StrangeLight

roller ball for life. i don't have a brand preference, but any pen i get needs to be a rollerball. i bought a few felt tips recently and while they're better than ballpoint by a mile, they just aren't the same... some day (when i finish my PhD? get a job? get tenure? retire?) i'll splurge on a montblanc.

you mentioned that you're young, so i agree with everything about TMP's advice except the marriage part. holy hell. people who get married before they're 30 freak me out. anyway... the history job market is tough. it's especially tough for US historians such as yourself. and you seem pretty content with part of your life, if not all of it. grad school will always be there. live your life now, try grad school later, when she will either definitely make the move with you or you two aren't together anymore. (now, if you recoiled at the advice i gave above, that means you should apply to grad school now, whatever happens with your relationship).

in the last few months, i've switched to a new method of motivation/productivity, and so far, it's giving me good results. in the past, i would take 2-3 days to do some of my work really thoroughly and then run out of time on other things i needed to accomplish and do rushed, terrible jobs on them. now, i get everything done on time and while i don't do my coursework as thoroughly as i once did, it's still good enough to merit the exact same grades and i have more time to dedicate to research, grant writing, etc. oh, and having a life and some downtime. basically, i switched from thinking about "time management" ("i'm going to do 10 hours of work today") to "energy management" ("i'm going to finish this book today"). every week, i make a list of all the things i need to get done that week (readings, summaries, essays, making progress on my overview). every evening, i pick one or two tasks to complete the next day, like one book and a summary. i work on those things until they're done, and i tell myself that they HAVE to be done that day. if the book is 600 pages and in another language, then i know at the outset that i will have to skim it and read selectively in order to finish it in one day. if i somehow manage to get my daily tasks done by 3 or 4 pm (which is becoming a regular occurrence) then i take the rest of the day off. i absolutely DO NOT do more work. i enjoy my evening. i grab a beer, watch tv, surf the net, whatever. i know that as long as i complete the daily tasks i set for myself, i will complete my weekly list of work, and i'll be on top of everything. this change has really helped me stay motivated through my work. for one thing, i love making lists and i get extreme satisfaction with crossing everything off my list. and, by limiting my list-making to one week and setting tasks one day at a time, i actually get the satisfaction of seeing a cleared calendar by the end of the day/week. i used to make semester-long lists of work i had to do, and that just seemed daunting, not satisfying. also, giving myself the permission to relax once my daily work is done, whether it's 9 pm or 2 pm, has also been a great motivator for me, and i'm a huge procrastinator. but, knowing that if i get this done now then i can veg out for a few hours and not stress about it has pushed me through a lot of work i didn't want to do.

your GPA is fine. don't worry about it. i know people who went to schools with honors programs and chose not to do them, and they got into plenty of schools. one of them got into (and then rejected) harvard. so... don't sweat it. you DO need your writing sample to be a historical essay where you're using primary sources. if you can take a research seminar or an undergrad class that has a research paper as an assignment, and then just edit it a lot before submitting applications, you'll be fine. even without those options, you can ask a prof you guide you through a research paper informally during the year (probably not during the summer. they might be out of town or doing research themselves). so, as long as you can get your writing sample in order, you're still competitive for programs. i think people on this board forget that not everyone picked their college knowing they wanted a PhD and not everyone has groomed themselves from the first day of undergrad to get into a graduate program.

you should really be asking this question to as many professors as you can, NOT graduate students, let alone fellow applicants. the advice that anyone could give you here, even the most seasoned graduate students, will pale in comparison to what young professors can tell you about your SOP and writing sample.

any travel grant where your application was peer-reviewed, and where not everyone is automatically awarded the money, is worth listing. if it's a case where your department gives everyone money for a conference as long as there's money left in the kitty, then leave it out.

yes you can take time off. you should talk to your advisor or the director of grad studies about this, and consider being specific. while you say your advisor has a "pristine" opinion of you, you also say that you're getting Bs and Cs. that pristine opinion won't last long, and your best bet is to be open and honest about your struggles. also, i second (third?) seeing the counseling center while you wait for your doctor's appointment.

you can indeed just quit at the end of this semester, without getting the MA. it isn't too late. finish the semester, and then say "i'm leaving, even without the degree," and just don't show up anymore. that should be fine, since they can move your funding to someone else and you're not leaving them mid-semester with no one to TA/RA/however else they pay you. and perhaps telling them that you're quitting their program will prompt them to let you sit your defense, finally, because they're not concerned with molding you as an academic for a PhD program.

here's my link for any lurkers that would like to sign up. if you use your .edu email, we'll both get an additional 500 mb of space instead of 250. thank you kindly. http://db.tt/l3TLR9A8 you can also get more space by sinking dropbox with your smart phone, by watching their introductory videos, and a few other things listed on their website. i managed to increase my space by 0.9 GB in about 10 minutes by doing all their little activities. following them on twitter or facebook will also get you more space. dig it.

