Switching PhD Departments

[aveceslamaga]

Hello all,

I am a first-year PhD student in Comparative Literature at a top 5 Ivy League university. Having taken two graduate course on History -and having done a lot of research on my own- I have become more and more convinced that I would rather do history than comparative literature. However, I am unsure how easy it will be to change PhD programs. Do you know of successful cases of people who have changed from one department to the other in the humanities? Ideally, I would want to remain in the same university as I am now, provided of course that the history department accepts me. Linguistic skills are not a problem, and I also took a couple of history courses as an undergraduate with professors that would be happy to write for me!

Any help would be appreciated!

[OHSP]

How strict is your department re the kind of dissertation you can write? I'm in history and have thought seriously this semester about switching to anthro, but after conversations with advisors have realised that I can definitely write the kind of dissertation that I want to write if I stay in the history department--I'll likely have non-historians or very anthro-minded historians on my committee. This is kind of one of the benefits of history though (...although there are some pretty historiany comp lit people right? Marianne Hirsch for one?). What are your advisors saying when you bring this up?

Edited April 28, 2018 by OHSP

[rising_star]

Agreed with @OHSP that you should talk to your advisors. Comparative literature is a fairly interdisciplinary field within which there can certainly be opportunities to think historically and engage with the historiography in the area you're interested in. Another thing you might do is think about what kind of dissertation you envision writing, the sources you'd read and engage with, and the type of scholarship you want to be producing. The training in history is quite different than that in comparative literature so I'd recommend taking at least one or two graduate level history courses before committing to switching fields.

[aveceslamaga]

1 hour ago, OHSP said:

How strict is your department re the kind of dissertation you can write? I'm in history and have thought seriously this semester about switching to anthro, but after conversations with advisors have realised that I can definitely write the kind of dissertation that I want to write if I stay in the history department--I'll likely have non-historians or very anthro-minded historians on my committee. This is kind of one of the benefits of history though (...although there are some pretty historiany comp lit people right? Marianne Hirsch for one?). What are your advisors saying when you bring this up?

Thanks for the response! Are you currently at Columbia? If so, may I send you a private message? 

Edited April 28, 2018 by aveceslamaga

[OHSP]

16 hours ago, aveceslamaga said:

Thanks for the response! Are you currently at Columbia? If so, may I send you a private message? 

I'm at NYU (but there were some pretty specific reasons that I did not apply to Columbia and I'm happy to talk about those/whether they might be relevant to you--Columbia's department is great but much better in some fields than others).

[TakeruK]

As others said, you may want to talk with your advisors about this. Maybe you can still do the work you want from your current department. In some fields, a scholar trained in a related discipline can actually be quite valued because they bring a different perspective and/or expertise! But in others, if you are serious about a career in one field, having a degree from another might make it hard for you to "break into" the network. But first, find out if it is possible and if it's a good idea to try this.

If you do want to officially switch, in most cases, this means applying to the History program. You'll be evaluated against all the new applicants. There is a few advantages if you are already at the same school and already working in the area and may already know some profs. You won't be as much of an unknown and while you will probably have to start your graduate program all over again in History, the courses you took already may count towards some requirements. 

[AP]

On 4/29/2018 at 11:47 AM, TakeruK said:

If you do want to officially switch, in most cases, this means applying to the History program. 

I was going to say this. 

[TMP]

On 4/29/2018 at 11:47 AM, TakeruK said:

As others said, you may want to talk with your advisors about this. Maybe you can still do the work you want from your current department. In some fields, a scholar trained in a related discipline can actually be quite valued because they bring a different perspective and/or expertise! But in others, if you are serious about a career in one field, having a degree from another might make it hard for you to "break into" the network. But first, find out if it is possible and if it's a good idea to try this.

If you do want to officially switch, in most cases, this means applying to the History program. You'll be evaluated against all the new applicants. There is a few advantages if you are already at the same school and already working in the area and may already know some profs. You won't be as much of an unknown and while you will probably have to start your graduate program all over again in History, the courses you took already may count towards some requirements. 

that said, no guarantees that you will get into the History Department at your institution.  Would you be willing to stay in Comp Lit if you don't get in?  I'd talk to the advisers first-- you'll then how much and what kind of work you'll need to do to get your hands on the history disciplinary methods.