Do I honestly have a chance at a career?

[AfricanusCrowther]

1 hour ago, psstein said:

Do you think they're too high or too low?

Just looking at the rankings, my gut reaction is that Cornell, Hopkins, and maybe UNC/UCLA are rated too high in view of placement, and that Penn is somewhat underrated. I know that Hopkins HoS, which has some very good faculty, does not have particularly good placement.

NYU is at or near the top of the charts in certain fields (Latin America, Middle East) and does very well in others (Africa). You really have to go down to the level of field to get a sense of placement. My school, for example, has top placements in one field (Columbia, Georgetown, Rice, Michigan, etc.) but does relatively poorly in most others.

Edit: this is based on my own compiling, not the USNWR sub-rankings (which are even worse).

Edited June 3, 2018 by AfricanusCrowther

[ashiepoo72]

On 6/1/2018 at 10:34 AM, DistantMirror said:

So here's my question(s).

1) Would I have ANY shot at a full time academic career with a history degree if I went anywhere but one of the best schools?

2) Assuming my GPA ends up around 3.2 (Entirely because of courses taken a decade ago. My goal is to get stellar grades for the remainder of my undergrad degree. My grades in my history courses are very good, as well, if that matters at all.), does that lock me out entirely from the kind of schools I would need to get accepted to in order to have reasonable career prospects? My school is a public liberal arts college, with very small class sizes. I have high hopes of being able to get excellent letters of recommendation, and at least a full year of supervised undergrad research. Will my applications be tossed because of my overall GPA, however?

3) Is working as an adjunct as soul-crushing as everybody says, assuming TT positions are forever out of my reach?

4) I'm intrigued by public history. Are the career prospects in non-academic related public history at all decent?

5) If I do end up majoring in math/stats, does anybody know of any way I could transform that into an at least history-adjacent career?

1. You need to go to a program with good placement records, as everyone has stated. I would be suspicious of any program that doesn't have their placements on the website (and not vague, "we've placed grads at X University, College of Y and Z State." You want placements broken down by year, name and program, and if the program does not have it readily available online, email the grad coordinator and ask for their recent placements). Look at scholars you admire, people whose careers you'd love to emulate, and see where they got their PhDs (I'd focus on assistant profs first to see where they start out, then mid-career scholars to see if, when and where they move and if you could envision yourself working at a university like that). I believe that placement records, faculty publications and hiring, and funding are more important than rankings (US News is a good starting point but it's not that useful, and the NRC is woefully out of date).

2. A 3.2 GPA won't necessarily lock you out of a good program if you have a strong writing sample with original research that shows your knowledge of the historiography and ability to make a historical argument, a clear and well-written statement of purpose that shows you understand fit, methodology and how to conceive a dissertation proposal (even if it will likely change in grad school) and a good GRE score. Do you have 3 profs who will write you strong letters of rec? If and when you apply, I would include MA programs as well. If you don't get into a competitive PhD program, an MA will make a low undergrad GPA less of a hindrance when you reapply. Languages are a good (necessary) addition to an application.

3. Yes. You have no job security or benefits, adjuncts often have to cobble together a full-time workload at multiple schools, you won't have time or resources to do research and publish and therefore you will have a much harder time getting out of adjunct hell. It's not worth it if you can avoid it. I had an adjunct prof who chose to do it because her partner had a good job in an area where she wasn't offered a TT job, but by and large I'd say avoid it like the plague.

4. Public history has more job options, but I don't know exactly what the job prospects are. I can't imagine they'd be worse than academic history, and I would bet money they're better.

5. Minor in history if you can. Whether you do or don't, you can make the case in your statement of purpose that you want to do some sort of history that involves quantitative methods or the history of math/science. You just need to show how the skills in your major will inform your work as a historian.

[psych-grad]

On 6/1/2018 at 4:21 PM, Sigaba said:

IMO, the largest challenge in front of you is that while you're imagining yourself doing history, the individuals with whom you'll compete for jobs are doing history. MOO, addressing this disparity should be your primary focus because your skill level is something you can control. You can learn to read, to think, to write, and to act like a historian. You cannot forecast the job market five to ten years from now. 

What is the craft of history? Why do you want to be a historian? What is public history and why do you want to specialize in that field? How do you see yourself impacting the key historiopgraphical debates in public history? IMO, the answers to these questions will be of more interest to historians than your GPA.

