thedig13

Sure. Among the programs I'm familiar with, there are two types of courses: research seminars, which seems to be what you have experience with (e.g., propose a paper, research, write, edit, present), and reading seminars, where you read a bunch of books and then write a literature review, the Human Centipede of Book Reviews. The reading load in these courses vary by professor, but I'd guess that I read about 1.3-1.5 books per week per class (e.g., a book and maybe 1-2 additional articles or selected chapters).
 
When I say that graduate-level writing has been different for me, I mean that in two ways. First, as an undergrad, I'd never really been challenged to think about readings in metahistorical ways. In other words, I read for content/facts rather than the historians' underlying argument and his/her relationship to other historians/arguments. However, most of the writing I've done in grad school has been reviews rather than research, so this has essentially forced me to start thinking (and writing) in metahistorical (rather than content-based) ways. These new ways of thinking/reading also bleed over into research, and the way I organize and conceptualize my research papers has changed.
 
Secondly, my first year of graduate school really challenged me to grow and change and evolve as a student. As a consequence of this, pretty much everything I did as an undergrad (including my thesis) feels like it could've been pulled off by a high school freshman.
 
Essentially, what I was insinuating is that, even if Klonoa had written some fancy 25-page paper, he/she would've looked back on it after a month in grad school and been like "Wow. This was garbage. What was I thinking?" I remember being really, really, really proud of my own undergrad thesis, then taking a peek at it mid-grad school and feeling like I could've done it so much better. What I'm getting at is that graduate school is a challenging experience for everybody, regardless of what your training as an undergrad was like. It makes you feel like you're stupid and that you're lagging behind, even when you're not; it was certainly a humbling experience for me--I used to think I was some badass, Sherlockian genius; now I know that I'm just okay and that I need to work a lot more to become great.

Whether or not you wrote a 25-page research paper as an undergrad, graduate school is meant to train you to think/read/write in new and different (and perhaps better) ways. Writing my thesis was a good experience at the time, but grad school forces you to move on from those previous accomplishments very quickly.

FWIW, my areas of specialization are American naval/military/diplomatic history. I have been sandbagged by a professor who dislikes naval history. I have been told that I will never get a job as a professor in the Ivory Tower because I wasn't born in the 1950s. So I am aware of the issue on a personal level.
That being said, I think that your conduct in this thread is an embarrassment to yourself and your alleged interest in military history.

In regards to the latter, you have failed to demonstrate a familiarity with decades of historiographical discussion among military and naval historians on the future of the two disciplines within the profession. You have also failed to do any research to see how military and naval histories published over the last several decades incorporate the methods and sensibilities of the (no longer
"new") social and cultural historians that have come to prominence over the last half century.

You have completely and utterly failed to show a basic aptitude for research by not identifying the departments in the United States that emphasize military history even though those departments have been discussed on this BB on a yearly basis.

If your contributions to this thread are examples of what you are going to bring to the table as a graduate student focusing on military history, you are going to be a chew toy.

Put down the shovel. Show some respect for your alleged field of interest. Treat your peers with respect. Read more, post less.

This may come as a surprise, but approximately 50% of historical persons were women. Also, please note that UoT is generally considered a conservative institution, particularly with respect to Church history.
 
 
This may come as a surprise, but the vast majority of historical persons were not white. Also, I understand the adjectival modifier "all but" to mean "they totally exist, but if I acknowledge this, I don't have anything to be outraged about."
 
 
Once again: since when is social history a new phenomenon? You are aware it has been a powerhouse since the 1920s, right?
 
 
Since you've been accepted into a PhD program, this would be patently false.

I don't think the problem is your lack of social emphasis, so much as the whole lack of a good proposal. That you listed race, ethnicity, gender and culture as negatives really says it all. Bill O'Reilly probably needs an assistant, I'm sure he will pay you more than you'd ever make in academia. Besides, it's pretty apparent you don't even LIKE academia or all it entails, which means you're wasting your time here.

I am not really sure the problem you posit is real so much as it is made up.

I wanna upvote this hard.

It seems to me that as time goes on history becomes more and more diluted. Look through faculty lists of PhD candidates and their topics. At most schools a sizable percentage of them relate to gender, sexuality, race and environmental studies. Some departments even specialize in those fields. Now I do not mean to base those studies...I find some of them very interesting...but I can't help but feel that history departments are the wrong place for them. For instance, I know of one PhD student studying the bear hunt and government hunting policies in the 1970s...wouldn't environmental studies be a better place for this than history?
 
I am concerned that the development of those studies as history topics has not been matched with an increase in the number of graduate spaces in history departments. Consequently it is becoming harder and harder for those wanting to study 'traditional history' to find positions within graduate departments. For instance it was a struggle for me to find a department where I could study military history for a PhD...UBC, Toronto, and McGill have no military historian on the payroll!
 
Am I alone with this concern?

