StrangeLight

the mac OSes can have some problems. that's why i usually wait a few months until the bugs have worked out before upgrading my OS. and i rarely wait until the brand new models come out. everything has kinks that need to be worked out and if you don't buy your equipment because you need to be trendy, you can avoid a lot of the hassles. for any/everyone that complains about short battery life, you should rarely keep a laptop plugged in when it's new. let it fully charge, and then unplug it and fully drain the battery. then plug it in and once it's recharged, unplug and drain it again. that ensures a longer battery life. just leaving the thing plugged in all the time will kill the battery. i think most battery problems tend to be problems with the users, not the equipment itself. one lovely thing about macs is that they don't get (many) viruses. not because they're amazing, but because the people that write viruses don't bother to target mac OSes. i download a shit-ton of stuff and i know i'd have a number of viruses by now if i was on a PC. another lovely thing about macs is that every time you shut down the computer, it automatically defrags itself. this is a huge reason mac OSes don't get the same slowdown as PCs. i recently bought a PC netbook and within 2 or 3 weeks i had noticed that it was already performing slower.

are you sure your university sent their papers on to the SSHRC? sometimes they're the ones holding the process up.

i think it's an incorrect assumption to think that you will look more appealing to other grad schools with one year of grad school rather than just a bachelors degree. those other schools will want to know 1) why you want to leave your current school, and 2) why you weren't funded at your current school or anywhere else. if you get all As, it may show them that you're capable of graduate level work, but they'll still have questions about why you want to leave a program mid-stream if you're performing successfully in it. since you said you'd be willing to pay for your second year if it came to that, i can almost guarantee that you will pay for your second year.

say you pass comps, they say they want to keep you for the next year, but can't come up with funding for the fall semester. maybe some will come through in the spring, but they can't guarantee it. would you stay? or would you leave one year into the program, having paid out of pocket without receiving a degree for your effort or your money? i'm sure this isn't what you want to hear and it's advice you won't take, but i'll give it anyway: withdraw your acceptance. since you're paying for the degree, it's not like they've promised you money that they could be giving to someone else. when an unfunded student rescinds their acceptance, there are rarely any hard feelings from the department. an unfunded offer is the same thing as a really, really nice rejection letter in programs where the other incoming students are receiving funding. if grad school is something you really want, you can wait a year and apply again, more widely and with an improved application. many, many people have much better luck (and it really is luck) the second time around.

get a cat. the cat will eat them.

the white macbooks do crack around the casing. apple stores will replace the casing for free, as often as it needs. when i got mine replaced, it took them all of 2 hours to do. not really a major inconvenience if you live near an apple store. but that's only if you get an old white macbook used. the old black ones don't crack. the new white unibody macbooks (you can tell the difference because the batteries don't come out anymore) don't crack around the casing anymore. so if you're buying new and not refurbished, the cracking won't be a problem. for anyone with an old/non-unibody white macbook, the problems with the trackpad aren't necessarily from the cracked casing. it's because the removable battery is swelling. batteries have limited life cycles and need to be replaced. if you don't get them replaced, they swell up (in addition to no longer holding a charge for as long as they used to). when they swell, they place pressure on the trackpad, which is what makes them randomly click by themselves. it's really annoying and it's really easily fixed: buy a new battery. you should after 300 charge cycles anyway. i upgraded from a macbook to macbook pro, but that's because i do a lot of film, audio, and photograph editing. i also run a few programs regularly that hog a lot of performance capacity. if all you're doing is writing papers, making powerpoints, and playing music, the macbook (rather than the pro) is more than adequate. i wouldn't say "just get a PC" because windows operating systems suck my non-existent balls and it doesn't sound like you're about to use linux or anything.

