StrangeLight

1) try to get into a program at your school that allows you to complete a senior or honours thesis. this will be based on primary research and you will have a mentor that works with you on your interests, not the other way around. 2) don't spend too much effort trying to find a professor to let you work on their project. they won't. you're not trained in that work yet. a prof might approach you if they think you'd be good for a position, but you have to wait for them. everyone i know who got a research assistantship job as an undergrad (myself included) was approached by the prof, not the other way around. 3) focus on your language skills. figure out what your geographical or thematic interests are and then ask yourself what languages you'd need to know to do that work. interested in latin america? learn spanish and either portuguese or french. interested in subsaharan africa? french and portuguese are probably your best bet. modern europe? german and french. this will help you get into a PhD program. i swear, languages make or break applications.

check your department, your regional studies center, and your school for travel grants for conferences and research. you'll be surprised how much they have. i went to a conference in a resort hotel in barbados and didn't pay a penny for it because, by cobbling together my school's resources, i found $1000 for conference travel. ideally, you should not have to pay out of pocket for any conferences or research trips. ask fellow grad students if they know of funds you can tap. also, don't buy books for class. get them through interlibrary loans. in my department, we take 3 seminars a semester, and each seminar has at least one book a week. if you buy all of them, even used, even on amazon, it will set you back hundreds of dollars, so anything that isn't directly related to my research i get through ILL. at one point, my stipend was so low (because the US government withholds a ton of tax for international students) that after i paid all my bills, i had about $350 to live on each month. that barely covered food and one tank of gas, so no savings there. now my stipend is higher, so i manage to save just over $200/month (around 13%).

write this: Hi, my name is X. I'm currently a student at the university of Y, working with Prof. Z. I'm applying to PhD programs this fall and I was wondering if you plan to take on new graduate students this year. I hope to study [one to two sentences on a broad topic that is still narrower than region and time period, such as "gender and land rights movements in 20th century India"] and I feel that it connects well with your own work on [one sentence, like "gender in modern India"]. I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, student X.

they will not care about your job as a tutor/counselor. if you're doing the job because you find it fun, rewarding, and like the pocket money, then by all means do it and enjoy it. but if you're doing it to beef up your CV for grad applications, don't bother. programs care about your potential as a researcher. tutoring tells them nothing about that. for what an adcom is looking for, your time would be better spent working on a primary-source-based research paper, presenting at conferences (regional ones or undergraduate/graduate ones if you don't want to dive into the big conferences yet), or working as a research assistant for a history professor. if one of your professors suggests that a research paper you've written would be potentially publishable, you should devote your energy to working on that and submitting it for publication. all of this is, again, if your primary goal is to pursue activities that will look good to an adcom. but if you like tutoring and want to do it, do it. just know it won't make a lick of difference on any of your grad applications.

better this than offering admissions without funding. *cough*wisconsin*cough*

if the department is telling you they won't let you retake the exam because they don't want to set that precedent, but they have done just that in the past, it's a sign that they're not interested in keeping you on as a student. unfortunately, grad programs are not fair and they play favourites. they bend and break the rules for students they like and enforce the rules for students they don't want to keep in their program. this also suggests that their LORs to other history programs will not be as positive as you'll need them to be. you would probably have better luck in different fields, like public policy or education.

it is not that rigorous to get in. a large percentage of people rejected from their other social science programs are admitted to MAPSS with varying levels of financial support.

sigaba said "check your PMs." as in "private messages." not PMS, as in premenstrual syndrome. you should probably apologize.

yes, in general: year 1 and year 2: coursework, researching and writing a master's thesis. year 3: coursework, writing comprehensive exams (which can be on as many as 150 or 200 books), writing the proposal/overview for your dissertation. year 4: research for your dissertation, at archives or wherever else your sources are located. year 5 to year ?: writing the dissertation. there are many US programs that won't actually allow you to be enrolled in another PhD program at the same time. exceptions are joint programs where the US department specifically says you can complete two PhDs in two DIFFERENT fields at once. i've never heard of a program that allows you to complete two PhDs in history at once. and why would they? if you want to return to hong kong, you can probably move back there in year 5 - ? as you write your dissertation, provided you get fellowships and don't have to teach to earn a living. if you actually want the hong kong PhD, then just get it. it really, honestly makes no sense to get a PhD from hong kong and a PhD from the US in the exact same field. it's ridiculous. pick one or the other.

