thedig13

I am planning on applying to PhD programs Fall 2018. I am proficient in one of my languages, but am still at an intermediary level in my new (probably dominant) language-Korean. My professors tell me that I am ready to apply, but I still find it very intimidating. I have conversational fluency, but I know I am not capable of doing intense research (lots of documents) in the primary language.
I have a year to work to beef up my research language skills and I am comitted to a job in the US for the year. Any suggestions that will allow me to keep my full time 9-5 and not break the pocketbook?

Good luck breaking into the historical profession, where the very definition/meaning/purpose of "objectivity" has been thrown into question.
All interpretations of anything are subjective. The very notion of "objectivity" was invented by white European men trying to argue that their own knowledge systems were more valid than those of nonwhites/non-Europeans/women.

We all know this!  My girlfriend is a professor (at another school), and has been on a bunch of search committees and the reasons for rejection are complicated and from outside seem often outrageous.  At one prestigious school, for example, where she was a postdoc, they threw out all candidates who they thought might apply for tenure early, because of money issues.  Likewise, where she is now they look for people who they expect to stay so they don't go for top candidates.
 
All of that being said, this cynicism will not help you.  Do you want to be the bitter person at every conference that nobody likes?  What's the point of being so doom and gloom?  Will focusing on this knowledge ultimately help you get a job?  It is better to keep this in the back of your mind as a reality, but there is no need to let it control you consciousness. I am in my sixth year, (defending Spring 2017, what-what!), and I can see the damage this attitude does to people throughout grad school.  It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and a reason not to try, and to become generally unpleasant. You have to have optimism in order to keep plugging away.  For example, I sent in an article this summer to the top journal in my subfield, with the knowledge that it would most likely get rejected, but figured that I already knew the worst could happen.  Happy ending, I got a revise and resubmit, and it will hopefully be accepted by the time I am on the market!  If you get too negative, you can limit the field of possibilities for yourself, and it will ultimately only hurt you.  The job market doesn't care about you, so you should not care so much about it. It's out of our control and unlikely to change.

Just thought I'd let you guys know that I passed my dissertation defense on Friday. Committee wanted a couple of revisions but that's about it.

Do you have a study showing that 20C US deviate substantially from the figures published by the AHA? Because "50% TT after 10 years," while a rather depressing statistic, is not the same as "highly unlikely to ever land a TT job".

I don't think anyone is arguing against you, but there are lots of reasons why people don't get TT jobs. If you aren't willing to go wherever those postdocs and 1-year visiting appointments are located for the first decade or more after you get the PhD, and instead settle for an adjunct job or drop out of academia entirely, the chance you'll ever land a TT job drops exponentially. Some people decide adjuncting is the best thing for them. I had a brilliant professor who got her PhD from an elite school and she chose to adjunct because of her family circumstances. In a decent world, she'd be teaching at an R1 and training grad students. In her world, that didn't make sense.
Obviously it IS an uphill battle, and anyone going into this should know that. Choose a program that has good placement, funds for research, etc. Make sure you network, apply for fellowships and grants, and bust your ass on the dissertation. Write something that has meaning, not just something that fills a gap. Volunteer, teach, do stuff to make your life fulfilling. Realize that the PhD is one moment in your life, and you may not (and likely won't) get all you want from it. Obviously I'm just a lowly 1st year, but I'm not going to pretend I don't know anything. I managed to get through undergrad and a MA (where I killed it, if you don't mind me bragging) as a single mom. Others may have the dream of a TT and will die without it, but most of us are practical adults who know stuff doesn't work out. I'll happily teach at a secondary school or go work at a coffee shop for the rest of my life as long as I show my daughter I tried to follow my dream, and I accomplished a huge milestone on that journey. Besides, I have a guaranteed income for 5-6 years and I get to do what I love. That's freaking sweet. Even when I worked in accounting I didn't have that security, and I certainly didn't have insurance.
Someone has to fill the positions that open up. It may, or (statistically) won't, be us. Knowledge about how dire the situation is--great. We are all armed with the same information, the statistics, the well-meant warnings from professors and also the snarky and bitter warnings from many others. But we are all very different humans with different experiences and lives and very different reasons for doing what we're doing. I won't tell anyone not to get a PhD just because of the job market. From my own experience, I know there are so many factors involved in the decision and it is not my place to project my reasons on others.

