StrangeLight

has anyone who is getting their award in august, in two large installments, received their cheque yet? i'm not entirely sure my school put the paperwork through correctly (or at all) and i don't want to have to put my rent on my credit card next month.

heh. i wish i listened to myself more often. in my program, 3 courses is considered both the maximum and the minimum load. if you're not TAing, then these should be 3 seminars. maybe throw on an undergraduate language class as well, if you need the training. if you are TAing, then you should take 2 seminars and a language class to fulfill the minimum 3 courses to be full time. i know many a student who has taken 1 seminar, 1 language class, and 1 independent study that was nothing more than them working on their MA (which should be done in addition to the minimum 3 courses, not as part of them). these students were not TAing. very lax approaches that resulted in a single overloaded semester at the end of their degrees. whatever. i have the opposite problem. this next semester i will be taking 5 courses. 2 reading-heavy seminars, 1 quant methods seminar that will require a lot of work but not a lot of reading, 1 undergraduate language class, 1 reading-heavy independent study. i will also be reading an additional book a week for comps preparation. i will also be working on my dissertation overview. i would love to cut something out but i can't. in one way or another all of these classes are mandatory. i guess i could drop one of the reading seminars and hope something else is offered in the spring, but if it isn't, then i'll end up losing my funding eligibility with our area studies center, and that's no good.

you have misread my post, perhaps intentionally. you can fight a strawman if you want to, i won't stop you.

there's no harm in applying there, but it does look like intellectual inbreeding and will make you a less attractive candidate on the job market. then again, going to a program and working with an advisor without the same reputation as UCLA and your PA will also make you a less attractive candidate. you should also have a frank conversation with some of the grad students in UCLA's program. it's... just talk to them. i've heard some incredibly alarming things about the way that ship is run, and that was coming from someone who was actually attempting to defend that program. they were in your subfield too. if you care for details, pm me. but, talk to them and ask for their honest evaluation of the program.

the thing is, sigaba did not accuse the OP of filling up his entire post with his identity. he simply asked why he chose to include that information, and to make it first. and while you definitely had a successful admissions year, you didn't get in everywhere, right? there are multiple reasons for that, but including a statement in your SOP that is controversial is bound to alienate someone on an adcom. they're best to avoid, unless you're intentionally being provocative for personal or political reasons. i'm just saying that including this information IS controversial and that people should be aware of that before they do so in their SOP. i'm not saying they should or shouldn't do it, simply that they should be aware that they are making a particular philosophical and political statement (knowingly or otherwise) by thinking it's important to mention their identity. you also risk essentializing that identity, which is a no-no in cultural history.

some of you may be unfamiliar with wider message board culture. what just me is doing is called trolling. don't feed the troll. don't respond. it's not sincere.

others can advise you on specific people to work with much better than i can, because this is outside my field, but i'll throw this out there for anyone: i am not sure how wise it is to mention personal details or life history as a motivation for subject of study in your SOP. i'm not saying it's bad, i'm saying i'm definitely not sure if it's a positive or a negative. some professors and programs probably like to see some sort of personal connection between the applicant and the topic, but in my limited experience in grad school (two years in), saying "this is important to me because it's part of my family history" is usually taken as a negative in an SOP. not because we shouldn't or can't have those personal connections, but because it seems unprofessional and less serious than "i hope to contribute to and alter this historiographical debate." i've seen far more applications crash and burn on the "this is my personal history" SOPs than i've seen succeed. that's not to say you can't mention it in an SOP or that it's a death knell, but... i think the more cautious approach is to include that sort of information in private conversations with PAs and to leave it out of the SOP itself. just my two cents on that. as far as the OP identifying himself, i took sigaba's comment to mean that it was interesting that the OP chose to identify himself at all. those details don't change any of the advice or the shape of his project or his desired academic aims. at the same time, most of these threads are filled with superfluous information. to the OP in particular, there are probably university fellowships reserved for minority applicants (i know this is the case in my own program) so i think mentioning race and/or gender should occur somewhere in your application so that you're eligible for these, but i would strongly avoid including this information in your SOP. you can study the impact of the civil war on black women's rights while being black, white, male, female, etc. my sense is, again from my own limited experience, that adcoms will react to the inclusion of this material in your SOP more like sigaba did ("why is this information relevant?") than how many others have. so... in sum... any personal or identity-related connections to anyone's topic are valid and legitimate and probably worth mentioning in an informal setting, but i'd strongly discourage including any of this information in an SOP.

i'd also consider adding the university of pittsburgh to your list. george reid andrews works on argentina (and brazil, and uruguay). primarily 20th century and primarily the social and political history of afro-descendants, but he's well equipped to advise any project on modern argentina. he's a great scholar, very well connected, and a lovely human being too. the program also just hired a bolivianist, laura gotkowitz, who is well-versed in the 20th century southern cone historiography. there's my plug. jose moya seems to move around a bit. i recall seeing him listed on more than one top-ranked university's faculty list, so i'd doublecheck to find out where he's actually in residence. florencia mallon at wisconsin-madison works on chile, but she'd probably be able to advise you. while i think having someone close to your regional focus is pretty important (i.e. southern cone), i think trying to find an exact country match can be difficult. even if there are great argentinists, they're not all teaching at schools that offer PhDs. you already have 6 schools on your list, and OSU and pitt are good additions, but consider casting a wider net. contact chileanists or brazilianists and ask them if they would be willing to advise your project on argentina. some will say no, flat out, and some will say yes, absolutely. also, follow the books you love. figure out who wrote your favourite books on argentina and see if they're at schools with good grad programs.

