Hi all, I'm looking into a number of grad schools (junior in college history major, applied geography minor (hopefully will finish it.........school has a pretty poor selection of courses though) I am hoping to go to grad school, I just have NO IDEA where to even start looking, or what programs I want to/can take. I go right now to a small, public, state school and get good grades and am a relativley strong student (3.8 GPA) I haven't really decided whether teaching is what I want to do, and if it is even a good idea (if I do decide that I'm thinking another small local state school) But my real dream is to pursue a degree in something involving history......public preservation, historical preservation.......specific area of study......i devour everything and anything history. I just don't know what programs to look at, and what my job options would be (if any) after graduation. What would my job options be after graduation with just a bachelors degree? Would I be looking at spending my days as a character on the Office? What grad schools would I get into for a history/collections program? What schools have good reputations and good programs? (I've looked at many casually....UMass Amherst, Northeastern, George Washington) Should I/Could I potentially do another program? Sorry for all the rather......broad questions, just throwing them out there to see if anyone could help me out a bit.
Sorry, no direct knowledge regarding history/collections programs. I hope the poster needs sees this because I'm pretty sure he's a history prof. Randomly ordered vanilla flavored suggestions: 1. Talk to a (or some) professor(s) you like about your interests. Ask about graduate programs that might serve those interests. 2. If you're a history major, your department should have a copy of the official "guide to departments" put out by the historians' professional association. You can try browsing through there. 3. The choice of department for grad school is as much about looking for a home for your ideas as it is anything else (especially with PhD programs). Look at what the faculty are doing with respect to research (check their most recent publications to make sure they're still doing it). Hard to find a mentor (or get accepted) if nobody in the department gives a rat's ass about what you want to work on. 4. If you're attracted to a department because Joe Fantastic is there and his work is, in you're opinion, the greatest thing since sliced bread then it's a good idea to try to meet Prof Fantastic because you might discover that although he's a great historian, personally he's a horse's ass. 5. Does your school have a career center? They might have some of the resources you need to explore.
Maybe this might help? Don't know how much salt you put into their rankings? http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/grad/his/search
Contact Dr. Orlan Svingen at Washington State University, who specializes in Public History. WSU isn't as glamorous as many, but the students finishing under Orlan get goodf jobs when they're done, and they tend to be funded while working on their degrees. That's the magic combination there: funding and a job when you're done. I know about a dozen people who worked with him and are in good position because of it. It'll be worth your time. Of course, look him (and the WSU Dept) up first, and contact him from a position of some knowledge. I know the program well (though I myself did not study in it) and am happy to exchange PMs if you wish.
No offense, but if Arabic mathematicians hadn't already come up with the concept of "zero," I would've invented the concept myself to describe how little stock I put in the US News rankings.
You were reading my mind. I believe both groups discovered the concept around the same time period...eerie, huh.
Oh, this is a good one: with no draft animals to pull carts/wagons, the Mesoamerican wheeled toys may be the best use of the wheel (in their context) after all.
Who needs draft animals when you can make lots of people do the work? That was no excuse. By the way, the rules for the tiebreak just might change after 2012. We'll see.
Sorry for taking the thread off topic. So, to get back to the original threadstarter's question... I don't see why anyone would even want to go to graduate school, assuming the Mayan Prophecies concerning the year 2012 are accurate. If you're going to assume that they're not accurate, Bungadiri's advice is excellent.
Start getting into critical theory. Take a gender studies class or 2, ethnic studies, etc. Question for the historians out there: when and how do y'all teach/learn critical theory? Do you send students to English/Comp. Lit to take their Intro to Crit Theory? Is Rhetoric the new black... er... the place where y'all send your students for theory? Or do you infuse it in general history courses?
These are much less relevant for Public History, but if you think you might head for some other branch of history, then absolutely. The Public folks took a number of different classes from the rest of us - historical preservation and the like in particular, which "trumped" gender and ethnic studies.
Er...... my options are rather limited......I've taken the intro course to the Multi-cultural class..... tbh honest my school caters to Criminal Justice, psychology, and Communications majors...... Next semester I am hopefully taking....... Latin America to 1800 intro to Psych climate change-for my minor Historical research&analysis The city in american history Film in history this could change but probably not more then 1-2 classes
As a former graduate student(majoring something similiar to histoiry, those three things are great pointers.