unforth

I was just about to post that about Kindle! I remembered about it this morning. I agree completely - the highlighting/searchability/notes are AWESOME, I've just started using Kindle for that...

I tended to buy everything, but if I knew I would need a book til later in the semester instead of right atthe beginning I would order it as cheaply as possible from a used online source. Next time, I'll probably go with a more careful selection, though - I tend to highlight my books, too, but owning everything is just too much - I'm gonna buy what seems important and borrow the rest; I figure I can always buy a few additional if it turns out I've misjudged...

I'm reading Shenandoah 1862 by Peter Cozzens, and my gym reading is Clausewitz's On War. I also recently read through the December OAH Journal of American History. Anyone else read it? I found the Conservative Round Table discussions pretty interesting, I'd be curious what others thought....

I'll second the advice on breaks. I wish I'd taken mine, but I was so "NO MUST FINISH" that I didn't and ended up taking two sections needing to use the bathroom the whole time.

Yes, I think that was you. The part of the writing sample that seems to be a sticking point is the no primary doc research part. Sad truth is, even if I COULD have done it for the paper in question, I probably wouldn't have...I was not that well trained by my undergrad, even the one professor I had who was strict about historian-type things - the one who drove home the correct writing style and such - didn't ALLOW us to do research for papers from books not assigned for class (I wanted to use a paper I wrote for him - it's the best written - but the assignments were all series of specific questions so even though the writing is excellent the content is, I think, all wrong...and based on like three books...). I'm not pleased with how I was "taught" to be a historian...or not taught. I think that's a piece of why the years off are a good thing - I get it now, when I didn't then. Anyway, even though writing a whole new paper kinda freaks me out, I'm gonna go ahead and do it. I'm so glad I started this whole process so early - I've got time. I note the plural - you submitted multiple samples? Did the programs you were applying to programs require that?

I was already taking it as gospel, so I'm glad my instincts didn't steer me wrong. I'm happy to help with questions you may have, though note that at this point I'm a self-taught military historian (which is to say, I only started reading Clausewitz a few months ago and haven't read some of the other major thinks in the field) ...but I know a whole lot about the Civil War, I've just been thinking of it as a "hobby" for the last 20 years or so...when it's finally dawned on me last year that my hobby COULD be my career, if I put the work in... dons a "Vote for StrangeLight 2012" pin

German annieca, kotov, Kelkel, Ganymede18, grlu0701 Spanish annieca, crazedandinfused, Ganymede18, grlu0701 (kind of), CageFree, StrangeLight, pudewen (very rusty and basically useless to my work) French theregalrenegade, Ganymede18, CageFree (reading, can speak a bit), StrangeLight, Safferz (Franglais) Hebrew uhohlemonster, crazedandinfused (ktzat) Italian Latin Kelkel, Ganymede18 Greek Ganymede18 (New Testament) Russian Polish runaway Romanian kotov Japanese kyjin, pudewen (sort of, it's in process), unforth (well enough to read/translate) Portuguese CageFree (reading), StrangeLight (reading, swearing) Hungarian StrangeLight (swearing only) Somali Safferz Arabic Safferz (reading) Chinese pudewen (modern and classical) I'm switching fields from an East Asian/Japan focus as an undergrad to a US focus as a grad; I've got the books in the house to start studying German, as I'm interested in (among many other things) the contributions of German immigrants to the Civil War, and so many programs require a second language, I figure, might as well (my uncle is fluent in German and lives in Germany roughly half the year so it seems like a good choice...)

