Fall 2013 Applicants?

[TMP]

Also, I should say that be very grateful that you have this opportunity right now to find out if archives are for you. That's the point of the internship. If you don't enjoy the work or content, then you aren't going to enjoy that profession.

As I went through the National Archives and a few others, I've come to deeply appreciate the archivists and staff. Well-written finding aids are godsends. Deep knowledge of a particular collection can be a lifesaver. Without those two, a researcher may well be in more frustrating position of having manually go through the collections without support (as I did) and facing a prolonged agenda (luckily, I didn't because I work fast). I do consider being an archivist as an excellent position for service to the historical profession. Archivists are like navigators, helping researchers stay on course and finish the agenda quickly and productively.

It is simply unfortunate that they are generally under-appreciated. Those who remember those helpful archivists will mention those people in their acknowledgements and referrals to other colleagues.

Yeah, being an intern sucks.. that's the way it is.

[Sigaba]

IMO, another factor to consider when assessing the usefulness of an internship is the perceived value of productivity in the workplace.

Salaried employee of a public or private institutions can be under tremendous pressure to be "productive." Measurements of productivity may not include the training and mentoring of interns or using mentors at all. In such an environment, the temptation to assign interns knuckle dragging tasks can be great.

This impulse will be especially strong if software is used to track productivity. For example, consider the following scenario. An experienced staff member has the choice between performing task Z in three hours or he can spend two hours explaining to an intern how task Z should be done and another two hours making sure that the task is done correctly plus the time it takes the intern to do the task. While the latter option has its rewards, a positive impact on the weekly project tracking report isn't one of them.

[GuitarSlayer]

I'm joining the Fall 2013 app class. I am in my last year of my master's program, and now I'm looking for a good PhD program in late medieval/early modern studies. I'm open to suggestions -- my professors and I are wrestling with the choices. It doesn't help that I have a minor in anthro and am trying to track someone down that's into that sort of thing!

[Flux]

A little unrelated question: Do I need to send an acceptance letter to the graduate program AND the DGS at the graduate program once I've been admitted or will the department forward my official acceptance to the graduate school? I have already accepted an offer before April 15 via mail but I'm not sure if the graduate school requires a separate letter.

[New England Nat]

Your offer letter should have come with specific instructions. Each schools bureaucracy differs.

[annieca]

Thanks everyone for the advice!

I'm currently the head scanner for a new exhibit that's being planned and I got my first taste of what I'm actually doing with it on Thursday. When they asked "Are you doing just scanning or scanning and research?" I took the opportunity and said "Both." Because 10 weeks of just scanning, doing metadata and entering things into Horizon would drive me insane.

Which led me into the collections. Now this is what I'm interested in - getting my hands "dirty" or so to speak. Yes, there's no one really there that does anything I'd remotely want to do for a career except maybe a volunteer who comes in once a week to do research for historians. However, I'm hoping that the amount of work inside the collections will help with the finding aid things I'm working on as well.

I'm still iffy on if it's going to all turn out okay but I guess I just have to keep taking opportunities and keep an open mind. (And train the dog who wakes me up at 5:45 in the morning to not wake me up on the weekends so I can destress from reference desk work.)

As a side note, have any of you worked with Archivist's Toolkit or Horizon before? Horizon seems to have a steep learning curve and I'd love to know if anyone else has had experience with it.

[melissarose8585]

I, like AnnieCa, find myself in an interesting situation.

I'm applying for Fall 2013. I've always wanted my PhD to teach and publish and be "at that level." But now, after having taken 2 years off to work and see the world, I find that I might be going down the wrong path. I highly enjoy life not focused on publishing and research constantly, although some days I do miss the thrill of finding that missing thread of information that my thesis will hinge on.

I've been instead considering MA programs for secondary school licensure, but I still think the PhD is what I want.

Is anyone else torn about the possible pros/cons, wrong decisions they might make, etc? I was so sure about this until about two months ago.

