virmundi

I've used Zotero before and prefer Endnote to it. Endnote is easy to use, powerful, and flexible. Zotero and Mendeley both will do the job though... I think that a lot of it comes down to personal preference these days. Zotero used to lack what I still see as Endnote's "killer feature" -- Cite While You Write -- but it seems like Zotero has that capability these days from what I can tell... I used Endnote X4 and absolutely love it. I have no plans to switch to another platform and won't be upgrading to X6 anytime soon either because there doesn't seem to have been all that much of a change...! Actually, Eigen, I would be curious to know what it is about the features in X6 that would convince you to upgrade from X2!

I just upgraded a couple of weeks ago to the most recent iteration of the MacBook Air 13". It is far more powerful than my previous 13" MacBook Pro (remarkable given that it weighs half as much and is extremely slender) although with less hard drive room (I have an external hard drive for music, etc. though!).... So far I absolutely love it. It combines a decent size with extreme portability! Since it was basically the same price as the MacBook Pro 13", it was really no contest...!

If you just want to be able to read it -- and quickly -- try "Spanish for Reading." It follows a programmed approach and is supposed to be quite good (I've done its sister book, "French for Reading," so I can speak for the pedagogical approach).

This is true, but I wouldn't necessarily read too much into their current project. I'm where I am now because my PoI at another school asked me why I wasn't applying to come here. When I explained that I didn't think that my current advisor would be interested in my work, the PoI at the other school scoffed and said: "Apply anyways! [Current advisor] knows those sources very well." Long story short, I applied, was accepted, and am happy to be working with my advisor, who is deeply learned. Most of my advisor's recent students work on closely related areas, but not exclusively. I would agree that with TMP that there are advantages to working on topics that are closely related to your advisor's current interests, but I wouldn't let that deter you too much. There are also disadvantages to having your advisor's work be too close to your own! In my case, I'll make up for the distance between my advisor's current interests and my own by bringing in an outside reader or two for my dissertation... in the mean time, I'm getting exposed to so many different topics and from so many different angles, which has deeply enriched my experience here! In other words -- while I would be guided by NEN and TMP's sage advice, I wouldn't let it deter you from applying to good schools where the fit is not ideal. It can be quite hard to predict why you'll be accepted to one program and not another and the logic of acceptances can change within a program from year to year. If you don't necessarily get into your ideal programs, by pitching yourself a bit more broadly, you might still end up in a great program with a good advisor! You might even discover that your interests aren't as set as you thought (although my time thus far is on the whole reinforcing my fascination with my current interests)!

This is a wonderful post. Don't feel like you have to manage all ten at once. Pick three things (or more) from the list and try to figure out how you are going to fit them into your life. Then add more as you feel capable of doing it. Chances are you, like a lot of Americans these days, are not getting enough vitamin D. There are differing opinions about how much you should get, but numbers I have seen tossed around are between 1-2,000 IUs/day of D3. You might want to consider a supplement, especially in the winter time. Also -- know that you are not alone.

+1 to what Riotbeard said -- and be certain to research MA programs as much as you can. Talk to prospective advisors, find out about possibilities for funding (my program offered TAships to some of their MA students), and see where graduates of the programs tend to end up. You want to try, if at all possible, to get into an MA program that has a track record of sending its students on to solid Ph.D. programs! Good luck with everything! It is a long road, but the MA is a great way to find out if it is one you'd like to follow further!

I can't speak to the commute -- although I know people who drive in a few times a week from White Plains, one who comes onto campus from Stamford, and another who commutes from Brooklyn. The students who come from Stamford and Brooklyn are finished with their coursework, but they enjoy the train time -- and get a lot done. No one I know has any issues with Metro North, but I can't speak as to the amenities of the train. I wonder -- what is it about New Haven that is such a deterrent?

Yeah -- just a standard book review. Break down the book and talk about its strengths and weaknesses.

The scientific passages lead off the text because these passages tend to communicate ideas in discrete and grammatically simple sentences. As the book progresses, you will find yourself immersed in passages from Voltaire, Durkheim, et cetera. I see it less as a bizarre holdover and more as an acknowledgement that scientific discourse is often more straightforward than the texts that form the backbone of our work as historians... In any event, a few passages on the properties of light, plants, meteorology and the like are only minor obstacles at best.