yes, definitely look at straight-up history programs and write that you want to work on women's history and gender in X place during Y time. also, when applying to programs, take a look at students' comprehensive exam fields. for some schools, you'll see people with one or two regional focuses (i.e. latin american history as the biggie, brazil as a specialized field). occasionally, however, you will find programs that privilege thematic concentrations as exam fields, so you'd see someone with fields in latin american history and gender history/gender theory. the latter sort of program will give you a stronger foundation in gender history within and outside of your regional and temporal focus, and so you may want to pursue those programs.

the lists are great, but you need to incorporate long-term assignments into the lists, not just coursework and TA duties and whatever else is due that week. you might want to set frequent, small, "soft" deadlines for those long-term research projects, like "read three articles this week," "outline next week," "write 2 pages a day," that sort of thing. in general, i find that works, although i also find that i tend to miss many of my soft deadlines, even the ones my advisor sets (although i let her know that her suggested deadlines are too unrealistic, so she's not left in the dark). it is great to feel like you have some free time and aren't working 24/7 but you also absolutely should progress on your research projects. they're not the sort of things you can pull off two nights before it's due anymore. they require a lot of time where you just need to sit there and think. not read, not write, just think, and you can't rush that, so you want to be sure you're making steady progress on those assignments. for not being stressed, well... i had a hard time of that. then i decided that, in order to keep the quality of my research high, i was going to let the quality of my coursework slip. somehow, i'm still managing to get all As, but i skim most of the readings i would've once read word for word, i don't know the answer to every question in seminar, i don't spend hours perfecting a seminar paper when what i write quickly is still good enough for an A. also, a new way i've managed to relieve stress lately is to do yoga. i go 3 times a week (although i'm hoping to get up to 4 soon, but my schedule's not matching up well with my studio's schedule). it's a really intense hot-power-flow yoga, so it's not sitting on your butt and chanting for 90 minutes, but it still helps me turn off my brain because all i can think of in class is "ow, my abs" rather than how much work i still need to do.

you should contact any potential advisor, give them a one-to-two sentence summary about your interests, and ask if they plan to take on new graduate students. if they say yes, include them as a PA in your SOP. if they say no, don't. also, in general, i would recommend working with scholars that have published recently. if you want to be a historian of the next generation, you need to be trained by a historian that is employing current historiographical trends (at the very least) and pushing the boundaries of the discipline in his/her own work (ideally). someone that hasn't published in two decades also probably hasn't read anything new in two decades either, so regardless of how much overlap there is in your topics, they may not be positioning you in the best possible way to make real contributions to your field.

look, almost any program is going to have a high rate of incompletion. with maybe the exception of yale, which is known for being a PhD factory. they just churn 'em out. there are really two schools of thought: 1) work your students hard so only the most dedicated actually finish, or 2) get everyone through as quickly and easily as possible, so you don't have a high drop-out rate. yale subscribes to the latter, but i'd say the overall trend is the former: weed 'em out. the job market is already saturated enough. so of course when you see that X program has a 75% tenure placement rate (no one will have something in the 80s or 90s for tenure-track positions. no one), that's 75% of the people that finished, and the people that finished are probably under 50% of the people that enrolled. in my own program, we admit 8-10 students a year and graduate 1-3 PhDs. even though people take different time to completion, those other 7 PhD students still have to go somewhere, and the reality is that they leave. you're all working hard now to get into PhD programs, and i guarantee that at some point over the next 5-8 years, you'll ask yourself at least once, "why the hell am i doing this?" this work isn't glamorous. if you don't make it in at the end of this cycle, don't panic. you might be ABD and decide you just don't want this like you thought you did. that's okay. there's no shame (and a lot of sense) in not being an academic.

