Working with "Big Names"

[BlackBear50]

Question: Is desiring to work with "big names" something so competitive and unlikely that it ought not be considered fully? Say Alan Taylor, or Laurel Ulrich, or Marcus Rediker (the latter of which I am most interested in, personally). But apply this to any big name in your field (I mentioned early Atlantic World because that's my thing). 

 

Advice? I'm positive they receive numerous requests, how do you not seem like some annoying, if well intending, historical novice to such giants in the field?

 

Thoughts?

[a.rev]

I was told by my adviser that most "big names," or at least those that publish often, rarely take on students. They might teach one or two courses a semester but spend most of their time going to conferences and doing research. I would say approach them like you would any other professor but be prepared for them to not respond or let you down gently. Or, you could even just mention it in your SoP that you're interested in working with them and perhaps someone else from the department, if your research and writing sample catch their eye they might go ahead and take you on. As a side note, if you got to work with Rediker that would be awesome. I really enjoy his work.

[Chiqui74]

I contacted Ulrich and she told me she will be on leave next year. She did kindly suggest another professor whose research is much closer to my interests anyway. She's also somewhat of a big name in a tiny sub(-sub)field. I still have not heard from Harvard though so who knows!

Edited February 9, 2015 by Chiqui74

[dr. t]

I've had some experience with this. Here's what I've learned.

 

If you want to be their student, be brilliant. There's no shortcuts for that. People in this position see themselves (rightly) as guiding and shaping their field, and you will need to fit into that plan.

 

The adviser-advisee relationship is somewhat different. Here's some thoughts on how to negotiate it:

 

First, make sure the person in question is good with students - this is not always the case - by asking other professors.

 

Second, do not expect much face time. Outside of recurring class meetings, you may get half an hour every other week, sometimes only on Skype. Your adviser may not be in the country for several months. Plan these meetings. You will get more out of them, and your adviser will appreciate you taking his or her time constraints seriously.

 

Third, email can be sporadic. Most of these sorts of professors will get a substantial dumping of email every day; my supervisor has told me it takes him about three to four hours to clear his inbox every morning. I also know several professors who WILL NOT answer email on weekends. One of them does not even have a computer at home. Leaving work at work is one of those ways to protect one's sanity. 

 

This leads to: fourth, get things to them well ahead of any deadline. You may need to give as much as a six month lead time for letters or a month for them to review a draft. Be explicit about why you are asking for their time, and why it is important that they give it. I have found that every month or so, I will get back the four or so items I requested feedback on in a chunk. This can be overwhelming if you don't plan for it.

 

All in all, it's a substantially different relationship than that which you might have with a less well-known adviser, but that's not a bad thing. 

Edited February 9, 2015 by telkanuru

[rising_star]

Not in history but, there are tradeoffs to working with a "big name". As telkanuru pointed out (as I was typing my reply), face time may be a huge tradeoff. To compensate, be prepared to take any and every grad seminar your advisor offers, even if you're not super interested in the topic, and possibly to be their TA. My advisor is a big name in my subfield and I saw him the most when I was also his TA. That said, you have to decide how independent you are willing to be. I knew going in that he was hands-off and had to make sure I could handle that before I decided to go work with him. 

 

The email thing really, really varies. My advisor has always been pretty fantastic about email, even when he's across the country or the world. When he can't reply quickly, he'll let you know in advance (for example, writing to say he'll be away from email for 3 weeks in about 3 weeks so you can ask for whatever you need in advance). I work internationally and my advisor made the time to talk with me on the phone and Skype while in the field, which wasn't always the chase for my friends who had less well-known advisors. If you're going to be away in archives working for a while, it might help to talk to their current students about the contact they have, if it's sufficient, etc. 

 

Not all well-known advisors publish with their grad students. Some do, some don't. Check their CV and ask their current grad students to find out more about this. For me, what I really wanted was an advisor that would help me secure grants and write a strong dissertation. My advisor is pretty much a genius when it comes to editing grant applications and his students have a fantastic track record for securing more grants (NSF DDIG, SSRC IDPF, and other similar grants), which was something I knew I'd need to do the research I wanted to do. Depending on your research interests, that is also something to consider.

 

What hasn't been mentioned here is the cachet that you get by being able to say that Big Name Person is your advisor. If your advisor is a rock star, people will be impressed that they're working with you at conferences, for example. I personally have always thought that part was weird but, it happens to friends in other fields too that have rock star advisors. People are impressed and that can help you in various, often subtle ways. If you can get that advantage, you might as well. There's also the opportunity for face time with other big names at conferences because your advisor introduces you. That's happened to me multiple times and it's always fun and exciting.