American History R_Escobar (20th century, American Indian), crazedandinfused (antebellum, intellectual), hopin'-n-prayin' (southern, religious), stevemcn (transnational), Simple Twist of Fate (early American), zb642 (20th century, labor/working-class culture), BCEmory08 (19th-20th century Catholicism, labor), irvinchiva10 (20th century, immigration/immigration reform) natsteel (early American political culture and intellectual history) unforth (19th century US political and military history, US Civil War) European HistoryKelkel (Modern Germany, political), goldielocks (Britain), SapperDaddy (Eastern and Central Europe), kotov (Modern Romania, Holocaust, labor), RevolutionBlues (Modern Western Europe/France labor and leftist politics), theregalrenegade (18th/19th cent British Empire/environment), jrah822 (19th century Britain; emphasis on colonial relationship to India), grlu0701 (Intellectual & cultural history,fin de siecle Germany and Italy), naturalog (modern European [mostly German] intellectual and cultural/sexuality and gender/political radicalism), runaway (Eastern/Central, memorialization & visual culture), Sequi001 (Modern France, gender and sexuality, colonialism/imperialism) African HistoryOseirus (precolonial/early colonial West Africa), Singwaya18 (20th century East Africa), Safferz (20th century Horn/Northeast Africa), The People's Scholar (Spanish colonialim in Africa- i.e. middle/West Africa) Jogatoronto (Psychiatry in early colonial West Africa) Latin American HistoryCageFree (20th century, Southern Cone), BH-history, The People's Scholar (18th-19th century Colombia) StrangeLight (20th century Central America) East Asian Historyalleykat (Modern China), kyjin (Pre-Modern Japan) Near/Middle Eastern Historyuhohlemonster, (modern Israel, Iran, Palestine) oswic (modern Egypt, gender) Atlantic Worldsandyvanb Global/World History [*]cooperstreet (Cold War) Jewish History [*]uhohlemonster, (modern Israel) [*]hopin'-n-'prayin, [*]kotov (Holocaust), [*]naturalog (sometimes modern European/Holocaust), [*]runaway (memorialization & visual culture), [*]ticklemepink (20th c. Germany/U.S) Science/Technology/Environment [*]shaxmaty1848 (Cold War) [*]StrangeLight (environmental history, ecological distribution conflicts) Social [*]annieca (Cold War and Post-Cold War East and Central Europe) Classical and Medieval [*]Hogs of War (Monastic Studies and Conflicts in Authority) Cultural [*]StrangeLight (gender, race, ethnicity, and religion)

That's the plan, yeah.

It does help. Thanks tons. Do you think it matters that the language I know (Japanese) bears absolutely no relationship to my chosen field whatsoever? Like, that Japanaese language skill will in no way at all help my ability to study about the US Civil War military history? (it's not like I intend to study what 19th century Meiji Revolution Japan thought about the US Civil War...though now that I think about it, that might be kinda interesting...)

Nearly everyone I've spoken to has thought I'll have to pay for my degree and asked how I plan to afford it. The difference for me is when they find out tuition is covered they don't think better of it...I get the sense they think that's even worse, even though they appreciate that it helps me out...

Oh dear...so, since I'm new here I've been slowly reading through the archives as I get a chance. And by archives I mean things written three days ago. Anyway, I just read about peoples views on writing samples and I've got to admit, I'm seriously alarmed. I've known for a bit that writing sample is a big problem for me. I took three seminars as an undergrad and wrote three 20 page seminar papers. One of them was on historiography, and I wrote a paper about the Nihongi (a 7th century ad history of the origin of Japan) which I read cover to cover and wrote about. Problem with this paper is that it's not very good. Then, I wrote a paper about State Shinto in Japan and how it developed. Problem with this paper is that, while it's not terrible, I clearly - to my eye - was exhausted and beat when I wrote it. That's because I wrote it less than two days after writing the only paper I think might be good enough, which is about Japanese piracy in China during the 16th and 17th centuries. It's an okay paper, but it's got a few problems: it reads a bit more like a book report than a thesis paper (though I DID have a thesis not directly out of my sources, it just doesn't read that way...); it's only 20 pages; and it's not the in the field I intend to pursue for a PhD. I've spoken to a couple professors at schools I'm interested in, and been told that the length isn't an issue, and that I shouldn't worry too much about the field jump, but I'm still worried about the writing quality, the complete lack of primary documents (because where was I supposed to find original resources on Japanese piracy at SUNY Binghamton? And even if I could all the primary docs on that topic are in Chinese, which I don't speak - not in Japanese, which I could have translated...), and the fact that it doesn't come off as a thesis paper. If I DO want to use this paper, I've been meaning to dig out my original research notes (which should be in a box somewhere in my apartment) and take a stab at substantially re-writing it from my original research. Is that considered kosher? Alternatively, I've been thinking about trying to find the time NOW to use some primary docs available in my area to write some articles in my field (okay, one good article in my field, even) and try to get it published - since I can't write in a school setting. Or, I've been thinking about trying to take a summer course non-matriculated in my field, and get a suitable paper out of that. Problem there is money and time - I have a job and all that jazz. But, I write much better and work much harder than I did back in the day. Thoughts?

