Should I Still Apply to the Program?

[GurdonRamsay]

I emailed a potential supervisor last month about applying to their history program. The potential supervisor is the main person who would be most suited to helping me with my topic and in the email I gave them a brief summary of my proposed project. It deals with similar themes that the supervisor is used to working with: migration/diaspora, the South Asian region. I asked them if they would be interested in working with me and their response was that my topic would be more suited to a supervisor more inclined toward poitics and IR and that I should apply to the poli sci department instead and speak to the South Asianists there. 

 

However I don't know if it would be do-able to make the transition to a poli sci dept. considering I have done my degree thus far in history and while I know there are overlaps, the methodology seems to be quite different. 

Should I bother applying to the history dept. here or just try somewhere else? Or should I give applying to the poli sci. dept. a shot? 

Edited January 2, 2020 by GurdonRamsay

[Quickmick]

Well, you won't get in to 100% of the schools you don't apply to. My two cents; maybe they are something you don't, why not apply to this poly sci program and continue your other apps as planned?

[historyofsloths]

Don't forget, your committee for your dissertation (if you're going for a PhD) can be interdisciplinary. So while you may be in the Political Science department, you can have historians from the History Department that fit your subfied/area of research on the committee as well. I applied for History programs but two of the people I listed are from different departments (Sociology and Religion), so it's not as if you'll be completely shut off from the History world.

[UndergradDad]

Keep in mind that most polisci programs are more statistics oriented than history is so check that when looking at programs.