My advisor is making me rethink my field and interests

[MtrlHstryGrl]

This is mostly a rant. I’m a second-year master’s student in history, specifically focusing on medieval history. There’s one medievalist professor in the department and she’s my advisor.

She’s always been kind of an absentee advisor, and she has never really encouraged me to present or publish. When I expressed interest in doing individual research, she encouraged it at first and didn’t do anything since. I’ve also had her as a professor, once my first year and once my second. In the first class I took with her, I got a B+. Which is fair—I didn’t really get the importance of participation and the paper wasn’t great (and my paper had conclusions she didn’t want it to have, even though I did the sources she suggested AND the topic she suggested). I took her class this semester, which was in my intended research field. I participated more and wrote the best paper I have EVER written- she even read and complimented the hell out of the rough draft. I got my grade yesterday—and got a B+, and the only way that happened was by getting a B+ on my paper. She has also made it clear to the class that she won’t give individual feedback. To make matters worse, she’s told me multiple times that I can’t get PhD letters of recommendation with B+s/from professors that give me B+s.

At this point, I’m really rethinking going into medieval history and especially my specific subfield. I’m just feeling really discouraged and I’m not sure what to do.

[killerbunny]

I'm sorry. From your post, your advisor does sound rather unsupportive. The no feedback rule elicits a ?!?! response from me (although, many professors have to be pressed for feedback because they don't want to waste their limited time writing comments that will go unread, unheeded). 

I'm facing end-of-term deadlines and just procrastinating here on the forums, so I'll be direct (forgive me if this comes across as blunt). How much did you revise your draft after you received a thumbs up from your advisor? I'm wondering if you aren't working against an expectation that even a promising draft needs to be revised, refined, and polished before it reaches A-level status. I have no idea what her compliments detailed but maybe she implied you were getting warmer in meeting her standards but needed to keep going? If you do feel like you didn't rest and turned in a finished paper that represented further revision and finetuning, please gently press her for feedback on where you went wrong. I'd be just about as open as you are here, that you are worried about your future in the field and really want to learn what's expected of you but in a way that conveys you don't expect your hand to be held through the process. 

[MtrlHstryGrl]

7 minutes ago, killerbunny said:

How much did you revise your draft after you received a thumbs up from your advisor? I'm wondering if you aren't working against an expectation that even a promising draft needs to be revised, refined, and polished before it reaches A-level status. I have no idea what her compliments detailed but maybe she implied you were getting warmer in meeting her standards but needed to keep going? If you do feel like you didn't rest and turned in a finished paper that represented further revision and finetuning, please gently press her for feedback on where you went wrong. I'd be just about as open as you are here, that you are worried about your future in the field and really want to learn what's expected of you but in a way that conveys you don't expect your hand to be held through the process. 

I did a lot of revision, especially in the historiography/methodology/etc., which were her main critiques, and she at least seemed happy with the historiography when I ran it past her. At this point, I'm nervous that my analysis of my sources wasn't as strong as I thought, even though her comments were mostly "good" and "yes" at specific points. ?

[killerbunny]

That's rough. So much of academia requires reading minds. I often have to fight the urge to appear like I know what I'm doing to ask questions when something is unclear to me, but a lot of the issue is, as a classmate put it, I don't know what I don't know. If you're feeling gutsy, I'd just ignore her no feedback rule and politely ask her about your grade, saying that you'd developed the impression that you were on the right track and would take any comments to heart for future papers. 

[Sigaba]

It seems to me that the professor is treating you like a doctoral student and expecting you to lean into your work much more.  Making the transition from having an undergraduate's mindset to a graduate student's seems to be an ongoing challenge that's complicated by her distant approach.

The B+ you received was meant to be a kick in the head. (An unwritten rule of graduate history programs is that anything but an A is a F.) Your "lessons learned" appear to have been more tactical than strategic. So when you got her comments on your draft it is possible that you took her compliments to be an endorsement of your adjustments when, from her point of view, she was encouraging you to work harder from a strategic perspective. This is to say that while you're trying to figure out how to write to make her happy, she's urging you to produce work that enables you to create new knowledge.

If you follow @killerbunny's outstanding guidance, I recommend that you be prepared to talk about either your understanding of the historiography or your analysis of primary source materials in that order. Your objective is to understand how you can understand / practice history better, not how you might have gotten a better grade. (You will, I suspect, benefit greatly if you understand and truly believe that the former is more important than the latter.)

[MtrlHstryGrl]

13 minutes ago, Sigaba said:

This is to say that while you're trying to figure out how to write to make her happy, she's urging you to produce work that enables you to create new knowledge.

If you follow @killerbunny's outstanding guidance, I recommend that you be prepared to talk about either your understanding of the historiography or your analysis of primary source materials in that order. Your objective is to understand how you can understand / practice history better, not how you might have gotten a better grade. (You will, I suspect, benefit greatly if you understand and truly believe that the former is more important than the latter.)

With this professor, writing something to make her happy is the only way to get any kind of positive feedback. ? It's a well-documented problem with her and something that I was warned about.

