StrangeLight

regarding the more careful choice of program, this is huge. my DGS is speaking at an event with undergrads who are thinking about applying to grad school. his strongest piece of advice for them is NOT to think about where you want to do your PhD, but WHO you want to do it with. look for the professors whose work you'd like to emulate, who ask the kinds of questions that matter to you, who think about history the way you do. then find out where they work and if they're at a school with a grad program and they train people in your field (which, sadly, isn't always the case), apply there. the number of times i've seen (over the past 3 years) people explain on this board that they "knew" they'd get rejected from X ivy league "because they don't really have anyone that does what i want to do," i scream at my computer THEN WHY DID YOU APPLY THERE?!?!!?!?!!!?!!??!!?! however fancy the school sounds to the non-academic touchstones in your life, getting a job is about the reputation of your advisor, his past advisees, and your program's strength in your subfield. if it was about the name of the school more than anything, then there wouldn't be so many ivy leaguers at community colleges (not that there's anything bad about working at a community college, but somehow i don't think that's what the harvardprincetonyale grad had in mind when he began his PhD so many years ago). there also wouldn't be a few ivy league programs in particular with 50% placement rates on the tenure-track if it was all about the rep of the institution. look for the best places to do the work you want to do. look for the professors you want to work with, whose work you know. i mean, shit, i remember applying to one school because they had "the best" latin americanist program, and i didn't know the work of a single person on the faculty. after getting more acquainted with it, i'm glad i didn't end up there, because ultimately they don't do the type of work i want to do (in my region/time period... there are some people i'm totally on board with but there'd be no reason for us to work together, unfortunately). also, be realistic about the culture of the department. you may love one prof's work, but if they're the only person in your subfield, and out of 200 students there are only 4 that work in your entire field, the odds of them taking you in a given year are slim. let your bookshelf guide you. the books you love will ultimately lead you to the programs you should be in. i really believe that.

at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, the economy dropped out. admittances went way down. it actually seems to me (a completely qualitative observation, i don't have stats) that they actually recovered during the following cycle somewhat (applications in 2009 for 2010 and applications in 2010 for 2011). this year, admissions have again been scaled back, but i don't think it's because of "the economy" or "the recession." it's politics. governors (mostly republican governors) are specifically targeting higher education and cutting it as much as possible. my school is semi-public and in the last two years, the republican-led cuts to our endowment have been so severe that the school is now talking about ways to return to being fully private. to any of you headed to the great states of michigan and wisconsin, you should familiarize yourself with the political circumstances surrounding the attack on higher education in those states. you'll be on the front lines of it soon enough...

every field that isn't the US requires languages... but that may not be what kept you out. we tend to act on this site like if everyone makes all the right moves (enough languages, a high enough GPA, good enough GRE scores, and "strong" written segments, whatever that means) then we'll all get in somewhere. but there's a lot more at play. how competitive is your field? i know someone who got denied across the board twice for british history, switched to eastern europe and suddenly had his pick of great programs. how small is your field? when schools only take 1 africanist, they all probably court the same 5-10 people, but more than 10 africanists apply in a given year. looking back on my applications, my SOP and writing sample were atrocious. the schools i got into all had later deadlines, when i'd refined my SOP and writing sample a little more. even then, i'm surprised i got in. i really didn't know how to speak the language of academia, how to write what schools were looking for. there is a way to present an application that will definitely appeal to schools (not all, but some). but it's hard to know how to write that application without already being in grad school and gaining that experience. i know that's not necessarily helpful, but if you are indeed shut out this year and apply again, really work on the written elements of your application. don't assume that it was languages or numbers that kept you away.

just to show how bad my slump is, i went through my entire closet and threw out everything with holes or stains in it. five garbage bags worth of clothing that have been waiting to be purged since my first year of college. and i did laundry and cleaned the bathroom and exercised this morning (which i usually do at night, if at all). i must really not want to get to work...

go to turkey. if you were turning down an offer at your dream school to go, then that'd be a different story. but grad schools love real world experience. even if being in turkey doesn't shift your research interests, it will change you, and that will be visible on your applications the next time around and will get you better results.

but you have an excuse. tell them you're interested in their class and thinking about applying to grad school and would like to talk to them about it. they'll meet with you.

"when are you going to have babies?" [when are you going to die in a fire?]

