History

[mhcrosefly311]

Has anyone heard from any History PhD. programs? Im waiting to hear from Pittsburgh, WUSTL and Emory.

[Guest Pistolwink]

I heard from both Indiana and WashU.

[Guest History_Nerd]

Accepted at UC Berkeley. Rejected at WUSTL. Waiting on Michigan.

[Guest joebloom]

Hey nerd,

Did you get funding at Berkeley? I was rejected but thinking of applying next year after a masters

[Guest History_Nerd]

Hey Joe,

They put me on a waitlist for a first year fellowship. I guess it is for full-funding your first year, then TA ships and whatnot after that. I asked what the average amount of debt for a PhD grad is and they told me about 30-40 thousand.

[Guest joebloom]

Yeah, This funding thing's rough. I'm in at UCLA but with no funding and just can't see myself coming out of grad school with that kind of debt. I've had it drilled into me by my profs NOT to go anywhere without funding. It's a lot of extra strain when you should be concentrating on school...

J

[History_Nerd]

Yeah, I've had the same message drilled into my little pea-brain. If it makes you feel better, I've been admitted to schools in the UK where students on the graduate school message boards are talking about going into a four/five year PhD program with ZERO funding. We should be thankful for any sort of funding I guess.

[History_Nerd]

I have to admit, I am more than a bit jealous of the Sociology students. They are a dime a dozen on this board . . . jeesh. Where are my brethren in the study of history?

[Guest daphna]

we're special. Or maybe there are lots of us that haven't found this site yet. :-)

Anyway, I'm here, and I figure the fewer historians around, the better chance I have of getting accepted and getting a job later, so the fewer the merrier!

(just in case anyone thinks otherwise: the above sentence was a joke. I actually spend a considerable amount of time convincing people to become historians and helping them along the way. Even to the detriment of my own career choices in the future :-) ).

[pistolwink]

I'm a history major (coming straight from undergrad) and applied to half history and half film programs, all PhD...I'm probably going to defect from history, as the closer April 15 gets the more I want to go into a film program.

For history, I applied to Indiana, Minnesota, Rutgers, George Mason, Chapel Hill, and WUSTL.

[History_Nerd]

I had a great experience in Minnesota's history program. GM runs a cool thing called the Center for History and News Media, which runs a website called the History News Network (HNN) http://www.hnn.us/. If you like history, you have to check out that site. Maybe I've just been spending waaaay too much time online.

[Guest Guest]

Deciding between NYU and Maryland-College Park. I'm actually visiting Maryland this Friday. Anybody out there know anything about either place or program? NYU is offering a better package right now, but if I can convince Maryland to improve theirs I think I will go there, barring any unforeseen surprises...

[rising_star]

NYU is offering a better package right now, but if I can convince Maryland to improve theirs I think I will go there, barring any unforeseen surprises...

Is NYU more money on paper or in reality? Because living expenses would be much lower at Maryland...

[Guest DJH]

Just got email from secretary at WashU in response to inquiry: "We have sent out the first round of acceptances. We are presently waiting to hear from those students on whether they accept our offer." That is all it said. So is that informally waitlisted or rejected????

[History_Nerd]

Ok guys,

New topic as we get down to the wire here, how much debt is too much to have coming out of a graduate program in history? Anyone have any thoughts or ideas?

[rising_star]

All debt is too much debt. But seriously, anything over $60K seems like too much to me.

[History_Nerd]

Dude. Geography has six pages on this discussion board. SIX pages!?!?! Where ARE my history people? Tell your friends!

[mhcrosefly311]

Just a stereotype, but we are not as social as the rest of our colleague, hehe....I always enjoy saying that we love to talk to dead peoples. I'm the one who started this thread--yes I was disappointed at our lack of participation, but I guess we have lives if we only have 2pgs up compared to the dozens the other soc.sci. disciplines. Technically I have been rejected by all of the PhD. History programs that I applied to....:-(

Got accepted to the MA in Latin American Studies at IU-Bloomington...so will try again as soon as I finish there because damn it I am a history student eager to be trained. History Nerd don't despair if no one else posts....

[History_Nerd]

Sadly, I have some lengthy periods of downtime at work right now, so I've been spending waaaay to much time looking at graduate school related stuff online. I'm sorry to hear about your rejections mhcrosefly311. I'm sure you will find a home after you get that MA, Latin American Studies is pretty sexy right now.

[mhcrosefly311]

Well Latin America has always been sexy...too bad I love Central America more than South America (bet I'd be good to be studying Venezuela, Bolivia, and Peru). Hopefully the History Depts. will still respect me with a LATAM MA--taking such a big risk with that one, though. Still can't believe I made it passed the undergrad level....I know that Im a lucky duck just to be going to gradschool at all with good funding I might add, so I wont whine about not getting into the PhD. programs. History nerd whats your concentration--region? Im mostly interested in the formation of racial, ethnic, and national identities within Latin America. What school are you headed towards?

[rising_star]

hahaha, us geography peeps are mad cool, that's all. just kidding. i read all the forums (except the science-y ones) because I hate working on my senior thesis.

horsefly, why do you think a LATAM MA is taking a big chance? And what's your focus within Lat Am?

HistoryNerd, have you decided where you're going? And what's your focus?

[mhcrosefly311]

hey britt and nerd...good thing we are keepin this thread alive. my concentration is on Central America with an eye to afro-latinamericans in the region, I am also partial to studying about the banana industry in the region. Going for a LATAM MA is kind of a risk because it is an interdisciplanary field without a single dept. supporting it...so from what I have heard from others, many depts. dont take us all too seriously because we dont follow just one field i.e. Anthro, Soc., or History, etc. Thats what I say about it being a risk...more later.

[rising_star]

Afrolatinoamericans is a very interesting topic. I wanted to do something on that for my thesis but couldn't find what I needed. I dunno, I think interdisciplinary is better because then you can use other disciplines to look at the same material which might give your historical writing some dimension that not everyone has.

*blinks* did that make sense? I am very tired and trying to edit thesis (due Mon and not yet completed)

[Guest daphna]

Interdisciplinary is pretty "in" right now at a lot of great History schools. If it's a good M.A program in an interdisciplinary subject closely related to your field,

I think it can definitely be an advantage in a PhD application later.

[History_Nerd]

Hey kids! This forum is finally alive! Mwah!

To put what I do simply, I study the history of museums (hence why museums are the subject of my blog Museum Madness), with a focus on European and American history and the history of empire. I've narrowed it down to two choices, Berkeley and Cambridge. At the moment, I'm leaning towards Cal, but they have only told me verbally what they anticipate being able to offer me, so I can't say for sure.

At Cambridge, one of the arguments they were making in favor of their program is that they allowed students to study anthropological and sociological theory (some hot interdisciplinary action). And a historian at U Cal told me that taking classes outside of your subject area is required, and I might be a good fit to take museum studies classes, art history courses, or anthropology courses (even hotter interdisciplinary action?).

We're getting down to the wire here. . . I wanted to make my decision by my birthday, five days before the deadline, but since I haven't heard the final details from either program I can't decide.