As for writing more lengthy papers, I wouldn't worry too much. Even if you had done longer research papers before, it's not quite the same as the work you'll be doing in graduate school anyway. In some ways, I've had to re-learn how to write academic papers. (I speak from my own experience. Others' mileage may vary.)
 
In other words, you'll figure it out over time. It also helps to have good mentors who are active/supportive and able to offer close readings/criticisms of your writing drafts.

I at least scheduled a brief stop in the Florentine archives before the week I'm spending on a sailboat in the Tyrrhenian Sea 

if you're interested in policy and/research, have you tried looking into think-tanks?  
 
It's always good to head into a program (whether MA or PhD) with an open-mind for what you'd like to do after.   Whether you do MA first (separately) or get into a PhD program, you can reasonably expect to be taking language classes in your first few years in addition to your regular history coursework.  Pretty intense but it's only if you want a PhD in Ottoman history and it's not unusual for these PhD students to spend their first summer or two abroad studying Turkish with governmental grants.
 
You're not the only one who went through "omg I should have done all this sooner."  There is nothing you can do, except make the most of what you DO have and get yourself on course toward your goal--whatever it is.

Landed an apartment. Moving up from 1BR to 3BR for essentially the same rent. Goodbye, Boston housing market, and don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

I buy books most relevant to my fields and dissertation.  Otherwise, I borrow them from the library.
 
Both bibliographic and historiographic essays fall under the rubric of "lit review."  They have different purposes.  The former focuses on a topic and the survey of literature pertaining to it.  This is great for topics that are narrow in focus or not well studied.  The latter engages with a broad historical question that various scholars have explored using different theories and/or methods.  This is great for a topic that's been well studied but too vast for the bibliographic review.
 
For example, the education of Southern children during the American Civil War would be great for bibliographic whereas a topic of Southern family experiences during the Civil War through the lens of women's history would be better suited for the latter.

Simple answer is that you don't buy them all. Buy the ones most closely related to what you study and borrow the rest from the library or share copies with a classmate.

"unable to find easy work" ? Again, I think you're not quite understanding the situation. If all you want is a steady paycheck, I can recommend any number of two year teaching programs that'll get you set in a high school to teach history and you'll have an in with the UFT and that'll be paycheck/pension/summer vacation for teaching what you want to teach.

Like... pursuing the Ph.D is not because you see easy employment at the end of the tunnel. You pursue the Ph.D because there's some fundamental question that is calling to you about the Middle East or America and the World. You spend 5-6 years buried in archives all along the world, deciphering some typist's handwriting and write while worrying about your own healthcare or where you'll find a grant to finish writing your dissertation at the end of your sixth year in order to get some part of the answer to that question. It's not about easy work, it's not about being secure labor, it's about doing something that motivates and gives you passion.

Seriously, look at the stats cited above: the Middle East PhD guarantees you a 1/3 shot at a TT/postdoc/private school advertisement. That's not like... great odds for having spent 5-6 years pursuing a subject. It's not about being touchy, it's about wondering whether you quite understand the stakes or reasoning for doing a PhD

Fields ebb and flow at any given point and I doubt there's a large enough dataset out there to give you the answers you want. if you're that concerned about the job at the end of the road, you should probably not be going into history academia and trying literally any other field more geared towards quantitative methods: political science, sociology, pyschology, these are all fields hiring at rates that are ridiculously high compared to history.

If you're serious about doing a historical perspective, what you need to focus on is what drives your questions and interests. What should drive this decision is what you, as the scholar, would find easier to motivate yourself to do when you get up in the morning to start your coursework and reading. This isn't from some fantastical notion of loving the craft; it'll be much easier to do your best work (and therefore get hired at the 1/2 jobs available when you graduate) if you do what you want to be doing rather than what you should be. If it really doesn't matter refer to the advice in my first paragraph. 

Ahhh I'm like an hour away from graduation! This is crazy guys! Tonight is gonna be wild.

Last class with the worst professor I've ever had is tonight. My body is ready.

A couple of things to clarify: there are some medieval PhD programs that only insist on Latin + French OR German. These are to be regarded with suspicion. Second, having proficiency in 2/3 (or sometimes 1/3, particularly if that 1 is Latin) is generally OK. 
 
I would pick up Karl Sandberg's French for Reading, because a standard French course will go too slow for what you want. Keep at it, though; being able to publish in another language is great!
 
For Latin, these days I recommend Keller and Russell's Learn to Read Latin. It's solid and it comes with a workbook/problem set. It's probably also good to pick up Wheelock's Latin, for extra explanation of terms and study.
 
If you have time and are in the Boston area, Harvard Extension School offers a year-long French For Reading course every other year, and Professor Richard Thomas, Harvard's Virgilianist, offers intermediate Latin prose every fall and poetry in the spring. These courses typically run ~$1000 and are without a doubt a fantastic bang for your buck. With some hard work, you can get your Latin up to speed over the summer with the materials above.
 
Do both of these things and start working NOW. Leave German for the PhD program.
 