"when are you going to move home and get a job?" [probably never, we don't really get to pick where we work] "there's a new technical college opening near me. you should call them and see if they'll hire you." [i don't have the patience to explain how many things are wrong with that statement, but thanks!] "when's the last time you did laundry?" [why, you want to do it for me?] "you have to read HOW MANY books for comps?" [ugh.]

sadly, yes. "oh wow, i've never slept with a professor before." [gimme 7 years and we'll see] "are you going to wear one of those blazers with leather patches on the elbows?" [damn right i am] "oh cool, you get summers off!" [yeah, sort of!] "i hated school." [probably because you weren't good at it, uh, i mean, the structure of modern education doesn't allow everyone to really show their talents]

"so... what are you going to do with that degree?" [more than you did with yours] "you must have a lot of money to be able to afford that." [actually, i'm broke. they pay me a salary, i don't pay them anything] "when are you going to be finished?" [shut up] "it must be great to still be in college." [it's not college, trust me] "when are you going to get a job?" [i already have one] "so you're, like, a nerd, right?" [totally. tell me again about your video games, you non-nerd] "i'm sorry." [me too] "that's so cool that you get to travel to central america every year. i bet you get a nice tan." [i'm inside the whole time, i've never seen a mayan ruin, i spent 4 days out of 60 on a beach] "so what fields do your parents have PhDs in?" [my dad never finished high school, my mom never went to college] "what's your dissertation about?" [fuck you, don't ask me shit like that] "you must have a lot of free time." [i work 60-70 hours a week] "it must be nice to read books all day." [my eyesight is rapidly deteriorating]

one and a half thumbs up for the brief wondrous life of oscar wao. i could rant for three hours about all the narrative failings of that book, but it still made me bawl at least 4 times today, so.... yeah. almost.

you could always just evaluate literature on its aesthetics merits.

i was pretty ambivalent to anna karenina myself. it was like wallpaper. further into the book, i'm liking oscar wao a lot more. a friend told me "drown" was great. maybe i'll have time to read it in may.

yeah, i got what you meant, kelkel. my reaction was mostly to a situation i had in seminar last year. a student was discussing a book and referred to the author as "mrs. ______." the prof leading the seminar almost lost it. "not mrs! doctor! professor! [first name]! oh my god, not mrs.!!!!!!"

that should be enough, particularly if you aren't working with spanish sources. the arbitrary rule of thumb is that three years of college-level education is roughly equivalent to "proficiency" in a language. the real rule of thumb is whether or not you can read academic texts and historical sources in the language with the aid of a dictionary. for application season, 2 years in one language and 1 in another would look just fine. (not outstanding by any means, but a nice plus in your column). if you continue with spanish during the application year so that you have 3 years of the language when you actually enter a grad program, you'll be all set with that one. usually. things vary between schools, obviously.

oh dear god, NEVER call a female professor "ms." or "mrs." just don't do it, unless they go out of their way and ask you to refer to them as "mrs. ______." ONLY if they explicitly ask you to. using ms. or mrs. is not polite or respectful or formal. it's actually very demeaning and i'd be shocked if ANY female professor asked to be addressed that way. maybe that's what the old dogs in the boys' club of a department call her, but i doubt it's EVER how she'd want to be addressed at work. and for what it's worth... someone made the point that profs and adjuncts are employees of the university. well, so are graduate students. to those of you that have yet to attend grad school, make NO mistake: you are labour. you are cheap, precarious, expendable labour. unless of course you're unionized. then you're cheap, precarious, expendable collective labour. of course i defer to what people want to be called. only an asshole would specifically go out of their way to call someone something they don't want to be called. but that works both ways: if a prof wants to be "professor" or "doctor" i say it (to their faces... who knows what goes on within the confines of the grad student lounge). but if a prof wants to be called by their first name, and indicates that to you either explicitly or through email signature, then do it. that's like someone being named robert and asking you to call them bob and yet you insist on calling them robert.

i don't call any of my professors "dr." except on my CV when i list my committee members. but that's just a product of my non-academic background. when someone yells "is there a doctor here?" they don't mean the dude that studies the antebellum south. (i know this will anger some people here, but i don't care. i still think it's pretentious). while grad students are not on equal footing with professors, grad students are also not on equal footing with undergraduates. in fact, grad students are probably given far more respect and weight than adjuncts, and adjuncts certainly refer to profs by their first names. again, i don't go to first-name basis until they start addressing themselves by their first names to me, but i think once that door is opened graduate students should take it. you may not begin grad school as their colleague, but by the time you finish you want those professors to think of you as a colleague. even better if they say that about you in an LOR for a job.

