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[rittenbayt]

I'm a senior who majored in history and am currently applied to Phd programs in American history in the US. Obviously, I'm anxious about the whole process and am trying to figure out if there are any holes in my application, and trying to figure out if I should wait until I apply. It seems a lot of people applying to Phd programs in the sciences already have publications--but I don't have anything published.

Is this normal in my field? How common is it to have a peer reviewed publication under your belt by the time you apply to a Phd in history? How common are conference presentations? I do have a honors thesis that I'm writing, and I am in the process of applying to conferences. I'm wondering if I should do a terminal MA on the cheap, then write a thesis, then try and get that published in a respected journal, then apply to Phd programs. Thanks for your help.

[lasquires]

There is a world of difference between publishing in the sciences and publishing in the humanities. Your friends who published as undergrads in the sciences no doubt did so as co-authors with their professors. Multi-author, collaborative articles that include faculty and students are standard in STEM fields.

Humanities fields like History and English are single-author fields. People in these fields publish less frequently (whereas someone in sociology may get multiple publications out of a single data set), and the prestige associated with each peer-reviewed article is proportionately higher. An undergraduate getting published in a peer reviewed journal in History would be an almost unheard of event. I'm such it's happened somewhere, but as a rule, undergraduates simply are not sophisticated enough in their thinking or their research methods to produce publishable work, especially in the best journals.  I highly doubt your undergraduate thesis would be publishable as is, but you could certainly use it as the basis for your early graduate work and see it become an article after some time spent learning about the field.

In other words, if you are determined to go to grad school (you know how bad the job market is, right?), go ahead and apply to PhD programs that offer full funding. Don't pay or borrow a dime to get a PhD OR a terminal MA.

[rittenbayt]

Thank you very much for your reply. What about people who get a terminal MA in history? I can go part time at a very cheap state school. Is it unheard of to publish research in a peer reviewed journal if I do a MA thesis and have more time to do research and learn how academia works? I want to get into the best program possible and I know there are few spots and competition is stiff!

[larryc]

It is extremely uncommon for a history undergrad applying to graduate programs to have peer-reviewed publications.

Why do you want to go to grad school in history? If you are aiming to become a college professor I strongly urge you to reconsider. The job market has been abysmal for decades, and now it is almost non-existent. Don't do it!

[rittenbayt]

Larryc,

Thanks. I want to study the Reconstruction period. As an undergrad, would I be competing against people for Phd admissions who have conferences and publications since they did a terminal MA?

[dntw8up]

The answers you've received suggest that even applicants from a terminal MA program in history do not have peer-reviewed publications, so if you attend your local MA program you won't be expected to have published when you apply to PhD programs.

[marlborough]

Rittenbayt, I think you're talking about "fast-track" PhD programs, which some history departments offer now.  In a lot of ways, you're putting the cart a long ways before the horse.  

Talk to your history professors now about whether or not a direct-to PhD program is something you should do right now.  Sometimes I have non-traditional students who possess already honed writing skills and mature thinking who would have no problem being thrown right into the deep end of the pool and have gone into these kinds of programs.  Typically, the direct-to-PhD isn't a short cut, it is just the packaging of the MA and PhD work at that institution together.  This can limit your options if you shift your focus, or decide that you want to do something other than profess.

On the other hand, doing the MA (and drop the "terminal" label--you're misunderstanding this.  A terminal masters degree belongs to a field where this is the literal terminus of the ladder--history is not one of these fields) separately gives you a lot more options.  You know you want to work on Reconstruction right now.  This might not be the case later on, or you might branch out from this in an unexpected direction you discover in the course of your work.  Take a look at good MA programs that offer assistantships (which are both money and vital training in the profession) and don't go if you don't get financial support.  Doing this "on the cheap" so you can skip ahead to a doctorate is a really short-sighted and dumb thing to be thinking about.  The MA in History might lead you to any number of history-related jobs in archives, museums, public history, records management, etc.  IF you do a strong thesis and decide to continue, you're in a good position to apply to PhD programs and approach it as the next step.  