[Sigaba]

29 minutes ago, MtrlHstryGrl said:

With this professor, writing something to make her happy is the only way to get any kind of positive feedback. ? It's a well-documented problem with her and something that I was warned about.

Is your objective to receive positive feedback or to receive information on how to develop skills as an academic historian?

I started in one program to work with a specific historian. He provided positive feedback and little else in terms of skill development.

I changed programs and ended up with a couple of professors (X, who has a reputation for being hard to please, and Y) who were more than happy to bounce me off the walls, give me the grades I'd earned, and to stand on my head when necessary. They did not offer much praise, but they did enable me to learn the craft. (X and Y have also written letters on my behalf for jobs in the private sector.)

Here's a slightly different mindset to consider. Your professors have something that belongs to you -- knowledge on how to be a historian. What are you willing to do to go and get it?

[essiec]

I'm sorry, that sounds like a really challenging situation.

I do recommend approaching her for feedback on your writing, and, like @Sigaba said, come to her with a how-can-i-learn-from-you mindset rather than making a change-my-grade appeal. That way, your professor won't feel on the defensive about justifying your grade—you're simply coming to ask for an explanation as if you accept the grade you've received. Her no-feedback rule is probably just to simplify her life so she's not spending days grading essays, but I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a brief explanation. She'll probably bring up specific things for how things can be improved in the future (rather than explaining what you did "wrong" in her eyes, which might happen if you were "challenging" her over a grade.) 

You could ask her for her recommended historiographic articles/books, the works she admires for structure or organization, etc. to show you're interested in learning more about the field and the historical craft for the long haul.

[killerbunny]

I agree with @Sigaba and @essiec. Rather than asking about your grade, as I'd mentioned, ask how to develop your skills. It's easy to fixate on grades, but it's really less of the point than it ever was at this stage in your academic career and transitioning from that mindset will help you and be much appreciated by your professors, who are now more like advanced associates. And I think as the other commenters mention, you'll actually get the constructive feedback you're hoping for with the approach of giving (to the discipline) rather than getting something (an A and positive feedback, which, don't get me wrong, I live for). 

[Beals]

On 12/8/2020 at 10:47 AM, MtrlHstryGrl said:

At this point, I’m really rethinking going into medieval history and especially my specific subfield. I’m just feeling really discouraged and I’m not sure what to

You've received lots of great feedback from others in this thread about how to increase your knowledge and ability to write papers, so I won't touch on that.

 

As for your future in the field: I think most grad students are high achieving people who have always excelled academically - big fish in small ponds during lower levels of schooling. Once we get to grad school that changes, and all of our colleagues are excellent and suddenly our 'amazing' performance is standard. That can be a hard adjustment, further compounded by the fact that failure is an intrinsic part of grad school. Even folks who breeze through classes are going to get scholarship rejections, journal article rejections, etc. It's tough, and the only way to adjust is to get used to criticism (ideally seeing it as useful) and accept that we all fail at some point.

If you decide that this failure and unpleasant interaction with your advisor is enough to turn you off the subfield - that's fine! Choose another path. But I do think it's important to note that any other (academic) path you choose is also going to be tough, riddled with challenges and failures, and that you do need to develop strategies to deal with it. That said, if you end up with another supervisor who might be more willing to guide you, then dealing with those challenges can be easier (the hard part is finding a supervisor who does support you in the way you desire - bad or neutral supervisor relationships seem more prevalent than great ones).

It's valid to be frustrated. At the same time, that's just academia. So - good luck!

[AP]

 

On 12/8/2020 at 10:47 AM, MtrlHstryGrl said:

She’s always been kind of an absentee advisor, and she has never really encouraged me to present or publish. When I expressed interest in doing individual research, she encouraged it at first and didn’t do anything since.

No, this is not an absentee advisor. If you want to present, go and present. If you want to publish, go and publish. Your advisor is there to advise, not to tell you to do things. If you want specific advice, then ask. "Where do you recommend I present a first paper?" "I'm interested in presenting at X Conference, but registration is expensive. What support can I get from the department?" 

I took a course with my advisor for all semesters I was in coursework. It was hard, because it was evident he was harder on me because I was her student. I almost failed one course and she said if I didn't redo the paper, I'd have to leave the program. I re-did because, like yours, it was a crappy paper (to their fairness, she preferred to do that than give me a B). 

All in all, I don't see why you can't meet with her and ask for feedback on how to improve as a researcher, a writer, and a historian. 

[MtrlHstryGrl]

I forgot about this, sorry!

I did get feedback from her. It was mostly that the works I used in the historiography section were too "broad" and not focused on the exact time and place as my work--so I may have unconvincingly tried to argue that the works I used were broad because there were very few works pertaining specifically to the project at hand. (There were also some structure comments, though she had praised the structure of the rough draft). I decided to workshop the paper, and I'm going to be submitting it for publication. Ideally, she won't get upset with me for publishing without her permission again. 

As for my interests, I've used this almost as a motivating factor. I've maintained that I am going to be applying for PhD programs, and she advised me to take a theology course on Christian Women Mystics this coming semester. If I can get an LOR from her is a different story, though I have several people in mind who would be willing to do so for me.