New England Nat

Many unfunded masters programs at second or third tier universities take most of the people who apply, but they reject some people out of the self worth of the people teaching in those programs.

It's a family buisness for me, I know a lot of universities. We'll have to agree to disagree. Or just assume we know a different set of universities. I honestly suspect part of this may be about hard and soft money lines, and paycuts and levels. In the context of a system wide pay cut, the promotion could be decoupled. But as a rule, for the person trying to contact protential advisers, an assistant doesn't have tenure and an associate does. In the last several years VAP posts have largely been used as a budget means to avoid the appearance of hiring more and more adjuncts in departments that don't have the lines for TT positions. The trend has been that VAPs are rarely hired on permenantly and often if they do have to restart their tenure clocks. I know a number, both recent graduates from my department and friends within my field. They are often given work heavy course loads such that they couldn't possibly do what is needed for promotion. Essentially departments use them like junior faculty members, but don't invest in them like junior faculty because they know wont be there in 2-3 years. But given that the original poster was asking about contacting faculty to potentially work with, and as far as that goes, all that matters are the line between TT assistant professors and associates. I apologize if I sound jumpy, but I've seen a lot of science types commenting about things in the humanities threads on subjects like the culture and unwritten rules of the profession and give misleading information. You clearly are doing research, and I appreciate that. Our differences are likely more of speaking past each other.

Very kind of you moderator, but you aren't in history, but you are incorrect. Other than Hopkins, it's the norm for the promotion from assistant to associate to be tied to tenure. And in the humanities, a VAP is not a mid-rung person, it's only a step above an adjunct.

An assistant professor is someone without tenure and many places will not let them supervise dissertations or even be on committees. Even if they are allowed to take on graduate students it is usually not a very good idea because they will have to come up for tenure while you are still at the institution and if they fail to get tenure it can be ... awkward for you. An associate professor usually has tenure and i've never heard of them not being able to supervise. The only place off the top of my head that they do not have tenure is Hopkins, but that may have changed. A full professor or a professor with a named chair is a senior rank. Some places have a "lecturer" position and that's even below assistant professors and is sometimes on the tenure track or not. A Visiting Assistant Professor (VAP) is a very low rung position, with an insecure job prospect and never going to be allowed to take on graduate students.

Compare... obviously i've been reading too much in to many other languages lately to come up with that spelling.

To add to what others have said, I also take a quick read through the notes and sources afte I read the introduction. I want to see what kind of sources they have used, what languages they have read in, and if I thought it was possible to write the book described in the introduction based on the notes they used. You would be surprised how often you can identify fundamental flaws in a book by learning to compair the promises made in the intro to what is delivered in the notes.

Ask them first, and than give them material after they've said yes. The important thing is to show them that you understand that you are asking them to take time for you. It's part of the game, professors know they have to write letters of rec, but they still like students to display knowledge that it's a favor.

I decided at the blog post that we were being trolled.

The POIs are the ones you should give time to, your letter writers you should talk to as soon as possible and give them as much time as possible. They should have a copy of your SOP and give them a list of the schools you are applying to and the deadlines for their letters. It's been two years now since my cycle but most schools were requiring them to submit letters through online systems.

Riotbeard, I'm history of sciency but not precisely my field. But I know a fair bit about Rosenberg's work and his students for reasons I'm not about to post in public because I might as well be signing my name, but he does very interesting work. Certainly I think the social history that is embraced by his "academic family tree" really did a lot for moving the history of medicine more towards general history and away from the STS and phil. of science inclinations of larger history of science. And you are right, the PoI doens't have to be right in line, but that's why we contact them before the application. I just want to make sure people think about the fact that if the person's famous book is more than two decades old they might not be that keen on discussing it or it's topics anymore. I know of another very famous book in the history of technology and women's studies that the author barely wanted to read the 25th anniversary praise of because she hadn't thought about those questions in two decades.

The discussions of Thomas Sugrue and Lizabeth Cohen have left me trying to decide all day how to write this post. The Making of the New Deal came out in 1990, and while there was second edition it's still a generation old at this point. The Origins of the Urban Crisis came out in 1996. I know this because I pulled them off my bookshelf to look. They are amazing, great books, and just about every Americanist graduate student reads them. I don't know either well enough to know what they are currently doing, I've read Cohen's second book, but before you write an application around wanting to work with these people because of these books make sure they are still interested in these books or these topics. Rather famously every cycle Yale gets some applicant who wants to work with Daniel Kevles on the history of physics. They always end up cut in the first round because Kevles has been working on the history of genetics for the last 25 years. Make sure you are current on your PoI's scholarship. There are many professors who once they have written on a topic move away from it.

Well, there are any number of lovely books using the history of disease in the Charles Rosenberg school. He just retired but had about a billion students that are all busy writing books. Ever read Wailoo's Dying in the City of the Blues? It's where medicine meets the subjects you are interested in.

Riotbeard I know what you feel like. I don't do medicine except in a very tangental way and get inundated with it for reasons totally not obvious on my cv.