for anyone concerned with the prestige of their prospective schools, may i... um... yeah. whatever. here goes: ask the directors of grad studies at your prospective programs (once you get in) for a list of recent PhDs, their dissertation titles, where they've found work, and at what level (assistant prof, visiting prof, lecturer, adjunct). especially do this if you're thinking about ivy league/top 10 schools, because you may be surprised at the results. if the DGS won't provide a list, that should be a red flag. back in the early 2000s, before the economic downturn, loss of university endowments, and canceled job searches, the placement rate for PhDs in tenure-track jobs (within 3 years of graduation) in the top 30 history programs was only 42%. yale, UCLA, and another ivy (harvard? princeton?) led the way somewhere in the 70%ile. my own program (which isn't terribly well ranked, although we're strong in a few subfields) recently released our numbers to the faculty and students, and we've been in the 70%ile for placement for the last 10 years. some places will be surprisingly good at getting their students jobs, and some will be surprisingly bad. arm yourself with this information before you say yes to any school, even/especially an ivy league or "top 10" program. i'd also strongly urge even the most competitive candidates to apply to MA programs and smaller PhD programs as well as their shiny list of the "best" schools out there. the department of education is cutting title VI funding. that means that national resource centers and area studies programs are losing roughly half their funding this year alone and even more in future years. FLAS fellowships weren't canceled this year because the funds had already been distributed before the title VI funding was slashed, but next year (your year) this funding is going to really dry up. many programs rely on title VI funding and FLAS fellowships to pay for some of their admitted students' funding. the loss of this money means fewer admissions spots this year, when the number of spots has already been dropping since 2008/2009. title VI funding usually goes to the best schools in that region (russia/eastern europe, latin america, africa, asia, etc.) so if you're applying to the school with the best russian history program, that is precisely the school that is going to lose funding to support russian history students. awesome, huh?

huh. when i applied to michigan, they wanted GRE scores.

how is a 40-page research paper not a thesis?</p> it varies by program, but in general, A-s are fine grades for masters students but not for PhD students. at the PhD level, an A- becomes the equivalent of what a B+ is: a warning that you need to do better. anything below a B+ is an indication that you're struggling with the material. you need to do more than just &quot;get it&quot; to get an A in a course or on an assignment. you need to bring the material together in an interesting way, say something somewhat new or original, go above and beyond whatever the assignment is asking of you. the reason so many people get As in grad school is because you're surrounded by really smart hardworking people, not because it's all suddenly easier. i've definitely seen people get Cs in grad school because they produced C-level work.

oh dear. qbt, make your way to koerner's pub in the grad house and drink. a lot. go look at coed breasts and naked homeless men on wreck beach. you'll be fine.

see if you can get your group using google docs and dropbox to be able to work on projects together on your own time, from home or wherever else you work. if your groupmates want you to stay to 10 pm, then stay until 10 pm. you're lucky your prof lets you out early. i have a few that keep us 30-60 minutes late, and those are evening classes as well. if others want to work past 10 pm, let them, but tell them you need to leave. as long as you ask for tasks to complete on your own and bring them to your next meetings, you'll still be contributing. in the future, if ending class at 10 pm is a problem, don't register for that class. simple. if it's a required course, suck it up. carry pepper spray if you want added security. see if any of your classmates are headed the same direction as you and leave as a group. work a cab ride home into your budget. ask your husband to meet you at campus and take the trains home together. at least you'd have the commute to spend time with each other. none of these are ideal options, i realize, but you signed up for the class. it is entirely reasonable for your groupmates to expect you to be available during class hours.

if they want an honours BA and you have an honours BA, what's the problem exactly? they want history and you have history and english, so... you'll be fine. don't make things more complicated than they need to be.

the same thing happened to me when i moved 3000 miles for undergrad. the instant i connected my computer to the campus's network, it was loaded with viruses that shut it down almost immediately. there was a bit of a crisis back home that i could do nothing about, and i had no way of getting in touch with people (i didn't have a cell phone either) unless i went to the library. after a few fits of crying, mostly out of frustration, things were better on all fronts in a week or two. my best advice is to let yourself feel whatever you're feeling (abandoned, guilty, whatever) and then, once you've felt it, let it go. throw a fit, sob, punch an inanimate object, then breathe deeply and move on. there really isn't much else you can do at the moment and that isn't your fault. as for general feelings of being overwhelmed, every new student experiences it. even returning to classes after the summer off, you'll feel overwhelmed getting back into your old work flow. it happens to all of us. everyone has different time/energy management strategies, but i've found that slowing every other part of my life down (such as catching the bus that leaves 20-30 minutes earlier than i need, taking leisurely walks on my way to the coffee shop to start work, browsing the record store for an hour before heading home, taking a break to clean up my work surfaces) has helped me move through my books/writing a lot faster and with less stress. i used to plan my time down to the hour thinking i was maximizing my efficiency, but instead i just felt rushed all the time. giving myself more time to get from A to B and do the little things throughout the day has made a huge difference in how busy i feel, even though i'm still getting as much done as i used to.