I very strongly recommend that you start working on the thumbnail sketch that will indicate you are committed to the craft. Something along the general lines of:

History is the study of change over time. Public history is [left intentionally blank]. By focusing on A,B, and C from the perspective of a public historian, I hope to contribute X, Y, and Z to debates 1, 2, and 3. As a graduate student, I will do j,k,l, and m, ideally with Professors Curry, Durant, and James.

FWIW, one of the most brilliant people I've ever met was a UG classmate who double majored in math and history. He went to graduate school in history almost as an afterthought and he easily secured for himself a TT position. 

HTH

omg wtf lol phd hth ftw imo

Edited June 3, 2018 by psych-grad

[psstein]

4 hours ago, AfricanusCrowther said:

NYU is at or near the top of the charts in certain fields (Latin America, Middle East) and does very well in others (Africa). You really have to go down to the level of field to get a sense of placement. My school, for example, has top placements in one field (Columbia, Georgetown, Rice, Michigan, etc.) but does relatively poorly in most others.

Edit: this is based on my own compiling, not the USNWR sub-rankings (which are even worse).

Agreed, the USNWR rankings are badly outdated. In WI, we're rebuilding our Latin American program. It's not a top program right now, though historically it has been. Similarly, the fields are simply too broad. "European history" is a massive category: a department very strong in E. Mod. Europe can be miserable in modern Europe, and vice versa.

[OHSP]

5 hours ago, AfricanusCrowther said:

NYU is at or near the top of the charts in certain fields (Latin America, Middle East) and does very well in others (Africa). You really have to go down to the level of field to get a sense of placement. My school, for example, has top placements in one field (Columbia, Georgetown, Rice, Michigan, etc.) but does relatively poorly in most others.

Edit: this is based on my own compiling, not the USNWR sub-rankings (which are even worse).

I'd also add that a lot of people who come in as "US" students work equally in Latin America or African diaspora (or more often "Atlantic worlds")--i.e. fields at NYU are pretty flexible. 

[QueDoisJeFaire]

On 6/2/2018 at 11:03 AM, ExponentialDecay said:

OP, bluntly, does mathematics interest you outside of its job prospects? Either as a way of thinking or as a way to answer questions that you're interested in? I don't think it's difficult to know whether you enjoy math, regardless of how much higher-level math you've taken, because you either enjoy thinking through problems in a logical and abstract way or you don't. 

It does, though I really have to stress the most I've done so far is introductory algebra, where it doesn't feel like I've been doing a lot of abstract thinking. What I've done so far I enjoy, however. I find it very satisfying working through equations.

 

I really want to thank everybody for all the info. It's very helpful, though learning I have even a small shot depending on how well I handle things from here on out is really making me consider something that feels riskier than some other options!

If I had to make up my mind today, I'm most interested in the early modern Mediterranean, and will need to give a lot of thought to a more specific focus. I've started poking around and checking out different history departments, however, both in terms of placement and what they seem to be most oriented towards. I still have so much to learn. I've spent quite some time only reading history for pleasure, and am not super familiar with the specific, modern scholarship of most of my interests. (Braudel is who first sparked my interest in the early modern Mediterranean a few years back, for instance.)

Edited June 4, 2018 by DistantMirror

[TMP]

On 6/4/2018 at 3:24 AM, DistantMirror said:

If I had to make up my mind today, I'm most interested in the early modern Mediterranean, and will need to give a lot of thought to a more specific focus. I've started poking around and checking out different history departments, however, both in terms of placement and what they seem to be most oriented towards. I still have so much to learn. I've spent quite some time only reading history for pleasure, and am not super familiar with the specific, modern scholarship of most of my interests. (Braudel is who first sparked my interest in the early modern Mediterranean a few years back, for instance.)

Before you jump in that one, do you have the linguistics skills? Those are your first hoops.

[QueDoisJeFaire]

On 6/12/2018 at 5:25 AM, TMP said:

Before you jump in that one, do you have the linguistics skills? Those are your first hoops.

I don’t, and the language options at my school aren’t very broad. There also aren’t any faculty with a closely related focus, so I’m not sure that would be the best idea. After a lengthy talk with the professor who would be my advisor should I choose history, I’m leaning towards French history. I’ve definitely had a lot of casual interests. Given my school and my circumstances, I’m really excited about this.

I’ve learned a small amount of French in the past on my own but don’t know a ton. I’ve registered for French for the fall and ideally would like to put a lot of work into it over this next year/next summer to try to test into more advanced courses for fall 2019. 

Everybody’s advice here has been incredible and I really appreciate everyone who took the time to give their input. I’m not 100% sure which way to go yet, but I have a much better grasp on what I need to be thinking about.