starting in my second year of grad school, i switched to taking all my notes on my computer. i'm so glad i did. not only are they legible and therefore actually useful for my comps exams preparation, but they're KEY WORD SEARCHABLE. this has been a life saver. a prof asks a question about a book we read a month ago. everyone else flips through handwritten scrawl, scanning several single-spaced pages of notes, or says "i write my notes in the book and didn't bring it to class." i open a word doc, search a couple terms, and give them the exact page number (and often direct quotations) to answer the question. it's also great for writing papers since you can do a lot of copy and paste stuff rather than leafing through notebooks or texts to find the information you need. in my program, maybe 1-3 students in every class use a computer, out of 12-15 students per class. a few others will type all their notes for their readings and then print them out and write seminar/lecture notes onto the backs of those pages in class. of this group, a few told me they then type the seminar/lecture notes into the word doc after class. seems easier to me to just bring the computer to class, if you can.

who told you students can only receive a maximum of 4 years of funding? who or what, exactly, are you quoting? at the most, there might be a limit of 4 years of funding per degree. the MA and PhD are different degrees, the PhD SSHRC is a max of 4 years, so that might make sense. even then, i've never heard of a cap on government-funded fellowships. in fact, i know many people that have had SSHRCs at the MA and PhD levels and it's totaled more than 4 years of funding.

reallyniceguy seems to have hit all the major points. i'd recommend NOT applying for a US diplomatic history MA if your goal is to do a russian history PhD. apply to a mix of MA and PhD programs, but keep the MAs in the russian history or russian studies fields. in my own program, a student switched from US history for his MA to atlantic history (new york, paris, and buenos aires) for his PhD and his (and my) advisor made him essentially write a second MA paper to 1) prove that he had enough familiarity with the field to adequately work in it as a PhD student, and 2) get some real exposure to the sources he'd be working with before moving onto his dissertation research. his MA and PhD were done in the same school, in a combined MA/PhD program, and switching subfields added at least two years to his time to completion. if you do a terminal US diplomatic history MA and then apply for russian history PhD programs, you may be asked to complete a de facto second MA anyway. you'll also dig yourself a bit of a hole for comps exams preparation, since your US diplomatic history readings will in all likelihood not be on your russian comps lists, so you'll have 2 years to read 150 books rather than 4. as a practical consideration, it's just not the greatest move. i'd say the concern is much more than making russian history seem like a fleeting interest. it'll add years to your degree and it'll make comps preparation that much more difficult. it's fine for option F, but as you said, shouldn't be option B. or C. you'd probably be better served working a full-time job and taking russian classes in the evenings. having real life experience almost always helps more applicants than it hurts. you can learn quite a bit of wisdom in the real world, and every PhD program realizes this.

the hard part about finishing a PhD is not how long it will take. it's finding the will and endurance to do the specific work that is required of you. if you don't have the will to do it, it won't matter if there's only 3 months left. talk to the director of grad studies about all of these issues, including the shitty advising you're getting. see what s/he says. it may be possible to get some informal co-advising from one of your dissertation committee members, and this other prof can keep you on track and help you manage the project realistically. our advisors are people too and sometimes they really drop the ball. we can't let that derail our own career paths. so, first and foremost, talk about your DGS and see what help they offer you. if it's still not working out, try to defer enrollment for a year. being away from academia for a year may make you remember why you started in the first place. you could go running back with renewed energy to finish the degree. or it could make you realize you're much happier out of academia, in which case, you don't need a PhD anyway. at that point, once you've deferred and decided you don't want to go back, then you can see if they'll just give you the second MA.

lots of people do unfunded MAs. again, i wouldn't advise it, i wouldn't do it myself, but lots of people do. they (usually) manage to find funded offers at PhD programs afterward, so they're only paying out for two years, not six to seven. that seems like a reasonable plan financially. if your MA program offers you a spot in their PhD program, but doesn't guarantee funding for it, then i'd highly suggest moving onto another program. and i mean guaranteed funding, as in they offer you 3-4 years of fellowships or TAships when you enter the PhD. if they say, "it'll be on a year to year basis based on how much funding and how many TA spots we have left over," then don't do it. even though it may work out every year, their unwillingness to fund you for the PhD is a reflection on how much they value you as a student. this is just my opinion. others obviously feel differently. but even one of the above posters, who paid for their own MA and claimed that the only different reaction they got from professors was positive basically backed up what i said: the professors expected that student to be a lost cause. they were pleasantly surprised that s/he turned out to be a good student. it would suggest, then, that they expect most unfunded students to be bad students, and the only profs that manage to lose that impression are the ones you have direct contact with, through advising or taking classes. unfortunately, those won't be the only professors that determine which students get funding in the upcoming years. if it were me, i'd see if i could defer their unfunded offer for one year and apply to other programs this fall. they're not dedicating a line of funding to you, so it's not like you're taking money away from another student, and they'd therefore likely grant your request for a deferral. if you apply again (with a reworked application) and get a funded offer, go there. if not, attend this school and hope that funding comes through in the second year.