What conference was it? I've got my first in the second week of May (or rather, my first not for work or for my novel writing hobby...) - Society of Military Historians. OAH was this weekend in Milwaukee but I didn't find that out til after I'd paid for my GRE... What are people's thoughts on conferences? Are the contacts helpful? Does the info help you demonstrate that you know what's new in your sub-field?

I have this problem too - graduated 8 years ago, was not particularly memorable to my undergrad professors. I've already visited a fewof the schools I'm interested in, and at one of them I asked the Director of Graduate Studies for my field (history) what she thought. She suggested that if I got one recommendation from a professor in my graduate program (work in a differen field) and had professional contacts who were relevant this would work. In my case, I want to be a history professor, and I work closely with a few history and folklore professors, so I'll be speaking with them. It sounded to me that it's important to have at least one academic recommendation. I'm pretty worried about it, but the suggestion I was given was - pick someone who liked you and gave you good grades. Send them a paper that they graded highly and write them a letter that reminds them of who you are and details that might remind them of your academics. Include a picture. Don't yet know if this will work; I'm not planning to outreach to recommenders until the fall. Hope this helps!

Hey there! Thanks for the welcome. It feels a little bit like going backwards to go back to school, so I was really reassured when I read about you and the other person on here (still learning usernames so I'm not sure who it was) who are also coming back a bit older after some time at another career. I'm really glad to have found a supportive group, cause I can already tell just how stressful this will be - I found applying for my MLS stressful but this sounds like its going to be much, much worse. Okay, GRE. Background: I took the GRE older style test in fall, 2004 before I apples to Library Science programs. At that time, I had been in school continuously my whole life, but I hadn't studied math since high school. I didn't study then - I took a single practice test, refreshed on what I'd gotten wrong, and then went and took the test; I got 720 (98%) verbal, 720 (some much lower percent I don't remember, like in the mid 70s) math, and a 5.0 in the writing. I took the new GRE yesterday. I took a practice test a couple months ago to see what was different and what my baseline was. Based on that, I bought a book and started practicing and studying a week ago. I read the book cover to cover (more or less) and did most of the practice questions on it. Then, I took another practice test and did noticeably better. For both practice tests I did the whole thing, even writing the essays, just to get a sense. Again, I reviewed what I got wrong. Definitely struggled with math more than before, since I still haven't studied math since I was in high school. My reported scores after the test were a 165 verbal and a 157 math; I won't know my percentages or essay score for two weeks. In terms of what I thought about it...hmm...for the most part, I found it pretty similar to how I remembered things being before. I don't think I had as clear an idea of what the essays were asking for - so that's important. (though I don't know yet if that understanding paid off ). The big difference I noticed was the adaptability. In the old test, you could kinda tell how you were doing by how hard the questions got. The new test is less adaptive - so within a section, the questions are all set, but when you get to the second set of verbal or math questions, you can really tell - like, my second set of verbal questions were WAY harder than the first set. Other than that, though, I didn't see that it was all that different, so if you had some trouble, you'll likely run in to the same or similar issues - but you're more prepared this time. Over in the GRE thread there were some different approaches that people took to studying, based on their strengths, I thought it was handy info. Does this help? I'll think some more if anything was different...that was 8 years ago, though.