 

At any rate, when I decided where to go for my PhD, I decided to work with Big Name, rather than anyone else in the subfield because I wanted his name attached to my degree more than I wanted all the others. Don't get me wrong, the other POIs are great people, many of whom I talk to at conferences and who I respect a great deal. But, I turned down better financial packages to work with Big Name and, most of the time, I don't regret it.

[Carthage32]

My personal experience has been that 'big name' faculty are great to have on your committee, but often do not make good main advisers, for all the reasons that telkanuru has mentioned above.

 

In my first year, I was a pretty inexperienced, timid, lost PhD student and I felt that I needed a lot of hand-holding, which I definitely would not have gotten from a 'big name' faculty. 

 

By my second and third years, however, I had a clearer sense of what my project was going to be and I felt a bit more confident in approaching other faculty members. I now have a 'big name' faculty on my committee, and I think it has struck the right balance. I don't get a whole lot of face-time with him, but he's great with giving feedback on papers, etc, while I still go to my main adviser for mentorship and advising stuff.

[L13]

I contacted a "big name" academic I was interested in working with over the summer, and he responded to my email immediately and attentively, and kept up an exchange with me for a while. We've corresponded a couple of times since then and he's always been a very conscientious correspondent, giving me advice on how to navigate the application process and what to look out for when picking a school and an advisor. He also told me he advises a range of dissertations that don't align with his own interests perfectly because he wants the process to be driven by the needs of the student, not by his.

 

Overall, I guess it really depends on the person! I did not get the impression this professor would be an inaccessible advisor at all.

[BlackBear50]

Interesting and thoughtful responses, all of you; thank you.

 

I would certainly imagine that they don't take on many students and then only take on the cream of the crop at that. But I'm sure the rewards would be plentiful, yet with possible drawbacks as noted.

 

I like the idea of a committee member rather than an adviser; that seems like the more beneficial route for both student and scholar.

 

I suppose there is nothing to fear about rejection; rejection happens. Yet I have this irrational fear of being a waste of time to such a professor or being woefully unqualified to work with such a strong scholar. Interesting stuff...

[TMP]

It all depends on the person, really.

 

The main thing is to be PROACTIVE.  The key is to be resourceful and assertive.  You will need to learn how to "manage up" a busy adviser while cultivating a relationship with another professor.  Faculty members usually have a good idea of how each other work and will step in as needed.  The best way to know how the "big name" advisers work is to talk to his/her graduate students and find out who is on their committee.  Sometimes the game just has to be played the way it is.

 

My former (MA) adviser was a big name but I was able to take a class with her and work on my thesis with her.  She was available as long as I made appointment or went to her office hours where she could give utterly undivided attention.  It worked well.

[knp]

I can add another point to the "it all depends" chart. My undergrad adviser, who was in a different field than me (let's say literature), was one of the biggest names in his field, with the national grants and awards to prove it. His field, however, was very small! And it wasn't "sexy", either. His work focused on a very dry category of objects, like accounting records. He did fascinating things with them, but it wasn't a big "draw" for students. I got to work with him because he loved students and didn't get very many of them. So even though I was an undergrad studying the history of X, and he teaches the literature of X's accounting records from a time period a century before mine, he was happy to spend lots of time helping me out. There were other issues in our working relationship - our feedback styles really didn't match - but his star didn't make him inaccessible. I doubt this applies to the Bill Cronons of the world, but there are some "names" that might not be as swamped as you might think.

[czesc]

This is just an anecdote, but Alan Taylor sort of implied that he might have advised me were he not moving to Virginia. So I think they are willing, especially if they like working with students, but as others say, they have other obligations and you should consider that when applying to work with them.

 

These people do tend to move around if they're not in the optimal location. Make sure you're not going after a big fish in a small pond who's craving a shot at the open sea. You may find yourself left behind.

[Cpt Jo]

Question: Is desiring to work with "big names" something so competitive and unlikely that it ought not be considered fully? Say Alan Taylor, or Laurel Ulrich, or Marcus Rediker (the latter of which I am most interested in, personally). But apply this to any big name in your field (I mentioned early Atlantic World because that's my thing). 

 

Advice? I'm positive they receive numerous requests, how do you not seem like some annoying, if well intending, historical novice to such giants in the field?

 

Thoughts?

Ulrich is 76. I don't think it's wise to start a PhD with people that are so old.

