Chiqui74

about face

So, what happens to classes on snow days? I mean, there are contact hour requirements to get credits but with all these snow days those hours are reduced. That means content gets skipped over, rushed, etc. That can't be good.

Last night I dreamed it got into UPenn, and it was good.

Congrats!

I think the idea of the traditional student is pretty much anachronistic now.

When I first declared History as my major, I wanted to be a medievalist. Sadly, my school had nothing in the way of medieval anything so I couldn't learn the languages or take more than 1 history course in the subfield. I am a native speaker of a different language, which makes it possible for me to use that as my foreign language for an American History PhD. That is not to say that AH is a consolation prize. I quickly came to realize that I truly do like Early AH, to the early-mid 18th century, even if Medieval History is what brought me to History in the first place. I still want to learn other languages, and will probably take one of my summers in the PhD program to learn one. I have VERY basic knowledge of Italian, I lived there for some time, but it's been years since I used it last and I'm very rusty. I might delve deeper into that. If not, then I'd love learn French.

If you have two majors declared, but in the end choose to graduate with only the requirements for one completed, you pretty much forfeit your opportunity to finish the second major. All you can do at that point is hope some university will reduce the number of credits you will need for a second degree. At some universities, you only need 30 credits (not counting prereqs) for a second bachelor. With two majors, you get just one degree, so if you have already been awarded that degree, you're done.

The thing is, no one knows what other people go through to get where they are. For example, I have zero student loants, and people who don't know me often make snide remarks about my financial state. What they don't know, however, is that I exchanged college financing for years in the military. During those years, I went to war and saw all its horror. For years, I lived in fear that I would be deployed again to the Middle East. I am lucky to be alive, many in my position can't say the same. So while I don't have any student loans, it doesn't mean that it came easy. Of course, I don't expect everyone to do this, and it certainly isn't for everyone, just wanted to say that the grass isn't always greener on the other side. Also, I did my entire undergrad either heavily pregnant or with a baby/toddler/preschooler. As ashiepoo surely knows, it's freaking hard. As for the PhD, I am incredibly lucky to be married to someone who is incredibly supportive, and made wise career choices, and I do count my lucky stars for that. I am aware that many people call this "the husband endowment" but I cannot feel bad nor let it undermine my own accomplishments. I come from a working class family and I have fought hard to make a better life for myself. Husband or no husband, no one can take my accomplishments away from me. Life is tough; sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down. It is what it is. And yes, the idea of not being able to get a good job, TT or non-academic, after spending years and years pursueing a PhD does terrify me. I am definitely not made to be a lady who lunches.

I think out of all the schoold from which I haven't heard, only two have not made any acceptances yet (or at least that haven posted on the results page), those are UMich and UPenn, so I've sort of come to terms with the fact that those are the only two for which I still have a chance. At this point, I just want to know, whatever the answer may be, so I can start making solid moving plans and get on with my life. Not knowing is killing me, even if I already have choices.

Hmmm...wow

I think I read somewhere that physics has its own gradcafe-like website.

Heimat, I don't see much activity on the other boards, at least the humanities ones.

I'm out of upvotes again. I think I only get 3 in a 24 hour period.

I think it would be awesome if after all this is over we could have a GradCafe History get together. You guys are great companions on this journey. Cue the tissues.

Gosh, I hope you are right!

I just finished a project at work that was taking way too much of my time, which means I wasn't giving the project or obsessively checking app statuses my undivided attention

Congrats!

Ooooh...I thought of another one! Dido's "See the Sun" "And you probably don't wanna hear tomorrow's another day, but I promise you you'll see the sun again."

I'm crossing my fingers for Harvard and/or UPenn! I'm double crossing them that the news are good.

Nelly Furtado's "Say it Right" chorus, and I'm going to pretend there are no double negatives here! "Oh you don't mean nothing at all to me No you don't mean nothing at all to me But you got what it takes to set me free Oh you could mean everything to me"

This one made me giggle when I first read it, and it was the first one that came to mind for this post "Excellent stats, excellent LORS by well known scholars, great fix. Guess I needed to suck someone off to get in."

river bank

Agreed.

Mine still says "Awaiting Program Decision"

True.