Just a note, the CUNY Grad Center is not on the upper east side, so doing searches related to that will only confuse you; that neighborhood is Midtown East. Commute times from Brooklyn or Queens will obviously depend on where you live, but it'll likely be around 30 min to an hour and a half if you live way out in Flatbush or Flushing. (hi everyone - native New Yorker, and moved back after school, have lived here a total of 22 years in various neighborhoods in Manhattan and the Bronx, though I've never been a college student here, thought I'd toss my name in as someone who might be able to help, but not necessarily, it's just too big a city for anyone to know everything. )

@annieca - I don't know what Maryland means in that quote, but I applied to and was admitted to that program, and don't remember the application being all that difficult to get done, so I'm sure that we can figure it out using our collective brains. Also, I know you've mentioned IU Bloomington. I went there for my MLS. As to their MLS program, basically anyone who meets the minimum qualifications gets in there. Its a good program, though, and I'm glad I went, the skills are surprisingly generally applicable. The MIS/MLS joint program is a bit harder to get in to. I didn't apply to their history department until after I was already attending as a Library Sci student, and as far as I can tell my admission was basically automatic. I didn't end up earning my Hist MA then just cause, well, let's just say it was a philosophical mismatch for me and move on.

Alrighty, then, I've caught up on this thread and I guess that means it'stime to open my mouth. Hi everyone! I decided officially to go for my PhD in US History in February. I earned my undergrad from SUNY Binghamton in 2004 in Asian hisogry, earned a Masters of Library Science in 2007 from IU Bloomington, and since then I've been working as a grant writer and grant evaluator for professnal development programs for New York City public school teachers. However, I've grown increasingly unhappy with my job, and at the same time it's helped me realize that history is my first love. I'm aiming for my PhD in 19th century US history, with a focus on military history (didn't study this in undergrad because I chose my college without thinking things through and then didn't want to change). I'm a native New Yorker, I disagree that the west coast is better, and y'all can keep your Red Sox and Yankees, it's all about the Mets (and how much we suck! But love is love, no one will ever call my a fair-weather fan...) I've been pretty active in prep, though now I'm basically done with most of what I can do in advance. Last month I went on a road trip and visited my top four out of seven choices, and met faculty at three of them, and got some tips. I also wandered around the campuses and the towns, to see what they were like. This was super handy and resulted in not only some good information and some face/name recognition at the schools, but it also resulted in my changing my order of preference. Furthermore, the two professors in my field I spoke to confirmed that I was looking at the best programs in my field, which was reassuring. I'm looking at UNC, UVA, Penn State, and Ohio State as my main choices. (my other three, two are in Kansas, and the last one is Texas A&M, but I've visited College Station enough to know I hate it so I'm probably not going to apply there). I've also been fishing through my old undergrad papers (very worried about this, I'm a much better writer than I was 8 years ago, last time I wrote a history paper...)...considering my recommendations (i was not a stand-out student in undergrad but I work with some history professors NOW who I'm going to speak to)...getting my transcripts (my gpas are both better and worse than I remember...was very distressed to discover that my history gpa is actually LOWER than my overall gpa as an undergrad)...and today I took the GRE, since my old scores are expired. A friend of mine told me about this site on Wednesday, and it seems spiffy. Am I scared? Hell. Yes. The professors I've spoken to all agreed that at their schools they're getting roughly 80 applicants for two spots in my field. That's TERRIFYING. I think I've got some strengths - I test well, I write well, I'm a woman interested in military history, I'm knowledgeable because I've read heavily in my field over the past five years cause I love it and read it for fun, and I've been out of school long enough to be able to demonstrate that I'm doing this because I really want, I'll be giving up a lucrative career to pursue one that will likely never earn me as much. But...my gpa isn't that strong, I didn't study my field of choice as an undergrad (though I've been told by the profs that this is irrelevant) and what if I don't get in some where? Then what will I do? I'll have already left my job by then... Looking forward to getting to know you all as we navigate this crazy process...