It's an amazing book. Don't be put off by the errors in table headings in the very first section -- after that (which deals with very simple things, so it won't deter you) it is rock solid and an amazing, swift way of learning to read French at a high-functioning level.

I second what Safferz said -- at this level, it is less about the pedigree of your institution and degree and more about who you work with and what you do with your opportunities. A dual-degree from Columbia that offers the opportunities you've described sounds like it could be a great chance for you to demonstrate your ability to work at a very high level, but it certainly won't automatically position you more competitively than any number of other options.

I borrowed everything for my M.A. coursework -- and thereby had saved enough money that when I needed to spring on the fly for an otherwise difficult-to-obtain monograph that cost a lot of money (and needed to be express-shipped), it was not a problem. ILL is awesome, but with some books, it can take weeks/months to make it work. Using this method, I've managed to acquire some truly rare and important works for my research. I don't really need to have copies of the monographs that formed the backbone of my coursework because they were broadly considered important enough -- and thus common enough in many library collections -- that getting them from my library or via ILL was very very quick!

Rosetta Stone est assez bien, je pense, pour quelque Français quotidien -- mais si l'on veux apprendre bien le langue, c'est Pimsleur qu'on doit utiliser! Si vous voudriez le lire principalement, obtenez le livre "French for Reading" par Karl C. Sandberg. C'est le plus bonne méthode de l'apprendre! Bonne chance -- et s'il vous plaît m'excuser pour mon Français pauvre.

I don't wear a suit -- but I always teach in a sports coat, tie, and dress pants. I am always complemented on my professionalism by students and faculty alike. In warmer weather, I wear a tropical wool blend blazer. I hardly think that this is strictly necessary -- but it won't hurt you unless your department is *super* casual and people frown upon those who dress more formally.

Owls, Even if you've received a good offer from UCLA, you'll probably also want to ask lots and lots of questions about competitive fellowships that are internal to the UC system (or perhaps specific to UCLA itself). Yale has tons of fellowship grant money available for its graduate students and that money is fairly safe, given their huge endowment... considering the financial difficulties of the UC system, it might be worth ensuring that you'll have comparable access. Your dislike of New Haven is a significant factor, obviously, but you'll also want to think longterm -- which will offer you the best opportunity as a program to position yourself for the tenure track in six-or-so years? It is, obviously, hard to imagine living somewhere for six years that you don't particularly like, but also consider whether a Ph.D. from UCLA or Yale is more likely to get you a nice TT job somewhere that you'd like to live in the years following your Ph.D. program. I don't know what the answer to this question is -- I merely offer it to you as something to add into the mix of things that you're considering if you haven't already!

If, however, you plan on proceeding to a Ph.D. program from an M.A., it is immeasurably helpful to produce a thesis-length project. This demonstrates to admission committees that you are capable of the kind of work that you'll eventually need for your dissertation. Besides, producing a good thesis might be the first step toward having an article that might be publishable in a good journal -- always a laudable goal, even if it doesn't necessarily pan out.

OP: You don't mention having spoken with the professors at your school (I'm guessing that you are still in school since you refer to yourself as an "undergraduate" still!). This is step one. Who do your professors think are the up-and-comers, the heavy-hitters, and the might-have-beens in your sub-field? Their opinions are critical, especially since they'll be writing your letters of recommendation.

No biggie -- but be aware that conventions differ significantly from field to field. History subfields tend to be small enough that it is important to cultivate good relationships with as many future colleagues/mentors/etc. as possible. In any event, the issue is not that you are responding to this thread, but rather that you are offering advice that is, basically, not particularly good for our field. Don't take this the wrong way, but offering bad advice is worse than offering no advice at all.

Yes -- getting as much information as possible is crucial, as others have noted. If it does, indeed, make your decision-making very hard (if it does in fact come down to an acceptance) than this means that you have strong contenders to choose among -- a good thing, right?