<p>also, the html on this website can suck my nonexistent balls. for eff's sake.</p> <div id="myEventWatcherDiv" style="display:none;"> </div>

<p> </p> <p> </p> <p>you can ask your current prof, but you want him/her to have enough time to actually write this letter. the prof should not be rushed. odds are, they're going to write the same letter for all of your schools, rather than individually tailor it to each program (some profs tailor their LORs to programs, but that's because you're their favourite. most don't have the time). so this prof will need time to write your LOR fully and completely by december 1. he/she should be given at least 4 weeks to write this letter. they're busy people. ask this prof NOW if he/she'll write the letter (the prof might say no, after all, and then you need to find someone else). tell the prof you'll provide him/her with a dossier to give him/her a greater sense of your background. in that dossier, put your university transcript, a writing sample that is either really great or is a history research paper (preferably it's both), and include your statement of purpose. all of this should go to this prof by november 1 at the latest. since it's already october 11, if you haven't written your SOP and don't have your writing sample picked out yet, it's time to get to work. if this timeline is unmanageable for you (a writing sample and a decent draft of your SOP by november 1), then consider dropping the schools with the december 1 deadline from your list.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>1) in my experience, programs will admit roughly double the number of students that they want for their yield. so if they want 6 students, they'll admit 12. if they want 10, they'll admit 20. if they want 20, they'll admit 40. occasionally they overyield (more than their desired number enroll) and occasionally they underyield (fewer). at my own very small program, they get roughly 120 applications a year, admit about 15 or 16, and hope for an enrollment of 8. schools that have strengths in a ton of fields (rather than just 2 or 3, like my program) will get way more applicants, but may still only admit 15 or 16 students.</p> <p> </p> <p>2) it's a conversation. prepare a short, 30 second statement recapping your interest in their program. be specific. talk about your research interests. talk about how you think those interests fit that prof and that program. maybe bring up their work? if their library has a great archival collection for your research, bring that up. they love that shit (which means, research their library's holdings). have a few questions for them THAT COULD NOT BE ANSWERED BY SIMPLY CHECKING THE DEPARTMENT'S WEBSITE. the worst thing is to ask them for information that you could easily find on their webpage. it makes you seem lazy and uninterested in their program. so read every damn page of that web page and come up with a question or two that is not mentioned there. even just ask about the city and grad student morale and how the faculty gets along, what relationship the profs in your field have with each other and with their students.</p> <p> </p> <p>3) it's a good sign, but it guarantees you nothing. i had a phone conversation with a prof where she kept asking me &quot;are you sure this is the best place for your work?&quot; that was basically her first question. admittedly, it wasn't. i'm a central americanist trying to convince a colombianist that she could advise me (and in retrospect, she really couldn't have). i didn't get in there, but mostly because she moved schools that spring without telling any of her potential applicants. i also talked with one prof who just told me, &quot;i haven't advised on anything other than cuba in over a decade and i don't plan to, so either change your project or ask one of my colleagues to advise you.&quot; fair enough. i had great phone and email exchanges with other profs, they gave me pointers on my SOP, but i still came up short. i also had great phone conversations with schools that i got into, and i got into programs without having had much contact before the applications went in. so.... it's all over the map.</p> <div id="myEventWatcherDiv" style="display:none;"> </div>

you need to be more specific than "20th century american history" for PhD applications. you need to be more specific than "gender and 20th century american history." you need to say something like, "i want to look at women's labour movements in the garment industry in new york" or something. no one is going to hold you to that project, but the SOP is supposed to show that you can conceive of an interesting and doable research topic. if you can even name some sources you would use for your project, all the better. if you can't come up with a topic, then focus your applications on MA programs.

