Should I bother and if so, how to explain?

[Oh_Yikes]

Hi all,

 

I've been an avid reader of this forum and enormous thanks to everyone for their very helpful contributions!

 

I'll try to make this as quick and painless as possible: I graduated from a decent-but-not-great college several years ago. I did well there, well enough to be accepted to a very prestigious university for a partially-funded master's degree in history, so off I went to begin what I thought would be a marvelous intellectual journey, culminating in more academic honors and degrees and tenured-track job offers, blah, blah, blah.

 

The obvious punchline, of course, is that I arrived at my new university and it became very apparent very quickly that I was in way over my head and my coursemates were far ahead of me in terms of training and historical thinking. I really struggled with historiography (TBH, I'm not sure I understood what historiography actually was). Worse, my initial supervisor left for a fellowship after my first term and my second supervisor made it very clear that he only took me on because he had no choice, and he thought my work was uninteresting, substandard, and that I would be unlikely to graduate.

 

I busted my tail off, and I did pass the program, but my marks were nothing special and the experience terrified me (I'd leave for supervisions a half hour early to allow time for a good anxiety vomit). I still loved history, but serious work in the field seemed beyond my capabilities and I knew I'd have no chance for PhD admissions. I joined the 'real world,' and got a job.

 

Fast forward to now: I work in a field that allows me access to new historical publications and I regularly correspond with historians about their work and interests and this job has reignited my love for the field. I am far more mature and thoughtful now and I miss research desperately. I've also stumbled onto new interests that I am keen to explore in a formal academic setting. I am considering taking the plunge again.

 

I don't feel ready at all for a PhD yet and I have the marvelous advantage of having an employer that would pay for a large part of my education, so I think applying for a part time master's degree would be the best way forward. But if my goal is an eventual PhD program, how do I explain the lackluster results from my first master's degree? There seems to be a lot of thought in these forums that a subpar bachelor's degree can be mitigated by good MA work, but can a second MA compensate for a lackluster first or am I kidding myself?

 

Thanks so much for your thoughts!

[fuzzylogician]

If you want to do it, and have an employer who'd pay for it, I don't see what you'd lose by trying even if it doesn't lead anywhere. Not being from your field, my best guess is that a second masters could help here but there would have to be some additional things that happen. One is that you need to do very well in this one, and the second is that it would help a lot if you can demonstrate growth in thought or interests between the first and the second masters. If that happens, I think there would be a way to write an SOP that says something along the lines of "in the first masters my advisor left in the middle and I couldn't zero in on a subfield(?), but after working several years in a related industry and through my second masters, I was able to focus and redefine my interests and now I am excited to begin a PhD studying X at Uni Y." (Obviously this is not a suggestion for actual text you would submit.) This would also have to be backed up by strong LORs from professors at this new school. 

 

The real question down the line would be if a PhD is really necessary for what you want to do. If you have a good job that you enjoy and keeps you connected with your field, there may be ways to keep up with the field on the side without doing a PhD. The best advice I can give anyone who is thinking about starting a PhD is that if there is something else that makes you happy and doesn't require investing 5-7 years of your life without any promise of a return -- do that! This is something to consider at some point after you've been successful at a masters program, in my opinion.

[dr. t]

"Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes."

 

It may be that your supervisor was a bit of a jerk. He certainly sounds like one from your retelling. 

 

However, in my own personal experience, nothing aids intellectual maturity so much as growing older. I would at least give it a try again. But: can you quantify "lackluster"?

[xolo]

telkanuru has said what I was thinking. It sounds like it might not be you, it might have been your supervisor.

[TMP]

Jerk supervisors exist and I'm sorry to hear that you landed one of them.  There will still be jerks.

 

Why exactly do you want a PhD?  What would you like to do with the PhD?

 

Was your previous master's in History?  If so, you might want to search out for a related master's program like a "studies" program where you can get some history courses counted.

[thedig13]

I will agree that your former advisor seems like an asshole, and will also add that graduate school kicks everybody's ass. Nobody completes a year of graduate coursework without losing all confidence in their abilities. I'd speculate that your problems were more imagined than real (i.e., perhaps you didn't do as poorly as you think), and it doesn't sound like your mentor was particularly helpful either.

 

If you must address your performance, I'd try to spin it as a positive (as you have done here): you tried your hand at graduate school years ago, you had some difficulties, it turned you off from academia; however, you retained your love of history, have intellectually matured a lot, and are ready to give it another shot. Don't say anything negative about your mentor (you never know who your former mentor might be close to, and an application isn't the place for politics anyway), and keep it short and sweet--you only get 1-2 pages to really sell yourself as a prospect, and an SOP is really supposed to be less about your previous forays into academia and more about your interests and your ability/training to pursue them.

Edited August 9, 2015 by thedig13