don't go without funding. not only is it a bad decision financially, profs will treat you differently knowing that you're one of the unfunded students. it'll also be harder to get fellowships down the line, since those tend to go to students with other fellowships first and with TAships second. so the unfunded crowd is third on that list. if it were me, i'd just apply again next cycle and hope for a fully funded offer. since that's too late... i don't know. but good luck.

being an adult.

people don't pick PhD programs based on the city they want to live in. they pick PhD programs based on what regional and thematic subfields that program specializes in. if you want to study medieval europe, you should go to a school that's great at medieval europe, not to a school in boston because they accepted you. at best, people manage to stay near the general regions they want to be in. aiming to stay in new england is a very reasonable goal for a PhD student in any subfield. aiming to stay in boston is not. pardon my french, but that's not how this shit works.

1) if the books you're reading are going to be on your comps, the cohort above you will probably not sell you their old copies. i'm in a reading-intensive field and grad students in my program don't buy a book unless they're planning on keeping it forever. we tend to just use interlibrary loans. since you've got textbooks, and not individual monographs, i can see your fellow students hanging onto those books long-term. just saying, it might be hard to buy a used copy off of your colleagues. 2) it is totally reasonable to read those books now, and take excellent notes on them, if you know for sure that they'll still be on the syllabus in the fall. in the summer before i started my grad program, i got a bunch of books on my research topic and started reading. once i met with my advisor, a month before classes started, she gave me a list of 20 books to read, and i made it through about 10 or 12 of them. i know plenty of students who will request syllabi over the summer so they can read for the fall in advance. they're not eager to start the year. they're eager to have 8 hours of sleep during the fall, which means actually working ahead during the summer.

i hate hippies.

i don't have a PhD committee yet but i've seen plenty of colleagues have a similar problem to your own. usually when you put these committees together, one of the biggest concerns is how well they get along and agree with each other, not how well they fit your research. sad but true. i've known students with very explosive, combative committees and most simply have to tailor their answers carefully to appease as many people as possible. it becomes an art form. i'd recommend always ultimately agreeing with your primary advisor. learn to respond to their answers in ways that won't set anyone's alarm bells ringing. be diplomatic. when they suggest something that is totally unworkable for you, tell them you'll take it under consideration and would be happy to talk to them about it in greater detail when you've had more time to work through the idea yourself. often the secondary committee members will never take you up on the offer anyway. unfortunately, it sounds like your committee will be less helpful to your work and more like something you have to manage and navigate through. it's definitely less than ideal but also definitely not unheard of. if there's one committee member in particular that is the source of these problems and it's not your primary advisor, consider taking them off the committee.

i TA'd for 8 months during the fall and spring term, but i chose to get paid over 12 months (we can also choose to be paid over 8). i don't have to perform any TA functions during the summer and i don't work a summer job at the gap (like many of my colleagues do), but i "work" during the summer. i still try to put in a minimum of 50 hours a week and i'll be going abroad for research for over a month. whether you need to be in the lab doing work for someone else during the summer or not, you should use those months to focus on your own research and work as well.

i think it is totally okay to wear head coverings in class. berets, headscarves, whatever. but as someone else said, the baseball cap covers your eyes. it's just not appropriate inside a classroom, unless you want to turn it backwards. then i think it would be fine. to me, it's not the casual-ness of the hat or the fact that your hair is covered that's the problem. the prof can't see your eyes. that's why i mentioned sunglasses. you wouldn't wear those to class either.