I've gotten a lot of the ones already mentioned here, but my personal favorite is still... "You want to study the Civil War? Don't we already know everything about that?" ...sigh.

I believe there is a bus from Chicago. But it's MUCH easier to just fly into Indy, and there is a regular bus that goes from the Indy airport down to the Student Union on campus.

I went to SUNY B for undergrad, and I still visit from time to time. I didn't have a pet when I went there, but some of my friends who still live there do, and it's possible to find housing with a dog or a cat. I lived there a total of five years, from 2000 to 2005. There are both houses and apartments, be careful of the student slum areas filled with the usual dilapidated accommodations. Note that when you look at housing, keep an eye out on which city/town it's actually in. The college is in Vestal. Most of the housing in Vestal is either student slummy, crappy apartments, or impressively nice places where faculty lives. Binghamton is the largest part of the city, east of campus. It has a lot of neighborhoods that are hit and miss, and the student slums are mostly in Binghamton just north of the Susquehanna. I lived in Binghamton on the south side In house total slum house, but generally south side Binghamton isn't a student slum. Johnson City is due north of campus across the river. It's a mixed bag. It's got a good stretch of main street with some okay local businesses, and is also where the mall and Wegmans and such are. Endicott is west and north of the campus, but still is only about 15 minutes away, and is generally a bit nicer, though be careful of the industrial plum from IBM. Endwell is also north, tucked between JC and Endicott. I think Endwell is pretty nice, comparatively, and I don't know any students who lived there when I was around - ie not a student slum. Note that all of these places are contiguous - when you're new you'll have no idea where one starts and the other ends - living in any of them is still close. One thing to really be careful about when searching for housing is your elevation. The Susquehanna floods badly, and last year it flooded catastrophically, damaging housing all through the lowlands. Many people, including a friend of mine, lost everything. In the 10 months since then, a lot of landlords have slapped a coat of paint on the damaged houses and are now renting them again. BE VERY CAREFUL OF THESE PLACES. Quite aside from obvious potential issues with mold, the flooding including the overflow of the city sewage plant and so there are actually disease risks associated with some of these places. In short, just make a note of where a place is in relationship to the river, and aim for the hills! The whole area is a big valley, so there are sections of each of the five cities/towns that are lowlands and parts of each that are up on hills (except Endwell, I think it's all on hills). Hope this helps. I'm happy to try to help with other questions; even if I don't know the answer I've got multiple friends who still live in the area who I can ask.

Both my topics are on those lists. I hadn't looked at them before taking the exam but it's worth noticing that a lot of the issue topics fall in to specific categories - do if you think about (for example) your views on education, you'll be well prepared for a LOT of the different topics for agree/disagree. Reading the arguments ones and just noting how ludicrous the logic in them is would also be good practice....

I looked through all the ones at the book store and went with the official one. I was pretty satisfied with it.

I've taken the GRE twice. First time was in 2004, during my super-senior last semester of undergrad. I took one practiced test, reviewed what I got wrong, and didn't study more than that. I scored 98% verbal, 76% math (that second might not be quite right, it's been a long time since I checked, though I know I got 720 in each) and 5.0 writing. Just took it for the second time today. I haven't been a student since 2007. Took a practice about two months ago, then studied starting last Friday, maybe 10 hours total? Don't know my percentages yet, obviously, but early evidence suggests I did roughly equivalent to last time. Suspect I did better than last time in the writing, though won't know for two weeks. Considering I have now not studied mathematics formally in more than 10 years, I'm good with that. I'm a bit shocked by all the people who studied for months! I guess different people have different approaches. The most useful thing for me (other than reviewing basic math such as how to calculate the area of a circle...) was reading about what exactly is expected in the two writing sections, I don't think I knew that the first time, and I think (hope!) that knowing it this time will improve my scores. Damn the scores for expiring, though....