nope. if you're just looking for summer funding, see if your department offers a few thousand to do summer research or language acquisition. also, the centers or institutes that offer the language training sometimes have their own internal fellowships you can apply for. but as far as i know, there's no canadian government funding for summer language training. you could apply for the SSHRC, though, which gives you up to 4 years of funding. multi-year fellowships with no requirements (such as having to take language classes every year) are awesome and will make your american colleagues jealous. don't sweat it too much.

if your desire is to eventually teach in europe, a PhD from europe or the US will set you up well. a PhD from canada, in general, will not. there are canadian PhD programs that are strong enough to get you placed at any level of school in any country (such as medieval history from U of T), but these are the exceptions. in general, getting your PhD from a canadian school that doesn't happen to have a renowned reputation in a certain subfield will almost guarantee that you'll only get hired in canada. which is fine, because i love canada and can't wait to move back, so i'm not knocking it. i'm just letting you know that if you want to teach in europe or the US, you will be much better positioned if you get a PhD in europe or the US. also, if you do want to return to canada to work, having your degree from outside of canada is also an advantage. canadian departments give preferential treatment to canadian citizens and permanent residents when they hire you, but they also like the prestige that comes with having faculty that received PhDs in the US or europe, so you automatically have a leg up on your competition. keep in mind this is all only applicable to PhD programs. getting your masters in canada sets you up really well for admissions to the top PhD programs in canada, the US, and europe. it also saves you some money, if you have to go the terminal MA route before getting the PhD, because canadian MAs are often fully funded, either with TAing, a SSHRC, or both.

i use interlibrary loans for any book that isn't related to my research. if, after reading it, i think "damn, i want this," then i'll buy it.

go to your director of grad studies. tell him/her everything. bring the letter, explain no one would take you on as an RA, explain all of your frustrations. it's his/her job to sort this out for you, so you won't be putting any undue burden on him/her. do this on monday. as for getting purged from classes, you can still attend them even with your tuition outstanding. just explain to the prof (if the prof asks) that the school hasn't paid your bill yet. keep going, keep taking notes, keep doing the work. it'll be fine. also, TAing for only 50 students sounds like a dream. in my program, the standard is 80 students (4 discussion sessions of 20 students). you may like TAing. you may decide to be a prof rather than go into industry because of how much you enjoy it. don't write it off yet. but still talk to your director of grad studies and see if you can get what was promised you, at least for the second semester if not for the first. are berkeley's grad students unionized? i'm guessing no, but if they are, also approach your grad union representative about this. i know this is frustrating, but you are also not the first student this has ever happened to. if you complain, loudly, to people that matter, they will try to work something out with you. if you resign yourself to getting screwed over, you will be screwed over again. go talk to someone that can help you.

i wish. in my program, students do 3 years of coursework and complete their comps and their overview by the end of that 3rd year. every summer is filled with archival research trips, so you're either prepping for the trip, on the trip, or processing the data when you get back. unfortunately, comps prep seems to happen almost entirely during coursework semesters in my program. students are also definitely teaching at the same time unless they secure a fellowship like the FLAS or some outside award that funds coursework years (which are few and far between). while preparing for comps and reading 3+ full books a week is definitely stressful, so are job searches, so is tenure review, so is trying to get your dissertation published, etc. the average tenure-track prof in the US works 65 hours a week. that means some work more and others work less. if i can't handle 65 hours as a grad student, i won't be able to handle it as a professor either. as profs, we will all be juggling research/writing with teaching, advising, service duties, and real life. i don't think the amount of work we're faced with as professors lessens compared to the heavier grad school loads, i just think we learn to cope with it better and work more efficiently because of our grad school experience. growing pains.