[New England Nat]

I'm afraid that I've given people in your position the same advise most of the time. You should not do a PhD if you aren't absolutely sure that's what you want. It's long, hard, and the job prospects at the end are far from certain.

[Professor Plum]

"I highly enjoy life not focused on publishing and research constantly."

There's your answer. A PhD is not what you want. (And the world desperately needs passionate, dedicated, insightful history teachers at the secondary level.)

[GuitarSlayer]

Remember, not only are you enlightening the nation's youth, you're also meant to be a bit of a cash cow/draw to the university. The only way you do that is publishing or being a face somewhere. As my professor once put it to me, "You've got to understand the type of relationship professors have with their work. It's like, I have my wife, and I have my research -- she understands it." If that sounds horrible to you, then you might want to consider stopping at the master's level and teaching community college. That limits your ability to contribute to journals, BUT it doesn't close the door to books, if you ever want to publish one or two. Some "pop" history books do make it to the book reviews sections in journals, if they are very well done.

My problem is finding a guy who understands that he ranks equivalent to or behind the cats and research, in some order, .

[melissarose8585]

Remember, not only are you enlightening the nation's youth, you're also meant to be a bit of a cash cow/draw to the university. The only way you do that is publishing or being a face somewhere. As my professor once put it to me, "You've got to understand the type of relationship professors have with their work. It's like, I have my wife, and I have my research -- she understands it." If that sounds horrible to you, then you might want to consider stopping at the master's level and teaching community college. That limits your ability to contribute to journals, BUT it doesn't close the door to books, if you ever want to publish one or two. Some "pop" history books do make it to the book reviews sections in journals, if they are very well done.

My problem is finding a guy who understands that he ranks equivalent to or behind the cats and research, in some order, .

Thankfully, my husband has never had this problem! He's used to the fact that life was always taken over by the research (I already have my M.A.). I'll be having a Skype chat with my old grad school advisor as well as a friend of mine who went the high school route to make some hard decisions. It just literally hurts my heart to think of giving up this idea, especially when I still see things, or hear things, and the first thought I have is "project!! article!!!"

[oceansize]

Pretty sure I'm now going to (reluctantly) wait until the Fall 2014 cycle to apply for admission. Hope everything goes well for you all!

[oceansize]

Ugh, accidentally double posted and can't figure out how to delete on my phone. Sorry!

Edited June 15, 2012 by oceansize

[Weepsie]

A hoy hoy, I'm looking into applying for Fall (Autumn as I would call it) 2013 over this side of the world. I'm in Ireland so a bit stumped at the whole process. I'm currently finishing up a second masters (Library & Information studies) having completed one in history in 2008.

I was eager to do one here at home in Digital Humanities, but realised I would rather go abroad to study for a few years. I don't suppose there are any decent places online that bring together all the history programmes, or any sites that advertise studentships.

For the UK jobs.ac.uk is brilliant particularly if you are looking for funded PhDs and there is another which has even more, but I don't see anything like that for the USA and Canada.

[theregalrenegade]

For the UK jobs.ac.uk is brilliant particularly if you are looking for funded PhDs and there is another which has even more, but I don't see anything like that for the USA and Canada.

Hey, thanks for the heads up! Going to check it out.

[runaway]

A hoy hoy, I'm looking into applying for Fall (Autumn as I would call it) 2013 over this side of the world. I'm in Ireland so a bit stumped at the whole process. I'm currently finishing up a second masters (Library & Information studies) having completed one in history in 2008.

I was eager to do one here at home in Digital Humanities, but realised I would rather go abroad to study for a few years. I don't suppose there are any decent places online that bring together all the history programmes, or any sites that advertise studentships.

For the UK jobs.ac.uk is brilliant particularly if you are looking for funded PhDs and there is another which has even more, but I don't see anything like that for the USA and Canada.

