UNC for European history?

[europa]

Hi all, first timer here.

I'm currently enrolled in an MA program on the West coast, and plan to apply for history PhD programs for next year. I'm planning on studying French-Swiss relations, with a side of Germany, and a lot of my professors from here keep telling me to apply to UNC. I checked out their faculty, and it definitely seems like a perfect fit.

I know that their department is ranked fairly highly, but it worries me that there are no UNC history PhD holders at any of the departments in my neck of the woods. I would expect that for a program that's ranked as highly as UNC is, they would have a lot more people spread out across the whole country, and not just specific regions. I most likely will want to come back to the West coast after my PhD to be close to my family, so I'm worried that if I go to UNC I'm gonna have a really hard time getting a tenured position over here. This is all, of course, very generalized, and I'm trying to simplify things for the sake of clarity and expediency, but I'm sure you know what I'm asking.

Has anyone on this board had experience with UNC PhD's working outside of the south-east region? I know there are a few individual examples of "he's there or she's here," but I guess I'm just looking for someone to reassure me. I keep getting a mixed response from non-professors around here whenever I mention UNC, so I don't know how confident I should be about their reputation.

Thanks.

[willemvanoranje]

All I know is that one of my profs at Uni of WI, Madison, was a UNC graduate (John Hall). Not exactly the region you are looking for either I guess

[JustChill]

Some of my professors have told me that UNC has actively built up their European history sub-fields over the past decade or so. And that seems particularly true if you look at UNC PhD grads at some of the bigger departments out there -- they all have received their PhD's within the last five to ten years (I'm thinking specifically of 3 or 4 professors at Wisconsin, Northwestern, and Toronto). I know there is also a UNC trained professor (slightly older) at either UC San Diego or UC Davis (can't remember which). I wouldn't worry too much about the regional thing, I think a UNC PhD will serve you well across the country. Also the fact that your own professors from your university are telling you to apply to UNC speaks well for how that program is regarded on the West coast.

[chickadee21]

UNC is extremely strong in German history, especially for 20th century. They've also got well-known French history professors. I don't know much about their placement record, but I'd imagine that a degree from UNC is just as good as a degree from any other top-20 or even top-10 programs. If I were you, I'd be more concerned at this point about making your application to their program as strong as possible - they only accepted about 15 students total from 420 applicants this year. Since you're doing your Masters, I'd assume you've already got your languages down, and I really recommend that you emphasize your language skills in your application. I'm fluent in French but only in my 2nd year of German, and the UNC profs I spoke with were concerned about my non-fluency in German. None of the other schools I applied to seemed to be as concerned about my German as UNC was, and I'm sure it was part of the reason I was rejected.

Anyway, best of luck to you!

[europa]

Thanks, everyone. I've also been warned that it's pretty hard to get in, so I'll definitely polish up my German (but I'm already fluent in French and spent four months in Munich studying).