if you don't have ANY letters from a historian, you need one. unfortunately, so much of what helps us get into grad programs is the networking and reputation of our LOR writers. if the adcom hasn't heard of any of them (and they won't, if none are historians) then it will kill your chances. some applications even specify that at least one LOR needs to be from a historian. programs don't really care if your BA was in history or not, but they do care whether or not you've taken history classes before. for people that can't secure one strong LOR from a history prof, i'd suggest throwing in some applications to area studies MA programs as well and, if you're enrolled in one of those programs, go out of your way to take history courses and make contacts with history profs so that when you apply for the PhD later, you have strong LORs from historians.

we all feel the impostor syndrome eventually. while it's true that you wouldn't be in your program unless your school saw potential in you, it's also true that not everyone who gets into a program will make it through. we all feel inadequate a lot of the time, so that's normal, but if/when professors start telling you there's a problem with your work or progress, then you need to recognize that those conversations are not simply about &quot;impostor syndrome.&quot; they're about your work. if you can learn to tell the difference, then the impostor syndrome stuff doesn't seem so demoralizing anymore, because it's not like your DGS is telling you that you need to step it up. also, i think it's helpful to find your strengths and personal value in the world outside of academia. if you value yourself for something other than "being smart" or "being the best student" when a prof tells you that your proposal is crap, they're just talking about the proposal, not about you. but if you invest all your self-worth in your ability as a student or researcher, when they tell you that your proposal is crap, it feels like they're telling you that you're crap. if you make space for life outside of your work and you find joy there, then any problems with your work feel less serious, because they're not shaking your entire personal foundation. they're just problems with work, and that can be fixed. learning to not take work-related criticism personally goes a long way to reducing your stress over your work, which in turn goes a long way to increasing your happiness and helping you produce better work in the first place. i don't know if any of that made sense...

i understand not cutting the "have a life" budget. i won't do that for myself either. in fact, i probably spend way too much on eating out/drinking/whatever else. so i sympathize and i wouldn't cut that myself, but sometimes, some months, it's gotta take the back seat if the finances demand it. i only suggested this because you said the running budget was non-negotiable, and with rent and utilities pretty inflexible, there wasn't too much else to cut. when i've used pay-as-you-go plans, i've spent as little as $15/month on my bill, and my phone was either free or $50 or something. now, i didn't have the compulsive texters in my life that i do now, so the number would be different, but it would still be way cheaper than what you pay for your flip phone. income in the summer helps a lot. if you don't spend summers abroad doing field work, then a part-time job is awesome for freeing up your budget a bit and very common in fields where people stay in their uni towns rather than go abroad during time off.

right, but it's easier to get into an MA program than a PhD one. the admissions are less competitive. from there, it's easier to get into a PhD program if you already have an MA than if you're just a BA. and i'm fairly certain about the FLASes, since it was announced at the annual meeting of my area studies center as they tried to prepare us for a post-title VI world. they will be cut down, but not necessarily eliminated altogether, next year.

<p>a B+ in a graduate course is an indication that you are NOT performing well in the course. it is a strong warning that you are not pulling your weight. any class where you received a B+ you should consider the equivalent of a failed grade (or close to it).</p> <p> </p> <p>if you're paying for your degree, but other students are on fellowships, TAships, and RAships, this is a sign that the program already didn't feel strongly about you as a student. the fact that they then gave you B+s is simply reinforcing that.</p> <p> </p> <p>i'd suggest finding alternative employment for the spring rather than trying to convince professors to advise you. they've sent you the message that they're not interested. take some time off, reevaluate, and then consider applying to PhD programs in the future and ONLY take an offer of admission if it comes with full funding. i'm sorry to hear that you've already lost your money on this degree.</p> <div id="myEventWatcherDiv" style="display:none;"> </div>

60 years old isn't that old for a house. if you own it, then consider investing in better insulation, new windows, and/or an efficiency heater. and if you're renting, MOVE. holy hell, $1500 a month for heat is more than my monthly paycheck.

students in terminal MA programs (rather than combined MA/PhD programs) are the bottom of the totem pole for funding at most schools. your stats position you well for acceptance at those programs, but you'll have to ask each program if funding will be an option for you.

also, cut the coffee from your budget. always make your own, never buy it. if you buy a cup a day and suddenly start making it yourself, you're already saving around $45/month. use skype to contact people by long distance. rather than getting your own internet connection, see if someone in another apartment in your building will give you the password for their wifi connection and offer to pay them $10/month or something for the cost. while you'll be dependent on them to reset the modem when it acts up, you'll also save money on your would-be bill.