Weepsie, you might be glad to know that funding for PhDs is VERY different than it is in the UK/EU. You won't see studentships advertised because the funding structure is different; generally, individual institutions fund their graduate students (with a combination of funding from other sources, advertised as grants or fellowships, from both private foundations and public funds) and when you're admitted you're also notified of your funding package. Each individual department website should have some information on how students are funded, as well as a list of grants that recent students have been awarded. You can also look through last year's thread to see people fretting about their funding, getting excited about their full funding, etc, to get an idea of what the process is like

From what I've seen so far, UK studentships require UK or EU residency, sadly, or I'd be considering applying abroad, too.

[Weepsie]

Weepsie, you might be glad to know that funding for PhDs is VERY different than it is in the UK/EU. You won't see studentships advertised because the funding structure is different; generally, individual institutions fund their graduate students (with a combination of funding from other sources, advertised as grants or fellowships, from both private foundations and public funds) and when you're admitted you're also notified of your funding package. Each individual department website should have some information on how students are funded, as well as a list of grants that recent students have been awarded. You can also look through last year's thread to see people fretting about their funding, getting excited about their full funding, etc, to get an idea of what the process is like

From what I've seen so far, UK studentships require UK or EU residency, sadly, or I'd be considering applying abroad, too.

Thanks Double Shot, that's good to hear. I've to get cracking on some proposals so, though I've already got 2 or 3 research ideas somewhat formulated already. My academic results this year have been really good, and my references are sorted too.

I applied to UBC last year and was accepted but had to turn it down for a number of reasons, but because my results this year are beyond my expectaiton, staying in Ireland was probably beneficial. It's made me more intent on going abroad too though to study.

Luckily I am eligible for UK studentships and the last few I have seen are incredible. I'm just waiting for the right one really, though have applied for some that are interesting.

[annieca]

Two things I'm grappling with now:

1) I'm doing my senior thesis on the transition from communism to democracy and the lustration laws in Czechoslovakia up until the Velvet Divorce. I want to look at it from a social history aspect. But... I don't read Czech. Anyone have any suggestions for learning a language without a class? I don't particularly care if I can speak it. I just want to be able to read it.

2) One of the schools I'm looking at eliminated their dual Library Science, Public History program because they didn't have the professors for the Archives Concentration. This was by FAR my favorite program for the actual program aspects. (Another school took top spot for one professor.) Do I eliminate it from my list because it no longer "kind of" doesn't have my program or do I contact the university and say "You are one my top schools. Can we figure something out?" I don't want to tell them that they're #1 because of the money gamble but should I?

Hope the summer is going well for everyone!

[kotov]

A hoy hoy, I'm looking into applying for Fall (Autumn as I would call it) 2013 over this side of the world. I'm in Ireland so a bit stumped at the whole process. I'm currently finishing up a second masters (Library & Information studies) having completed one in history in 2008.

I was eager to do one here at home in Digital Humanities, but realised I would rather go abroad to study for a few years. I don't suppose there are any decent places online that bring together all the history programmes, or any sites that advertise studentships.

For the UK jobs.ac.uk is brilliant particularly if you are looking for funded PhDs and there is another which has even more, but I don't see anything like that for the USA and Canada.

http://www.historians.org/projects/cge/PhD/AlphaList.cfm

[TMP]

annieca, I sent your a PM.

[aec09g]

Hello,

I figured I should pop in here and introduce myself. I'll be applying to an array of programs this application season for the first time. I would like to get into a PhD program, but I'm not the most amazing applicant so I'm casting my net into master's programs as well. My focus is on East Asian History, primarily Japan in the 20th Century.

Good luck to everyone applying!

[Weepsie]

http://www.historian...D/AlphaList.cfm

Cheers for this.

[paulxobear]

I want to apply for a phd program in Chinese history in Fall 2013. Glad to find the thread.

[againsthegrain]

Also popping in to introduce myself. I'm probably applying this cycle, to a number of different programs (History, Comp Lit, Af-Am Studies) to work on 18th/19th century Caribbean history. Within that, my focus is Haiti, and my work is somewhere in between social/cultural/intellectual history.

[theregalrenegade]

Welcome to all the new 2013 applicants!! I'm so glad we'll have a large group to/for support