve. No offense intended. I can't count how many times I've had to correct the use of the word bias on student papers.)

If the only way that you will go to grad school is if both of you are accepted at the same school or schools near each other, be prepared to go through the admissions process more than once. Being in the same field will make it more difficult, since you might still be competing with each other even though you are not in the same sub-field. There is no such thing as a safety school in graduate admissions. The school you mention may not be highly ranked, but are are both of your research interests a good fit for that department? If not, you could still easily be rejected. Even if you are a good fit, if you let your lack of enthusiasm about the school show in your applications, you might not be accepted. Even if you are a good fit, and seemed enthusiastic, graduate admissions depend on so many factors, many of which are beyond the applicant's control, that you can be rejected from anywhere. People regularly are rejected by schools they thought were safe, and accepted by schools they thought were reaches. Really, I'm not trying to depress you. Just give you a realistic picture of your chances. Ultimately you'll have to decide what is important to you. If you aren't willing to do a long distance marriage, are you willing to keep applying until you get a location match? As for when to mention it, I agree that not mentioning it until you have an acceptance is a good idea. Perhaps it would ok to mention at an interview if you think you have a good chance of acceptance, but you are right that it could possibly hurt your chances. I'm dealing with the two body problem myself as I am engaged to someone who is also in academia, and we live in different states right now. We aren't getting married until we know we can live together because we don't want to do a long distance marriage. We've moved apart from each other, sometimes on opposite sides of the country, when we needed to for academics because we believe that getting our education finished is a priority. Anyway, good luck, I hope you find someplace that works for both of you. I hope I did not offend you, I really was not trying to be harsh.

Agreed. Anyone can argue that most fields are useless, or useful. It is pretty much all opinion.

I was just wondering if anyone posting here is applying to Washington State University. I'm a first year Ph.D. student at WSU, and would be glad to answer any questions that you have. Feel free to PM me if you don't want to post your question publicly, or if you would like to talk by e-mail.

That's a rather interesting stereotype you're promoting there. I'm female, but I'd rather the nice bottle of alcohol, unless the person happened to hit on one of the the kinds of wine I like.

If you brought Cadbury chocolate and I was the host I'd be really happy! The Cabury stuff available in the US just isn't the same!

I think I chose a good user name. Glad to meet other Goodkind fans. I haven't seen the TV show, but I greatly enjoyed all of the books. Maybe when I have some free time I'll get around to watching the DVDs of the TV show.

Glowing screens start to hurt your eyes after a while reading on them. In addition, PDF pages vary in size. If you can't get one page of the document to fit on your monitor, the scrolling necessary to read each page gets excessive and annoying, particularly if it is an article written in columns. It goes something like this: Scoll down to read a column. Scroll up to read the next one. Repeat for fifteen to fifty pages. Do it again for the next article, and the one after that. Note the increasing pain, or at least tiredness, in your wrist. At least that is how it goes for me, some people might have better luck. PDF reading on the computer has gotten better since I got a Mac with a very large screen. I can make most PDF pages fit, so at least there is less scrolling. Anyway, about the Kindle: There is a good selection of fiction, they are working on getting more academic monographs up, but there aren't that many yet. If the stuff you need is on Google Books, there is a program to convert Google Book files to Kindle format. So you can get those books for free, convert them, and read them on a Kindle. Someone in my department told me about this program, I'll ask him where he found it and post about that here. He said it was a free program. Yes, it really does lower the cost. Most Kindle books currently do not cost more than $9.99, which is much lower than the cost of new release hardbacks. The savings are sometimes less on books that are available in paperback. However, there are so many books available for free or 99 cents that you'll get a lot of books for very little money if you are willing to try relatively new authors, or like reading classic books. I really was not impressed with the Nook when I tried it out in my college bookstore recently. The menus were quite difficult to navigate, you had to push the forward and back buttons really hard to get them to work (opposite problem from original Kindles, where it is too easy to press those buttons when you are first using it) and the screen was not that impressive. The color touch screen just looked out of place, and didn't add any fuctionality to the device. It will add unnecessary glare to it though, making it less easy on the eyes than the Kindle.

I thought the numbers were something like that. I'd still like to see the study though, to understand at what rate it was thought eggs were lost before and how that compares to what this study says. (Also I seem to be very good at leaving out words in things I post today. I blame it on being tired from lots of reading, and lots of time spent revising an abstract for submission. Sorry about the missing word.)

I have a Kindle, and I really like it. However, I mostly use it more for fun reading rather than academic reading. That is because most academic books in my discipline (History) are not available on the Kindle. The fact that out of copyright classic books are often free or 99 cents is really great though, it was quite useful when I was taking a class on William and Henry James. Also I was able to get a couple writing guides required for my dissertation writing class on Kindle. I would like to get the latest Kindle DX (the one with the large screen) since it has built in PDF compatibility, and seems to have a large enough screen that it should work well. My first generation Kindle doesn't do PDFs very well, and it's battery doesn't hold a charge very long if I'm not using it. (Its battery lasts longer if I use it regularly. If I charge it then don't use it for a few days, it's like I never charged it at all.)

I'd like to see the actual study that report was based on. TV reports on science almost always leave out the majority of the information you need to know if the study reliable or not.

I was 25 when I started my MA, and 27 when I started my Ph.D. The grad students in my current department range in age from 22 through 50 something.

Unless you are going for an interview there is little reason to visit before you are accepted. You'll waste a lot of time and money if you try to visit all the places you applied, because most people don't get in everywhere. Wait till you have some acceptances, then go visit to talk to faculty and scope out the area.

It can be a really bad idea to date someone in your program. It can create a lot of drama, and drama just tends to annoy people. It is an even worse idea to date a professor in your department, even if he or she is not in an area you are studying. That leads to lots of rumors and gossip, and generally is not a good thing for your reputation among other students in the program. Look outside your department. Have people in your department introduce you to people they know. Join a student organization. Go to graduate student social events that include people from other departments.