i have lived on $1300/month for two years. it sucks but it's manageable. the first thing to cut is the $100 for eating out and having a life. sad, but true. next is to see if there's any tuition's remission or small scholarship you can get to cover your $700/semester fees. third is to apply for summer funding to do research abroad or to apply for TAships in the summer. in my own program, we can scrape together anywhere from $1000 to $4500 extra each year in summer funds. now, you actually need to spend that money on researching, but you can sublet your apartment while you're gone and end up saving a bit of money overall. see if it's possible to bundle your phone and your internet together to bring the cost down. $60 is a cheap bill in the world of smartphones and an expensive bill in the world of pay-as-you-go cheapy flip phones. if you really feel the strain month to month, consider downgrading your phone to a very basic necessity. also, plenty of grad students work without telling their advisors. i know social science and humanities students that tutor people in foreign languages, that pick up freelance journalism or museum work, that work at the gap, that train people in martial arts or running or swimming or yoga. just don't tell your professors that you're doing this. it's an open secret that students work other jobs, and they won't be mad that you're making extra money, they'll be mad that you're spending time on something other than school, but if it's only 2-3 hours a week (at $20/hr for tutoring gigs, for example) then you should be fine.

i got a good chunk of it back. the government withholds 14% of your paycheck, but because i'm only in the 3% income tax bracket, i got 11% of my monthly earnings back. my tax return was a few hundred dollars higher than my monthly paycheck, so i used it to buy a macbook pro. it's sort of like forced savings, in a weird way. you will get almost all of it back when you file for taxes.

sometimes an off-campus advisor is necessary because your program lacks someone in your field of expertise. i know a student at princeton whose primary advisor is from the university of toronto because there are exactly zero people that could even begin to advise her general regional field at princeton (so why she's there, i don't know). i also know a student at cornell in the same situation, with zero potential advisors in her program that even come close to her regional field. cornell student asked my advisor (at a "boutique" small and successful program) to be on her committee and my advisor said no, so cornell student is trying to navigate the basic texts of her regional field on her own. sometimes people pick the prestige of a program over the fit for their interests (or their interests shift dramatically once they're there) and then having an outside advisor becomes almost necessary to complete the project. other times, it's a way to network or get "big fancy professor that everyone knows" on your dissertation committee (and get LORs from them for job applications). i'm having an outside member on my own dissertation committee, but he is at a school that is literally two blocks away from my own institution, and the two universities collaborate on stuff constantly. he has very specified knowledge of my dissertation topic, he's great to work with, and he's a grad school friend of my primary advisor (who is also great to work with), so collaborating with both of them will work well for me. my school stipulates that one committee member must be from another discipline, so i had considered getting an outside member to serve in that capacity as well, but i don't think that will pan out. anyway, i want to echo one of the sentiments in here: your dissertation committee should above all have GOOD CHEMISTRY. if your goal is to finish your PhD, you want your committee to be able to work well with you and with each other. if one is asking for a certain argument or method and another is asking for the exact opposite, this will give you a ton of headaches and delay your project (or potentially derail it). yes, networking is important. yes, big names on your committee can be a bonus on job searches. but you also need to actually get through the dissertation, so personality really matters here, perhaps even more than expertise.

yes, there are some external fellowships you are eligible for as someone just entering a PhD program, like the liebmann and the javits. since everyone applying for them is usually (or always?) also about to enter a program, you actually have a fairly even shot of getting funded. there are other fellowships (national endowment for the humanities, mellon, lawler, social sciences research council) that are specifically for either dissertation research or dissertation writing years, so you obviously won't apply for those. i'd suggest checking "the bank" forum on this site to see what fellowships are listed there (they usually get their own threads so we can all commiserate while we apply) to get a first sense of what to look for. you should also see whether you qualify for a fulbright.

the committees will be able to see that you went to a different school for your MA and your PhD, so they will know that your dissertation advisor's direct experience with you is more limited. this will be the case for every other applicant who changed institutions between the MA and the PhD. ask your dissertation advisor to write about the potential that brought you into his/her program in the first place and to write on the merits of the proposal itself. ask your old MA professors to speak about your actual research experiences under their guidance as well as the viability and importance of the proposal. not every LOR has to cover the same bases.