bewilderedherd

Got the official offer the other day, so I'm officially free of paranoid suspicions haha. I'm going to be studying transnational history in the western hemisphere (Latin America as first field). How about you?

So I was emailed by the professors I mentioned in my Berkeley sop a few days ago, and they said the department voted to admit me. It's not official, because the admission decision still needs to wind through the graduate division bureaucracy apparently, but one professor mentioned that he's never seen the department's decision reversed on grad admits. I set up times to meet a few faculty members, and have no idea whether I should treat this as an interview which could affect whether or not I get in, or if I should just treat it as an opportunity to learn more about the program, and figure out if it's the right fit (Although short of everyone hissing and spitting at me, it's hard for me to imagine turning down Cal. Genuinely shocked to have heard back from them with anything beyond a form rejection email haha). Any advice? Definitely a bit nervous. If any of you have special Cal insights, or have already done interviews, or just obsessively search the internet for tips, you will certainly have my appreciation for sharing your knowledge.

Thank you all for the good advice. I'm happy to see that my worries were not entirely justified and especially appreciated advice about exploring your research interests through other disciplines. I just have two more questions though. 1. Is it pretty much a requirement to have multiple languages under your belt by the time you've finished your undergrad? That worries me a bit, just because those classes tend to take up a lot of space in my schedule and might make it less possible for me to pull off more than one minor since i only have four years of funding. I was planning on just getting competent in Spanish over the next three years and then working on Portuguese or French in grad school. 2. I really haven't taken anywhere near enough classes to have a specific research interest yet, but lately I've been drawn to Labor history and class/social hierarchy. Would a Sociology minor complement that best? I really don't have much experience with social sciences, so i'm not sure what the best choice would be.

Hi, all. I searched around a bit before posting, so apologies if this has already been covered in another thread. I am about to enter my sophomore year as a history major at SF State. Despite reading (somewhat obsessively) a number of articles and Chronicle threads on the hopelessness of the job market for humanities PhDs , I really love my discipline and want advanced training in historical research and pedagogy. The idea of being a high school teacher at the end of it doesn't repulse me at all, but I would still like to be competitive for admission to top programs so I receive enough funding to avoid going into debt and at least have a shot at teaching at the college level after graduation. However, it seems like a lot of these top schools are not very open to students who went to non-elite schools for their undergraduate education. While I've enjoyed the history program here a great deal so far, had I known that going to a csu would limit my options, I probably would've gone to a UC. However, state offered me a scholarship with four years' tuition paid for, and it didn't seem worth going in to debt to attend, say, UC Davis (I didn't make it into Berkeley or LA). So my question is, what can I do now to make up for going to a state school? My grades were solid my freshman year (3.98 gpa), but good grades are clearly not enough, especially considering state schools' not undeserved reputation for grade inflation. Right now, I'm taking a lot of GE and lower-division survey courses so I won't really have an opportunity to take classes and network with professors with appealing research interests until the spring semester of this coming year. I'm going to start taking Spanish classes this fall (I'm interested in Latin American history) and hope to have made good progress on my language training by the time I graduate. I intend to do an honor thesis senior year and I also think I'll be able to take a class or two at Cal through a cross-registration program. What else should I be doing over the next three years to make my chances better? Do minors look good? I was thinking of doing minors in Latin American Studies and Labor Studies, but recently I've heard that "Studies" disciplines are a bit looked down on. Maybe Sociology or Econ? Or a general interdisciplinary social science minor? Please help me out, fora. Many thanks