If you are talking about SUNY Albany... don't bother. I'm sure there are lovely people teaching there, but one of my professors used to teach there and talked about how guilty he felt about their PhD students. That they were smart people they were taking advantage of because none of them had ever gotten a job teaching at the university level. Add to that recent systemwide cuts that have manifested at Albany in drastic cuts and attempted elimination of all languages other than Spanish... In a PhD application there is no such thing as a safety school, but the buttom of the list shouldn't be impossible. On another level, i'm mildly curious as to why Princeton didn't make the list given Isenberg and Kruse.

There is a limit to the value demonstrating your mastery of historiographical content is that helpful. These people will not expect you to be a master at the material before they teach it to you. They are, in my experiance, much more interested in understand your thought processes rather than in a bland historiographical discussion of the subject. But i'm at Princeton and we're pretentious bastards. As for your commodities question I guess it depends on the commodities involved. If you were thinking about a grand history of silk or tea you'd need knowledge of half a dozen languages. But no one is going to let you write a grand narrative of silk or tea for a diseration. They'd ask you to write something like... the introduction of tea to european markets over a specific period of time. I'm mostly familiar with the western hemisiphere transnational commodities and that's just a spanish/portugese question. If you are interested in a period of colonization than you should demonstrate your knowledge or desire for knowledge of those colonial languages.

I would highly encourage you to make your SOP be not just about your interest in the historical questions but how and why you came to them. Especially if you've come from law school to do it. I know a lot of JD/PhDs and the story of how you go from thinking about the law to thinking about intellectual history is a good way to show your intellectual processes. If you have a project in mind, show how that links to bigger questions, don't start with vague large questions and than narrow to ... vague specifics. State very clearly what your language skills are currently, and what languages you plan to pick up. No one expects you to have all languages before you hit grad school but they want to see that you know language is important and that you are thinking about them in a practical way. A law school recommender should be fine in your case. While most of my JD/PhD candidate friends are doing legal history... schools know that you've just spent three years doing intensive post graduate work. They wont discount that, and they will wonder if there is no one from that period of your education as it is the most recent. As it's still september, give the professor 3 weeks from your last exchange. It's a busy time of year and many of them aren't thinking about future grad students that seriously right now. Come mid october for december apps is when many of them will start looking at those emails seriously.

And by getting it wrong I guess i just revealed which of those two institutions I went to ...

We've all been dancing around it. It's not iffy. It's fraud. One should not commit fraud and expect another institution to want anything to do with you. If you have a consoluation masters you can guarrentee people will contact that old department. Unless you had outside reasons for leaving the program they will be suspicious.

People can be very silly about those sorts of things. It's very weird.

Annieca, As a rule of thumb, I tell people that done properly a PhD application cycle takes as much time as a masters level graduate class. Being overwelmed isn't anything to do with you, that's the way the system is designed. Oh, and as an alumni of one of the two schools, looking at yoru tag. If you aren't applying to both the University of North Carolina, and NC State... than "North Carolina" is UNC. You are likely to be mauled by tarheels and wolf pack members for the slash mark. Though not nearly as much as forgetting the "The" in "The Ohio State University"

I would think it's a long shot that any professor would write a recommendation before your class with them has finished. They can't write in the letter anything about your academic performance, or your writing on longer papers. Basically all they could say is "Joe is a nice student who is enthusastic." That isn't to say you have to wait, but all your recommendations would come from your undergrad. That's not horrible. I had a 2 year masters, used two professors from my masters department and my undergraduate thesis adviser because he was a very big name.

I highly doubt a PhD program would take someone with a consolation masters from another PhD program. They are usually granted to people who are considered unsuitable for a PhD. Many underfunded PhD programs only fund students through their course work, so when they have finished comps and are writing their dissertation they have to work as adjuncts. It's a sure way to delay your dissertation because teaching and writing a dissertation is difficult. ETA: I should add, I know someone with a consolation masters and a PhD. Their consolation masters is in a hard science and their PhD is in a humanities subject. So if you are planning on a radical change of field that is different than what I think you are describing. I'm also seriously skeptical in this environment that you could get into any serious PhD program with a below 3.0 GPA. Or many of the fine masters programs that are used as a launching pad to a good PhD program. I know of places that take just about anyone who applies who would reject that GPA. Nothing about your post suggests to me that you would have any chance of getting a PhD in history. Perhaps another life choice is in order.

I wouldn't entirely rule out an unfunded or partially funded masters degree. I know taking on more debt isn't something anyone wants to do, but you are more likely to get into a higher prestigue PhD program these days out of a masters. And I can't really speak against moving across the country for ones masters. I did. It is what it is. But I was going for a masters in a very specific subject area.

Taus, I would really seriously suggest you consider a masters in European history somewhere either in the states or in Europe. That will give you time to develope a sense of the field and will make your PhD application stronger. You are well outside of my field so I can't make specific suggestions, but a good place to start is find a recent book written in your field that you like. Look at where that person is, and look at who they cite. Look at journals and try to see what universities are producing work you like, even if the paper is written by a graduate student they have to have advisers. How is your german?

It's okay to contact them now yes, but don't expect quick replies. Every professor you write will know why you are writing and some will put off thinking about it much until October.