i am getting a fellowship this year that will increase my monthly stipend by about $5000, but shockingly, that won't make much of a difference to how i live. for my rent, utilities, tv, phone, and internet, i pay $825/month. this past year, i lived off of $300/month for everything else and dipped into my savings. in a year, i probably spent an extra $7000, but that included paying off a $3000 credit card debt, taking yoga classes, traveling 3000 miles to see friends, buying books, attending conferences, etc. so now i'll have about $800 in spending money each month, but all that will translate to is putting a couple hundred back into savings instead of taking a couple hundred out.

as a canadian that went to the US to do a combined MA/PhD program... in canada, schools will give you funding or TA positions to pay for your MA. in the US, terminal MAs are rarely, if ever, funded, so it's better to go to a combined MA/PhD program than to pay out of pocket. many students also use canadian MAs to get positions at US PhD programs (at least in my field). it's a good springboard if a US PhD offer doesn't come up during the application process. but, short answer? you can get paid to do an MA in canada, but you (usually) have to pay to do an MA in the US.

re: your mom. definitely don't bring her with you into the meetings. i'd recommend not even having her wait outside the room while you're having the meeting. even though this may be an unfair judgment, it will reflect a perceived lack of maturity to have your mother escort you to and from meetings. have her hang out at a nearby cafe or something while you do these meetings. they probably won't last more than an hour. re: contacting departments. find the prof you'd want to work with and the director of grad studies on the department website. email them both, let them know when you'll be in town, what your interests are (1-2 sentences), and if they're around that you'd like to meet with them. if they're not out of town at the time, they will in all likelihood make time to meet with you. they may even have a grad student or two meet with you so you can ask them about what it's like to be in the program (don't take your mom to meet the grad students either).

more on this: until the mid-19th century, most of the southwest "US" is actually mexico. you might find that your research evolves to a transnational/comparative/borderlands project, which (beyond making you way more hireable than than "an americanist") will require you to know spanish.

holy crap. well, i know a ton of tenured professors that need to be fired, but they're dead weight. 1-1 teaching loads and no research to speak of. this is still pretty upsetting.

i think it's still worth applying without the languages. you can acquire the language training during your MA. a lot of programs make americanists learn only one language rather than two or more, and some even allow them to replace languages with other research tools like statistics or demography or oral history. it is possible (although i wouldn't recommend it) for americanists to avoid language training altogether at some programs. as someone that has to learn two foreign languages (and should probably learn three or four) and as someone that struggles with languages, i don't think it's fair that americanists can get off the hook so easily, but... check out each department. they may not actually demand that you learn this stuff. i will, at the same time, warn you that native americanists are not necessarily considered "americanists." so programs may not let you off the language hook. and they may expect you to pick up indigenous languages. i'd be surprised if your advisors don't expect you to work with oral traditions at some point, which you'll need to be able to read in their original languages. when people hire native americanists, they're looking for experts on those groups and cultures, and if you can't translate an interview from a native language into english, you won't seem like much of an expert to them. further, native americanists tend to get called in as expert witnesses in land tenure cases quite a bit. especially if you're testifying on behalf of the native community, you'll need to actually be able to speak/read their first language. now, it's very hard to find a place to learn a lot of these languages, so most schools won't expect you to have started the training. but they'll (probably) expect you to do it once you're there. so you won't need the language on your application, but you will have to actually learn it at some point. your sources may also be in languages that you just don't expect. if you work with missionary documents at all, be prepared now that they'll be in seemingly random languages. a friend of mine works on indigenous groups in colombia and costa rica, and many her sources were (to her surprise) in german and italian. she already had spanish, english, portuguese, a bit of french, and a bit of an indigenous language, and then she had to pick up two more, and quickly. that's a reality of the sort of work we do.

guns for all, health care for none! that's it, i'm moving back to canada.

sure. i lived in an old house converted into 3 apartments. my apartment (the attic) wasn't wired for telephone or cable, which no one told me when i moved in. i couldn't get a landline, i couldn't get tv, and i couldn't get my own internet service. my downstairs neighbours had wifi, so they let me use their internet connection. but their internet was shitty (comcast/evil) and would constantly drop or stop working. if they were home to reset the modem and had noticed it wasn't working pretty quickly, then the connection would be up and running quickly enough. but they went out of town every weekend and so i'd lose my internet connection almost every weekend as well. i downloaded a few programs for my iphone to jailbreak it. this is illegal and voids the warranty. then i downloaded a program that allowed me to turn my phone into a wifi connection. i could connect my computer to my phone's data and browse the internet. the connection was actually pretty fast (faster than it is on my phone, actually) but it drained the phone's battery, so i'd have to leave it plugged in while i used it that way. that lasted pretty much up until i moved (so about 2 years).