The answer may well be reconnecting with the general public, but this absolutely is not at the expense of unionization. The decline of unions in the United States is directly correlated with a drop in wages and benefits for workers across the board. Technical fields (such as IT) may seem to have experienced some level of immunization from this effect over the last 30 years, but if the data of the last 10 years is examined closely, it reveals that salaries in technical fields are also experiencing dramatic reductions due to phenomena such as H1-B visa employees, outsourcing, and so on. In any event, I am not certain how to connect with a public in which vast swathes of people seem to privilege a self-serving narrative absolving themselves of any responsibility to exercise their agency in a responsible manner. I am not suggesting that we must not try, but part of the equation is to produce a better-educated citizenry -- not to pander to a citizenry that refuses to think critically. Obviously, this is not what you are saying historians ought to do, but unfortunately, I think bookshelves at book stores reveal a great deal of history that is simply poorly researched, highly chauvinistic, and overly simplistic. Academic history is not necessarily for everyone, but certainly the skills of academic historians ought to be. I, for one, grit my teeth every time I hear the positivist banalities of scientists who pontificate outside of their specialized fields, suggesting that reality is a discrete, identifiable, and quantifiable thing as opposed to a series of constructed discourses and perceptions that surround something that is not observable with absolute objectivity.

You can't go wrong with a nice pair of khakis, collared shirt with a vest (provided it is in a cooler climate -- lose the vest in the south/west of the nation at this time of year) and a nice necktie. There are a few things that are more important, however. First -- wear a nice pair of casual shoes. Athletic shoes are out -- nice black or brown leather shoes with a good pair of professional-looking socks. Second -- do not attempt to dress much more formally than you ordinarily would. In my experience, a man who generally dresses very casually and attempts to formal it up with a suit inevitably looks uncomfortable and awkward. If you are generally *very* casual (ie. t-shirt and shorts), be careful about going too formal -- it is better to be less professional and more comfortable than to look awkward in a suit and tie. Likewise, no point in wearing a suit if it is not tailored -- go for a nice sports coat and decent pants (Dockers will generally do the trick) instead. I never appear on campus without a tie, a collared shirt, and either a sweater or vest (depending on the season, I'll choose wool, cotton, or silk). Generally, I also wear a sports-coat. My program tends to be very casual, but I'm not auditioning to be a graduate student in my department, but rather to get to a Ph.D. program (I can now check that off the list) and eventually a tenure-track job. I dress very casually at home, but I am also very comfortable in formal wear all the way up to British morning dress. It is helpful to be able to pull off any look and be comfortable in it -- and achieving comfort is a product of the quality of the materials and repetition. Just my .02 dollars, of course! Editing to note: By the way, while Oseirus may (or may not) have been kidding when he suggested french cuffs, I will say -- quite seriously -- that french cuffs can be a fantastic way to polish your look, given the correct cuff links. Cuff links are often quite expensive, but you can find excellent links on sale/clearance with ease -- and some of the nicest looking and most versatile links that I own are department store purchases.

"I'd give you a parachute if I thought it wouldn't open." -- Groucho Marx ;-)