Good luck breaking into the historical profession, where the very definition/meaning/purpose of "objectivity" has been thrown into question.
All interpretations of anything are subjective. The very notion of "objectivity" was invented by white European men trying to argue that their own knowledge systems were more valid than those of nonwhites/non-Europeans/women.

Rather ironically, your denunciation of these figures seems to be, at least as stated here, politically motivated more than methodologically. You say that Said, Khalidi, et al. are politically motivated. That does not surprise me, as, at least in the history classrooms I have been in, the assumption is that everyone (ancient source and modern scholar alike) approaches their world and work with a set of political biases. These become a problem, in scholarship, when they impair the scholar's ability to fairly/accurately assess their material. Then it is not a political problem but rather a methodological problem. This seems to be what you are suggesting, but so far your examples have not been about how this sort of scholarship methodologically fails (which I may or may not agree with but is surely a valid line of questioning) but rather how it is politically influenced (to which I say both obviously and so?). 

You shouldn't change your opinion or omit "facts" because they offended (ps: they didn't). You should change your opinion and reconsider your interpretation of facts because your analysis makes you look like a first year undergraduate.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.

Hi I'm from 1893 and I'd like to tell you the objective truth about our cutting edge advances in racial science. Onward empire!

I am chill. I just have a problem with how dismissive you are of other disciplines, and implicitly asserting they're not "serious." Needless to say, that's pretty insulting.
 
 
 

To the last couple of posters:
 
You all need to chill out. I have said nothing new on this thread and was merely regurgitating what some others have said here and been attacked for saying. You say you support the "opening" and "liberalizing" of out-dated History but sure seem intolerant of those with different ideas.
 
When I say that a lot of pseudo-academic nonsense is getting taken seriously as scholarship what I am referring to is how a bunch of neo-extremists try to use the History discipline to further their political goals and do not use rigorous academic standards when doing so. For instance, I study the Modern Middle East, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Jewish-Muslim relations. In this area, we have radical leftists like Edward Said, Rashid Khalidi, Lila Abu-Lughod, and Joseph Massad who attempt to distort history to attack the West and promote Palestinian political aspirations. At the same time, we have radical fascists like Daniel Pipes and Bat Ye'or who attempt to demonize the Islamic world to excuse the crimes of the West. It is the more traditional scholars - like Norman Stillman and Benny Moris -  who come to these debates with more objective and moderated views that actually contribute to our knowledge on these subjects.
 
To those who want to study "cultural studies" and embrace "post-modernism" as "sociologists" and "interdisciplinary scholars" - that's fine - you do that. However, History is supposed to be a serious academic discipline where research is supposed to be based on actual facts and objectivity and not "feelings" and "emotions." If you want to "study" in such a manner, there are many other disciplines out there for you. If you actually want to do research, then History is for you.

I thought we killed this thread? Let's PLEASE kill this thread as a holiday gift to all.

We don't have set lists either. We go to our comps committee members with a list, and they might subtract things they don't like or (very likely) will add books they think are important, but we are supposed to structure it. My adviser suggested I start thinking about books that'll help ground my research more broadly, and to include those on my modern U.S. list.
We have a timed written exam and then an oral examination on what we wrote.

Guys I have two classes with mvlchicago on Thursday this is such an odd feeling.

I thought I would do American history for a quite some time because I basically sucked at foreign languages.  I could never make As, let alone any grade above a B-.  Confidence had a lot to do with my desire to avoid foreign languages even though I really did like learning about other cultures.
Then I had a supervisor who told me flat out that I would not get a job in my dream field of work without German.  Having already struggled through three languages by that point, I had to think pretty hard about how badly I wanted to do that kind of work.  Eventually, I buckled down and learned German (and even lived in Germany for a bit).  I do mostly international history now and German is required for my research.  I also did at summer at Middlebury for another language and it boosted my confidence big time.
I still work with American history; now i can't imagine my work without my foreign language skills.
Language teachers have told me that the biggest kick for any language learner is having the confidence to work at it.  It's an underrated humbling experience.

Here's a question: why are you so disinterested in taking language courses? Anybody who's vaguely familiar with history programs knows that foreign language training is usually par for the course among History PhDs, so I'm curious to know why you're trying to get around this requirement.