Schools will be skeptical if you don't have credentials for the language, but if you use them in your writing sample, that will speak for itself.

I'd encourage you to drop by nearby academic conferences/talks/lectures that are relevant to your prospective fields (maybe two for Early Americanists and two for Medievalists?). That'll give you a sense of what scholars in these fields are actually thinking about, and whether or not it meets your "romantic" notions of what the field constitutes.
 
Just a thought.

I survived comps! I felt like money when I finished the exam haha 
 
I'm so excited...I get to sign up for Fall quarter classes next week AND my adviser is teaching a U.S. history seminar
 
Hope y'all are doing well

I concur with previous statements: two of the advantages of a non-online education is experience with the interpersonal classroom dynamic that most graduate programs rely on, and avoiding the (perhaps unfair) stigma attached to online education that will hurt you.
 
I should mention that it's possible (albeit maybe difficult) to transition from STEM-based undergraduate schooling to a graduate program in the humanities (maybe go for an MA before you go for the PhD). I think you'd have to demonstrate (via your statement of purpose) a strong familiarity with existing debates in the profession, which will in turn require a familiarity with the big historians and the big history books in your field. Demonstrating a level of engagement with existing debates will also show application-readers that you're not making this leap blind and that you already have some comfort operating within the field.
 
If you're interested in a future in academia, may we inquire what your intellectual interests are and what languages you're comfortable with? (This will help us recommend some books and readings to start you on your way.)

The introduction/prologue to Jacobs' book was so fricken intense, I had to put down the text and take a few deep breaths every 2-3 pages.

I love Margaret Jacobs's book. If you haven't yet, read Antoinette Burton's Burdens of History, too. It's another interesting take on the gendered spaces of imperialism.
 
Sadly, right now I'm reading undergraduate essays. I really hate failing people for plagiarism.

Now that this decision is a year behind me, I can offer you the criteria that, in retrospect, I would have used if forced to make a decision again. They are, in no particular order:
 - Funding relative to cost-of-living: There are programs out there that will throw money and resources at you, and there are programs that barely keep students above the poverty line. You want to be in the former kind; it's a lot easier to read and write when you're not worried about bills and you have the institutional support to do things. My school's library/librarians, in particular, have proven insanely helpful in securing obscure monographs and tough-to-find materials.
 - Program prestige: As much as it totally and completely sucks, the reality is that 50% of all tenure-track positions in History are occupied by graduates of top-10 programs. In an oversaturated job market, you need every edge you can get.
 - Dissertation Committee: Are they big names whose recommendations will go a long way in getting you a job? Do they have a reputation for protecting/helping/standing for their graduate students? Are they people you want to work with? Are they people who are qualified to help with your project?
 - Cohort: This was the criteria that mattered most to me a year ago. Do you "click" with the people you've met, as well as those in upper years? Are their projects interesting and compelling? Do you want to hang out with them more? Don't underestimate this one; you'll be spending the next 6-7 years with these people.
 
Fortunately, the decision I made was ultimately the right one either way, but hopefully this first-year's perspective can help incoming students make more informed decisions.
 
PS: I realize that some of my criteria/explanations make me sound jaded and cynical, but I really feel like I should emphasize that I've already benefited tremendously (and will no doubt continue to benefit) from institutional advantages and resources that most programs simply can't offer. Unless I had some very, very, very good intellectual or ethical reason to do so, I would not trade these away.

Now that this decision is a year behind me, I can offer you the criteria that, in retrospect, I would have used if forced to make a decision again. They are, in no particular order:
 - Funding relative to cost-of-living: There are programs out there that will throw money and resources at you, and there are programs that barely keep students above the poverty line. You want to be in the former kind; it's a lot easier to read and write when you're not worried about bills and you have the institutional support to do things. My school's library/librarians, in particular, have proven insanely helpful in securing obscure monographs and tough-to-find materials.
 - Program prestige: As much as it totally and completely sucks, the reality is that 50% of all tenure-track positions in History are occupied by graduates of top-10 programs. In an oversaturated job market, you need every edge you can get.
 - Dissertation Committee: Are they big names whose recommendations will go a long way in getting you a job? Do they have a reputation for protecting/helping/standing for their graduate students? Are they people you want to work with? Are they people who are qualified to help with your project?
 - Cohort: This was the criteria that mattered most to me a year ago. Do you "click" with the people you've met, as well as those in upper years? Are their projects interesting and compelling? Do you want to hang out with them more? Don't underestimate this one; you'll be spending the next 6-7 years with these people.
 
Fortunately, the decision I made was ultimately the right one either way, but hopefully this first-year's perspective can help incoming students make more informed decisions.
 
PS: I realize that some of my criteria/explanations make me sound jaded and cynical, but I really feel like I should emphasize that I've already benefited tremendously (and will no doubt continue to benefit) from institutional advantages and resources that most programs simply can't offer. Unless I had some very, very, very good intellectual or ethical reason to do so, I would not trade these away.