don't wear a baseball cap in class. ever. to and from class is fine, but you should take it off while you're in there. you're not going to wear your sunglasses in class, are you? just tie your hair back if you don't want to do it. i think wearing ball caps in the classroom crosses the line from (potentially) inappropriate to disrespectful. and this is coming from someone who dresses very casually in seminars and has tattoos showing pretty much all the time.

it won't be the same trend at other schools, but most programs that aren't huge (UCLA being huge, for example) will specialize in a few areas where they feel they have strength. for some, that will be latin america and atlantic history, for others modern europe and east asia, etc. there are two reasons penn state will not be taking modern europeanists next cycle. either they want to increase their numbers in other regional fields and don't feel like they have the support or desire to train modern europeanists, OR they have had a number of modern europeanists enroll in recent years, filling out those ranks, and deciding they're happy with the current cohort and don't want or need to add more students. the latter option may seem strange, but my own program rejected every latin americanist last year, even though that's one of our major strengths, because they were happy with the current cohort and have decided to be very, very picky with any future applicants. if you really have your heart set on penn state, apply anyway. a prof on the admissions committee may love your application and fight to bring you along anyway. if you're simply worried that many programs won't be taking modern europeanists next year, don't worry. every program is different. there will be some that won't take europeanists and there will be some that won't take asianists, etc. you just need to contact each program and find out if they plan on accepting students in your subfield in the fall.

they will all take the old GRE scores. it's only been a year. you'll be fine, you don't need to take the test again.

tell your advisor all of this. inform him/her that you don't actually know how to do research yet and will need guidance. for some reason, people assume that this is something we all know how to do and always have. we don't. we need to learn. usually this is through trial and error (we know what a research paper is supposed to look like, we just don't know how to get there), with many MA theses ending in various stages of "error." that's okay. that's sort of what they're there for. so, without the thesis, rather than making those mistakes on your dissertation, inform your primary advisor that you need to know what to do and how to do it. it's sort of their job to help you do it anyway, may as well be open and upfront about what you think you need help with.

as others have said, in the social sciences, you'll usually only have the opportunity to work abroad as part of research (archival, fieldwork, etc.) or language training. if you're learning a very common language that your school offers or if your research doesn't require you to go out of country, then you may not get the chance to do these things. there are some schools or programs that have sister schools and joint programs in countries abroad where you may have the opportunity to study for a semester or two. for example, at the university of british columbia in canada, they have joint engineering programs with the university of monterrey in mexico, so students will exchange for a semester or more. NYU's french program has a joint program in france, so students can travel abroad then as well. it'll all depend on the school and program you're attending, though. it's not terribly common to find opportunities to do coursework abroad. you will also occasionally see opportunities to TA for a semester abroad. my own school will take one TA to nicaragua once a semester to teach a few classes with undergrads. the downside is that student won't have the chance to take grad courses, so they need to be post-coursework. but, once you have your research done and you're in the dissertation writing stage, if you're on fellowship and don't have to TA, you can live pretty much anywhere you want to (with permission from your advisor). that would be a great opportunity to live and work somewhere you'd never otherwise have the opportunity to.

actually, a 3.5 grad GPA might really hurt your chances. it's a totally acceptable GPA in undergrad, but with the high caliber of most grad students and rampant grade inflation in grad school, a 3.5 grad GPA can be borderline academic suspension in many disciplines/programs (most of my experience has been with humanities and social sciences, i'm not sure where public health falls). you must have had some indication during the semester that things weren't going well. unless you had 100% finals and zero feedback from all of your professors, a B in grad school doesn't come out of no where. that's what i'd assume, and i promise it is what professors on admissions committees will assume as well. especially since your poor grades came in your second year and not your first, they'll see it more as a decline of your interest rather than struggling at the beginning and improving over time. all that said, your GPA doesn't make a PhD program impossible. it will ultimately come down to your LORs, your previous research, and your future research interests, but a poor grad GPA is a massive red flag for them.