i don't think people should be allowed to carry guns on campus. including security personnel and campus police.

it's what the apple people told me at their store. it's also what i discovered myself when i wanted to defrag an old mac. i can't actually do it unless i download third party software because the macs do it themselves with any file under 1 GB each time they're rebooted. i'm not referring to caching writes, no. and moving files around before shutting down isn't high intensity if you regularly turn your computer off and on. anything else?

professors have contracts that state how many courses they teach a semester. you can only change that number on contract renegotiations or if the prof feels like taking on more teaching (most of them don't). when they let go the non-tenured instructors, they'll just hire adjuncts for $2000/course. again, the budget cuts won't affect the tenured profs.

how is that not what i said? overcharging the battery often happens when you keep using the same battery after it's been through all of its charge cycles. i don't really understand your point. sure, windows 7 is fine. i would just never recommend it to someone if they have the (financial) option of going with a mac OS or linux or something. but it's fine.

almost any history program/professor will be willing to advise on nationalism. even something as narrow as "19th century italian nationalism" isn't really that narrow. any italian historian who feels comfortable advising on the 19th century would be able to guide you through that project, for example. the best way to narrow down programs is to look at the books and articles you've really loved and see if and where those professors are teaching. for many people, their school list is really determined by their bookshelves. i agree that historians can and should use quantitative methods wherever and whenever it makes sense for their argument. i am not anti-quant. but there is a massive difference between databasing, counting, and some general demographic work on the one hand and a graduate-level statistics course that demands command of complex formulae and assumes everyone can already do regression analysis on the other. even if a poli sci student has no intention of performing quantitative work themselves, it can be difficult for them to even find admission to a PhD program without undergrad stats courses. being a historian and talking a few poli sci courses can be extremely beneficial. depending on what type of historian you want to be, the two fields aren't that far apart in their sensibilities. but to actually get a PhD in poli sci, you need to be able to do grad-level stats math. it's not that simple, that's all i'm saying.

robot_hamster, they won't fire any professors who have tenure and (this is harsh, but reality) you shouldn't be working with any professors that don't have tenure, so that shouldn't be an issue. to answer the OP, yep, i'm worried. i'm lucky, because i've secured multi-year funding from the canadian government, but i know things are going to get ugly for the rest of my cohort. my school's semi-public and the state just cut half of our budget, $80 million. students with guaranteed funding (either through TAships or department fellowships) will get paid less, but they'll still get paid. it's the students that ran out of their 4-5 years of guaranteed funding (because no one finishes a history degree in less than 6 years) that are hoping to pick up a TAship that are screwed. there's also the chance that our benefits will get cut or dropped altogether. the school gives us tuition remission for 15 credits a semester and a number of students actually have to use all 15 credits a semester (don't ask), so if the school decided to reduce the tuition remission credits, lots of people would either pay out of pocket or be out of luck. the school also offers a number of dissertation research fellowships that students need because their archives are out of town, so they can't be TAs and get their work done at the same time. these fellowships will be reduced in number and i wouldn't be totally shocked if some are cut altogether. the real burden is going to fall on the undergrads and unfunded grad students, though. i'd be surprised if tuition didn't go up 50% next year.

most schools won't actually let you transfer to their program if you're not going to be doing any coursework with them (most schools won't let you transfer at all in grad school, actually). so i doubt that would even be an option. i'd recommend talking to the DGS sooner rather than later, even if it is by email or skype. co-advising with someone who is particularly good at setting schedules and helping you work through conceptual problems sounds like it would really help. good luck!

i have an iphone. at $75/month (i'm still on the old unlimited data plan) it is expensive for me. but i really do get my money's worth given how much i use it. i check email compulsively (maybe not a good thing), i have my calendar with me at all times, and i have googlemaps, complete with bus routes and driving directions, at all times. stumbling out of a bar downtown and being able to open my phone to find the bus stop and know exactly when the next bus is coming has been an absolute godsend, especially moving to a city i didn't know very well. i had some home internet problems a few years ago so i jailbreak'd the phone and used it as a wifi hotspot for about 6 months. absolutely great. i would've been without internet at home that entire time, which besides driving me mad would have derailed my research.

do you want to be a political scientist? or a historian? they are, at their cores, very different disciplines. historians usually fall under the humanities banner. the major trends in the field right now seem to be transnational history and (more) cultural history. while there are certainly successful historians that do straight political history, it's becoming increasingly difficult for PhD students to get hired doing straight political history. political scientists are social scientists and most grad programs lean heavily towards statistics, theory, and model-building. even though you may find historians in poli sci departments or political scientists with decidedly historical bents, the field in general has been moving away from historically contextualized political science and towards, well, math. theory, models, institutions, policy-making, and lots of stats classes. do you want to do a lot of quantitative and comparative work? then it would make sense to apply to poli sci programs as well. do you want to look at the cultural origins of nationalist sentiment? then stay far away from the poli sci departments. it depends on what you want and what your project looks like, really.