Okay, okay... don't rat me out, guys. March 11, 2012 Grad Programs in Humanities Are Shrinking Enrollment cutbacks redefine curricula as well as faculty jobs Matt Roth for The Chronicle "We are a research institution, and it's very important for faculty to bring their research material to bear in graduate courses," says William L. Pressly (left, at a faculty retreat), chair of the department of art history and archaeology at the U. of Maryland. By Robin Wilson Over the past decade, the University of Maryland's department of art history and archaeology has admitted up to a dozen graduate students each year. But when Caroline J. Dubinsky and Jessica Williams arrived on the College Park campus last fall, they were the department's only two new Ph.D. students. Like many graduate programs in the arts and humanities, Maryland's department is slimming down: Since 2005 its graduate-student population has fallen by a third, to a total of just 42. Some of that is the result of an extra push to get longtime graduate students to finish up and get out the door. But universities are also purposefully shrinking graduate programs because they are reluctant to continue flooding the already swamped academic job market with more Ph.D.'s, and because institutional budget problems have reduced fellowship money for students. "We are trying to right-size, given resources and the job market," says Elizabeth Bergmann Loizeaux, associate dean of Maryland's College of Arts and Humanities. "For most programs in the college, that has meant smaller graduate programs." Since 2009, graduate enrollment in the college has shrunk by 10 percent. Enlarge Image Matt Roth for The Chronicle With just two new Ph.D. students, art-history professors at the U. of Maryland are talking about opening up their graduate program to students looking to earn master's degrees to train for jobs in museums and other nonacademic destinations. Enlarge Image Matt Roth for The Chronicle Caroline J. Dubinsky (left) and Jessica Williams are the two new Ph.D. candidates in Maryland's department of art history and archaeology this year. "The idea of going to a university where my adviser would have 30 students and not remember my name was very unattractive," says Ms. Williams. The cuts are being made not only in art history, but also in English, history, comparative literature, and foreign languages. And they are happening even in top programs at institutions like Harvard University and the University of California at Los Angeles. The result? Changes in the very nature of graduate education, and in the shape of faculty jobs. Universities are canceling or recasting graduate seminars—the cornerstone of graduate education—and struggling to maintain a lively intellectual environment for students with fewer peers. Professors who have long counted the training of graduate students as a prized role are competing for the dwindling number of students. And as training graduate students becomes a smaller part of their jobs, professors are being forced to focus elsewhere, including on undergraduate teaching. "The only place I can really use some of the research I have is at the graduate level, and now I don't have someone to impart it to," says Anthony Colantuono, an associate professor of art history at Maryland, whose department held a retreat this month to talk about how to maintain a vibrant graduate program while admitting only a couple of students a year. Like many scholars in his field, Mr. Colantuono knows several languages. While undergraduates do not need to know them, he says, graduate students performing fieldwork do. "You want to pass that on; otherwise it could be lost for good," he says. With fewer graduate students enrolling, that loss is a real threat. "We are all terrified by this," he says, "because as researchers we're committed to graduate teaching." Uneven Decline The Council of Graduate Schools reported last fall that new graduate-student enrollment dropped in 2010 for the first time in seven years. Enrollment of new graduate students over all fell by 1.1 percent from 2009. But the decline was not equal across disciplines. Doctoral programs in the arts and humanities saw a drop, while the number of students in some Ph.D. programs—physical and earth science, health sciences, and business—actually rose. The biggest programs have seen the greatest declines. The graduate program in English at Ohio State University, traditionally one of the country's most robust, will trim its new enrollment for the next academic year by half compared with 2009-10, to around 20 master's and doctoral students. In the early 1990s, the program admitted as many as 60 students a year, says Frank Donoghue, a professor of English there. Indiana University's graduate program in English used to bring in as many as 70 students a year, says Patricia Clare Ingham, who is director of graduate studies there. "IU was one of those large, factory Big Ten programs," she says. But starting in the mid-1990s, the department began restricting enrollment to 19 to 25 graduate students per year, and last academic year it took another dip, to 14. The history department at the University of Wisconsin at Madison cut its new graduate admissions in half this past fall, to just 21 students. "Why train people if the outlook for professional historians is not nearly as good as it was five years ago?" asks Laird Boswell, director of graduate studies in the department. Pennsylvania State University's history department has gone even farther, dropping entire subfields in which graduate students were once invited to specialize and keeping only those in which it has a good track record of helping graduates find jobs. As of this academic year, it is no longer admitting students who want to write dissertations in 20th-century American history, modern European history, or medieval history. In the process, it is hoping to cut overall graduate enrollment by