Here's a question: why are you so disinterested in taking language courses? Anybody who's vaguely familiar with history programs knows that foreign language training is usually par for the course among History PhDs, so I'm curious to know why you're trying to get around this requirement.

Here's a question: why are you so disinterested in taking language courses? Anybody who's vaguely familiar with history programs knows that foreign language training is usually par for the course among History PhDs, so I'm curious to know why you're trying to get around this requirement.

At the MA level, as ashiepoo said, it's probably not absolutely necessary, but for a PhD it definitely is, even when studying US History.  Also, you don't have to speak it, you just have to be able to read it, even if you have to use a dictionary every now and then.  Thankfully, most programs require only one additional language for those whose primary field is the US/North America.

I agree with LaSombra. I am a woman and I would not recommend dating another grad student in your department if at all possible. You are going to be together with folks in your department, especially in your cohort, for up to seven years or so if you're working on a Ph.D. I've seen firsthand how a bad breakup within a friend group can cause factionalism, isolation, and pain for half a dozen people, and I'd hate to see that happen in my cohort knowing that we'd have to deal with the consequences for half a decade afterwards. Most grad departments are small enough that it's literally impossible to avoid someone, so if a couple has irreconcilable differences, they will have difficulty with their daily social lives as they are constantly thrust together and might have a harder time moving on. I'm sure that it works out sometimes, and there are two or three couples in my grad department (150 people) that are still together, but it's a risky move that can cause lots of complications, so if you go for it, be aware of what you're getting into.
 
In terms of dating in general, I've had no difficulty since being in grad school. In my first year, I dated one young professional and two other grad students, and the second grad student and I are now in a long-term relationship. I took advantage of graduate student events across disciplines that were put on at the beginning of the year by the graduate association, like meet and greets, bar nights, board game nights, and dances/parties, and I had an easy time meeting with other grad students outside of my discipline. Getting involved at cross-disciplinary working groups or institutes on campus is another great way to meet other grad students outside of your discipline. I had considered signing up for online meetup groups just to get to know people, but I was so lucky in meeting other people on campus that it turned out not to be necessary.

Ultimately you will have to re-learn how to write a couple of times.  Seminar papers might be the first draft of an article, but ultimately the research and reading required to get an article published in a solid journal is simply a different level.  Likewise, you have to re-learn how to write when you get to the dissertation.  Writing a long-cohesive work is a very different mentality from a seminar paper (my first attempt at writing a chapter got rejected from my adviser, and for good reason), it took a lot of deep thinking to figure out how to build a manuscript ( I am still doing it, haha).
 
The thing is though, you don't have to figure everything out by day one.  They don't expect you to come in fully formed.  Instead of being afraid of looking like an idiot, be ready to ask a lot of questions and learn.  Everyone is roughly at the same spot in the first years.  Some of the students who come in with a masters might be a bit ahead, but many are not that far, and within a year, everyone is on the same page roughly.  A lot of grad students have confidence issues, but ultimately this can only hurt you.  This doesn't mean being an egotistical maniac, but be comfortable in conversation.  This sometimes means being wrong, but it also will allow you for course-corrections throughout your career, instead of being afraid to be wrong, and never get to test your ideas.

Honestly, this might just be me, but I tend to be more impressed with my less prepared classmates in any given setting. They're not coasting on polish and shine; the admissions people saw talent in their work, even in its less polished state.
 
Personally, I'm now a decent writer, but at the time I entered Richy Richperson College at age 18, I had once written and had my mind blown by the process of writing a paper that was three and a half whole pages long. Taking writing classes with various shiny Toby McPrivateschools as my classmates was not really fun, so I empathize. But I got through it, and so can you! I can't deny that the learning curve is medium steep, but don't give up, because you will start to get it and that's really satisfying.
 
Also, I am a fast reader, but I can't even a little bit get through an academic book in one sitting if I want to try to read the whole thing. As mentioned earlier, you learn how to focus on reading for argument and for what's most relevant to you: see post #7, and there are whole threads somewhere in this subforum dedicated to just the subject of how to read efficiently in grad school.

As a follow-up to my previous post, what Klonoa experienced is pretty common in grad school. Like I said, students feel like they're stupid/inadequate/underprepared/falling behind all the time, regardless of what their actual level of competence/ability/experience/performance is. For me (and others I know), one of the big challenges of being a first year was getting over that paralyzing sense of inferiority so that you can buckle down and focus on getting work done.