i call professors "prof. ______" until they sign emails with their first name. then all bets are off. but i am excessively casual and no one's seemed to mind yet. i do have one prof (in a different department) who i call by her first name, but since she signs all her emails with her initials, i still refer to her as "prof. ____" in text. probably silly but she also hasn't replied with asking me to write her by her first name yet.

i am studying for comps, preparing my dissertation overview, and getting through the last classes i will ever have to take right now. and yet... i'm in a total slump. for a history student, being ABD is the dream, because that's when you can just settle into your research, travel abroad, dig through archives, and write. i have fellowships for all my remaining years (thanks, canada!), so i don't have to teach, but can if i want to. by the end of april i will be in an amazing position. but right now? total slump. there is a daunting stack of books i need to read. as i look back through the ones i already "read," i realize i shortchanged about 1/3 of them and should probably re-read them. others i read well at the time and took terrible notes, and those are some of the foundational texts in my field. if i thought that i'd still be able to think clearly on them, i'd probably load up on uppers right now. i don't know how to get through it. even being afraid to fail out/lose fellowships/have my advisor hate me isn't enough to push me through. oh well.

what i am is a great procrastinator.

i do it very, very poorly. i read the intro and conclusion of each book. pick one chapter per book that seems most relevant to my work or most interesting and skim it. then i read 2-3 reviews per book. this is not ideal. i had more time to prepare and didn't move through my work as quickly as i should have, so i'm backloaded on the last 20 books. usually i did a book a day and even then i did a lot of skimming.

in addition to reading and re-reading 3 books a day for comps prep (seriously), i'm also reading the brief wondrous life of oscar wao for a caribbean literature class. i sort of hate the omniscient narrator so far. he's trying too hard to be edgy by saying "fuck" and "shit" with absolutely no force behind the words and it's coming off as really inauthentic. i'm hoping there's a twist that redeems this, though.

1. a lot of summer courses are taught by graduate students and adjuncts rather than professors. this is fine, they're perfectly capable of teaching you, but they would not be people you'd want to get letters of recommendation from. for your LORs, you want professors. so if you're doing all your upper-level work in the summer, you're not getting the chance to build relationships with profs who will be writing your LORs (which are one of the most important parts of your application). 2. they will rush through content. they will not dumb it down. you will simply have to grasp the same material more quickly. this may mean, contrary to popular opinion about "summer school," that the course could be harder and your final grade lower than if you were moving at a slower pace. if you're going to do courses during the summer, i strongly suggest you make them language classes (again... 2 or 3 working languages is always better than 1) and use the free time you're creating to take the history classes during the year, when you have a chance to build a rapport with some of your profs.

i applied to a PhD program with only a BA. i was accepted, with 5 years of funding, but was officially enrolled in their MA program. they don't offer a terminal MA, so the ONLY people in their MA programs are ones that applied to the PhD and didn't already hold MAs. after 2 years and a thesis and a defense and a language exam, the department decides if they want to keep us or cut us loose. if they keep us, we are formally enrolled in the PhD program, do one more year of coursework (plus comps and overview) then move onto research and writing the dissertation. if they cut us loose, we walk away with an MA only. most programs that admit students to the PhD straight out of their BA will have some sort of MA process along the way. some are more formal (like mine), others are less so (they just give you an MA after a year or two). in your case of doing a terminal MA and then applying for PhDs later, the MA credits usually wouldn't transfer to your new PhD program. but you would do less coursework than someone without an MA already. either one or two years less. in my program, students admitted without MAs end up doing 3 years of coursework. in those 3 years, they write MA theses, PhD overviews, and sit comps. students admitted who already have MAs (someone like the hypothetical you) would do 2 years of courswork. in those 2 years, they'd do PhD overviews and sit comps (no MA thesis). does that make sense? every program is different. the only way to know how your situation would work is to read the graduate handbook of the PhD department and see how they treat students who already have MAs.

i'm in a PhD program, but we do a 2-year MA if we don't come in with one before moving onto the PhD years. if you don't have an MA when you arrive at your PhD program, you'll probably be put through a de facto MA/research paper/thesis in the first 2 years, so this stands. and you'll be wanting to work on comps reading at the time too.