[BlackBear50]

Thanks, but that was merely to use as an example. Personally, my desire is with Rediker.

[SunshineLolipops]

My undergrad thesis advisor was working on a search for new faculty as I was deciding on which programs I wanted to apply to.  When we talked about the importance of working with a big name, he said that – in terms of making hiring decisions in smaller departments – there is a decent chance that a search committee will not have heard of the big name in a given specialty, and that the prestige of the program made a greater impression prior to the start of actual interviews.  

[kotov]

Yeah, especially if you're applying for a more broadly-defined position (like if the field of specialization is just supposed to be somewhere in modern Europe), then it's likely enough that the members of the search committee aren't really going to know/care that your advisor is a big deal in your field/subfield. My perspective when I was applying (which hasn't changed much) was that, especially if you're not at a top-tier university or whatever, is that it's way more important to find someone who's interested in your work and with whom you think you'll be comfortable talking with a lot and working with over a five-plus year span.

 

EDIT: I will clarify that, in my case, even though I'm not at a big university, my advisor is someone most people in German/Holocaust studies would have at least heard of, and who's written a couple of well-known books, but that wasn't why I made the choice that I did at the time. It was more about the fact that he and I had spoken several times during the application cycle and got along pretty well and that he seemed interested in my general area of work (even though I hadn't defined very well what I wanted to do at the time). As it was, I ended up picking my dissertation topic based on the paper I wrote for his seminar my first semester of grad school, so it worked out well.

Edited March 2, 2015 by kotov

[Katzenmusik]

Everyone is different.  Some Big Names are invested in history as a profession and want to influence it and keep it going by mentoring promising new scholars.  This, for them, is an important part of the job.  Others are on the verge of retirement and might want to ramp their advising way down.  Others are just too busy with talks, books, etc. and their advisees become an afterthought.

 

In any event, I would suggest that you not pin all your grad school plans on one particular person, even if they are your history-hero.  

 

Personally I turned down the chance to work with a Huge Name (major pioneer of my subfield) because I felt like the overall university environment would make me unhappy, and I didn't want all my scholarly hopes and dreams to be so bound up in a single relationship.  What if this person abandoned me for another job (or retirement) or just didn't get along well with me?  What if my scholarly interests evolved beyond this subfield -- would I be able to change course?

 

I'm now at a university where I feel really happy and supported overall.  And it looks like I will have a fairly Large but not huge Name on my committee.  But I chose this person because I like them personally and felt we could have a productive relationship, not because of how it would look on my CV.

Edited March 2, 2015 by Katzenmusik

[BlackBear50]

Very good answers. I mean I think some of them are a little too assumptive; I was merely curious on if it is even worth bothering contacting/applying to big names, but it's not a necessity or number one goal (I still have time to think about that one). But I appreciate it all. 

 

It really would be silly to go to a school for one "big name," and then have him/her be too busy, retire soon, not mesh well with you for whatever reason, etc. That'd be unfortunate indeed. I will say, for my personally, there is another academic at this institution I think I would rather have be my official adviser and merely have the "big name" on my committee. But this is all hypothetical and in the future.

 

These have been some useful and insightful responses, I do say.

[Katzenmusik]

Very good answers. I mean I think some of them are a little too assumptive; I was merely curious on if it is even worth bothering contacting/applying to big names, but it's not a necessity or number one goal (I still have time to think about that one). But I appreciate it all. 

 

You are only one member of the audience.  I was also writing for lurkers and others out there who may be pondering various aspects of Big Name-itude. 

[BlackBear50]

Good point!

[Sigaba]

These people do tend to move around if they're not in the optimal location. Make sure you're not going after a big fish in a small pond who's craving a shot at the open sea. You may find yourself left behind.

 

@HistoryMystery. I am not sure why you voted down this profoundly helpful post by a member of this BB who is in a top flight program, 

[HistoryMystery]

@HistoryMystery. I am not sure why you voted down this profoundly helpful post by a member of this BB who is in a top flight program, 

 

? Fairly certain I upvoted him. Then again I usually browse this site on a 7 inch screen so if I made a mistake, please amend it

[ashiepoo72]

? Fairly certain I upvoted him. Then again I usually browse this site on a 7 inch screen so if I made a mistake, please amend it

 

I upvoted it for you! Kind of figured it was an accidental downvote. I've done that a few times, too

[HistoryMystery]

I upvoted it for you! Kind of figured it was an accidental downvote. I've done that a few times, too

 

Thanks! It's really tough on this tablet...for one the screen is super small, but it's also fairly old so everything runs jittery on it!