around 30 students—to a total of 40—in two years. "This is the way of the future, and we're way ahead of the curve here," says Michael Kulikowski, chairman of the history department, which was featured at this year's annual meeting of the American Historical Association as one of 10 departments doing innovative things. "People have been talking about the oversupply of unemployable Ph.D.'s in the humanities for several decades, and I think we've found a part of the solution. We are concentrating on areas where we can place students competitively." Vying for Seminars But while many deans and department heads say cutting back is wise, not everyone is embracing the trend. Some professors point to ways that a smaller student population is altering the culture of graduate education, for both students and faculty members. With fewer students, departments are winnowing the number of graduate seminars, which means that professors may teach graduate students only once a year, or even less. Ohio State's English department, which has 80 tenured and tenure-track professors, is reducing the number of its graduate seminars next year from 57 to 43. "I gave every field one seminar per semester, which means if you have six faculty in your area, they may get one every two to three years," says Marlene Longenecker, an emeritus professor who does course scheduling for the department. "We've had a lot of moans and groans." Mr. Donoghue, the English professor at Ohio State, has written a forthcoming article for the journal Pedagogy about the phenomenon. "The privilege of teaching a graduate seminar every year, or at least every two years, long ago came to become an expected perk of faculty teaching jobs at Ohio State," he says. "It clearly can't be anymore, but who gets seminars and who doesn't has become an increasingly significant factor in faculty morale." To keep graduate seminars well populated as enrollment shrinks, some departments are broadening the territory covered by the courses and allowing undergraduates as well as graduate students in other fields to sign up. Some professors and students applaud the move as making graduate education more interdisciplinary, but others say it waters down the intellectual conversations that should take place. It may also prompt faculty members to "make up sexy or bogus topics" to compete for students, says Mr. Colantuono, the art historian at Maryland. This spring his seminar on spirituality in the arts in the 17th century is one of five graduate courses the department is offering that enrolled three to seven students each. A sixth seminar was turned into an undergraduate class when not enough graduate students signed up. "From now on," he says, professors might think, 'I'm going to choose topics designed to arouse attention rather than things people need to know, so I will attract people in other fields." For example, if one of Mr. Colantuono's colleagues were teaching something racier than a course on 17th-century altar pieces in Dominican churches, he might "trump something up"—like 17th-century images of vampires—to bring in more students. "Because I'll have people in other fields, I will have to change the curriculum and decrease the specialization. It will create a lower level of graduate education." 'The Soul of What We Do' Clifton Crais, a professor of history at Emory University, says professors are upset about the changes because they threaten a key way in which faculty members define themselves. "Training graduate students is part of the soul of what we do," he says. Emory's history department has cut the number of graduate students it accepts by more than half, from a high of 16 in 2008-9 to just six this year. "For many people, they are defined by their ability to train grad students in a particular model," says Mr. Crais. "And without that, it is causing people a great deal of anxiety." James Van Horn Melton, director of graduate studies in history at Emory, has sometimes borne the brunt of that anxiety. As head of the committee that decides which students to admit each year, he gets angry e-mails from faculty members, who also complain to the dean when graduate applicants in their own fields are not among the handful of new students each year. "The kind of pressure I feel has grown noticeably more intense," he says. "Some faculty members see how many Ph.D.'s they train as an index of their standing in the profession." In a sign of just how important graduate students are to professors, one historian at Emory agreed to pass up an outside job offer after Emory made a counteroffer that included allowing the history department to admit a few extra graduate students in 2010. That year the department admitted 12 students, says Jeffrey Lesser, chairman of history. (He wouldn't identify the faculty member.) Mr. Donoghue, at Ohio State, worries that with the decline in the amount of time that professors devote to training graduate students, administrators at research universities will find a reason to increase teaching loads, which have traditionally been kept low so professors could perform scholarship that they impart to graduate students. Indeed, one thing research-university professors may be doing more of is undergraduate teaching, particularly in departments like Ohio State's, where there are about 1,000 undergraduate English majors. "There are going to be a few people who really don't get enough graduate teaching, the meaty stuff," says Ms. Longenecker. "So every so often they will have a year where they will teach more composition than they ever wanted to." State legislators and some higher-education analysts have argued for years that tenured professors should spend more time with undergraduates. But William L. Pressly, who heads the department of art history and archaeology at Maryland, says substituting undergraduate teaching for work with graduate students isn't going to go over well with professors. Indeed, while faculty members at research universities like Maryland understand that their jobs must include some undergraduate teaching, and some embrace it, many were hired with the understanding that they would focus on scholarship and training graduate students. "Working with graduate students keeps you on your toes," says Mr. Pressly. "We are a research institution, and it's very important for faculty to bring their research material to bear in graduate courses." With undergraduate lectures, he says, "you stand up there and talk and you could be saying great stuff, but it just kind of washes over them." A Different Kind of Education Because faculty members are teaching fewer graduate seminars now, it is sometimes hard for students to establish relationships with them that lead to research collaborations. "It used to be that if you cultivated a relationship with a faculty member through courses, the relationship with the professor as a dissertation adviser would naturally follow," says Julia Voss, a third-year Ph.D. student in English at Ohio State. "But I had to ask a few professors first and then finally persuade my final adviser to agree to be my adviser, because I'd only taken one course with her." Some professors and students also worry that with fewer students enrolled, graduate education­—already a solitary endeavor—may become even more isolating. Students may find themselves without a critical mass of peers with whom to hash out problems and ideas. "With a larger graduate program, there is more discussion, argumentation, and contact," says Mr. Boswell, the history-graduate-studies director at Wisconsin. Ali Behdad, chairman of English at the University of California at Los Angeles, says he's tried to ensure that graduate students feel a part of a broad intellectual community. The number of incoming graduate students in the department will be down by about half next year from the early 1990s, he says, and the department, which has been admitting as many as 14 students a year, now hopes to hold the line at 12. Mr. Behdad invites distinguished scholars from off campus to give talks each month, with food and wine. "This creates an intellectual context for students and faculty to come together and creates a sense of community within the department," he says. Clearly, there are some pluses to smaller graduate programs­—particularly for students. Ms. Williams, one of the two art-history students admitted this year at Maryland, took an English course last semester and is now friendly with several graduate students in that department. "You'd be less willing to branch out if you had a larger class in your own department," she says. "It's wonderful because they have a different perspective on art, and I have a different perspective on literature. We help each other." Ms. Williams also says she gets special attention as one of only two new graduate students in art history. "The idea of going to a university where my adviser would have 30 students and not remember my name was very unattractive," she says. Ms. Dubinsky, the other art-history student admitted to Maryland this year, says being one of only two chosen was a "confidence booster." What's more, she says, they do not have to worry about competing with a horde of other graduate students for fellowship money. Still, when the art-history professors at Maryland gathered at a faculty member's home this month for their retreat, it was clear that they did not think the department could run a viable graduate program with just two new students each year. So the faculty members talked about opening the graduate program up to students who want to earn just a master's degree to train for jobs outside academe—in museums for example. "Our goal is to accept five students per year," says Mr. Pressly, chair of the department. "It would maintain a critical mass that would make for a healthy program." How 3 Graduate Programs Are Scaling Back OHIO STATE U. Department of English Number of graduate students: The university plans to enroll 20 students in 2012-13, down from 30 this year. Number of graduate seminars: 43 are scheduled for 2012-13, compared with 57 this year. Response to the decline: The campus chapter of the English Graduate Organization has taken steps to preserve a sense of community among graduate students even as their numbers shrink, holding colloquia where students present their work and organizing town-hall-style meetings on issues like what it means to be a teaching assistant. U. OF MARYLAND AT COLLEGE PARK Department of art history and archaeology Number of graduate students: Two enrolled this year, down from eight last year. Number of graduate seminars: 10 are offered this year, down from 11 last year. Response to the decline: The department held a retreat this month at which faculty members talked about whether the graduate program can remain vital while admitting significantly fewer students. U. OF WISCONSIN AT MADISON Department of history Number of graduate students: 21 are enrolled this year, down from 40 last year. Number of graduate seminars: 35 are offered this year, up from 30 last year (seminar enrollment dropped this year to 346 students, down from 387). Response to the decline: The department added a sentence in its letter to accepted graduate students this year, warning them about the job market: "You should also know that a growing number of history Ph.D.'s will likely have to use their training to seek employment outside the academic world."

I'm not certain what to say about this article -- on the one hand, fewer students means more jobs in the future (given, of course, that the states do not continue their corporatist-driven assault on the humanities and thinking in general), on the other hand this means fewer slots in programs, smaller cohorts, fewer graduate seminars, etc. http://chronicle.com/article/Cutbacks-in-Enrollment/131123/

Happy news, Monster. Congratulations!