If you come from a fairly small history undergrad program, you can use the MA as a step to get more exposure to the whole field, work with a more diverse bunch of people and thoroughly explore before you make a commitment that involves years of your life and a whole bunch of money and resources.  If you don't go on to a PhD, you have a valuable MA with training to do a bunch of interesting things you may not have even considered at this point.

You're an undergrad, and this is not meant as a pejorative, but in history, undergrads just don't produce stuff that belongs in peer-reviewed journals.  A good start is to send your work to publications like the Phi Alpha Theta (History Honors society) journal, which publishes student work, and to go to conferences where students are welcome and learn the ropes.  Phi Alpha Theta also has regional, friendly conferences where history students can do this.  

[lasquires]

Larryc,

Thanks. I want to study the Reconstruction period. As an undergrad, would I be competing against people for Phd admissions who have conferences and publications since they did a terminal MA?

Students who publish their MA theses (rare) usually do so after a year or so of continuing to develop and revise the project under the supervision of their advisor. Furthermore, as an applicant with a BA, you would be judged against other applicants with BAs. Many top schools admit students into their MA/PhD programs for both degrees, and in many cases, it is more difficult to get into one of those programs with an MA than with a BA precisely because the standards are higher.

[snowbound]

If, despite the terrible job market, you are really bound and determined to get a PhD and (presumably) a career in academia, then the MA-at-lesser-school route should not be Plan A. 

Some reasons:
*Programs at MA-granting schools are much less intellectually rigorous that those at PhD-granting institutions--their grad student clientele at each is quite different--so it really wouldn't give you the challenging environment that you need if your sole intention is PhD
*A PhD-granting school will be unlikely to give you credit for many of your MA courses at the lesser school, so you'll end up having to do nearly as much coursework when at your PhD school;
*Even a cheap MA-granting school will cost you thousands of dollars, and is unlikely to have a program to subsidize you.  A PhD granting school might be more expensive, but is likely to fund their grad students with teaching assistantships or whatever, so ends up being being cheaper;  
*Grad school in the humanities do NOT expect a journal publication, and the MA route isn't likely to get you one anyway. An article also has to go through a time-consuming process of peer-reviews, revise-and-resubmit, more peer reviews, etc.  As you can only submit it to one journal at a time, this will take more time than you have if you intend to use it to get into a PhD program, even if you produced such an article in your first year of an MA program (most unlikely).

THere are many excellent reasons for doing an MA program, like the ones Marlborough mentions.  The idea of increasing your career options makes a lot of sense given the state of the academic job market.  BUt if you absolutely know without doubt that you want a PhD and hence an academic career, and you think you are capable of it (ask current professors for a blunt appraisal), you should spend your MA years in a PhD program that is grooming you to become a scholar. 

If you don't get into a good PhD program, talk again to your professors.  Ask them for advice and a blunt appraisal of your talents.  While doing an MA might improve your chances of being admitted to  program--especially if you impressed the hell out of your professors and got glowing letters--you really have to be exceptionally good and exceptionally lucky to get a tenure track job at the end of the whole thing.

[marlborough]

The other thing is that, from the way you talk about grad school and the profession in general, you don't really have a good sense of how it works--that's pretty common because your professors are not likely to have laid out the whole process for students in general.  But if you're serious and thinking of steps as big as applying to a PhD program, you need to ask specifically to have the "talk."  Someone needs to tell you the lay of the land here--what would be expected of you as a grad student (some of my brightest ones are under the impression it is just more time, and not exponentially more demanding and self-directed) and the kinds of things expected of you to be competitive.  It is extremely easy to be a big fish in a small pond and genuinely not understand the vastness and dangerous currents of the ocean.

My little department is just not demanding enough or sufficient to launch students ready to go to a direct track PhD, even for the ones I kick a little harder than the general population.  On the other hand, for the tiny number of determined students who are willing to follow direction and get groomed, going from here to a strong MA program that will admit them and assign them assistantships, there is very good success at going from that to an excellent PhD program with support (and papers, conference presentations and connections to show for it, if you're using your MA time wisely).  The MA level is also the place to pick up additional skills like GIS, languages, statistics, etc. that might be useful for further research.

[oldadjunct]

Quite apart from the humanities aspect, I'd say it it a bad idea in general to go right from undergrad to grad. 

[academic_cog]

Hey Rittenbayt ---- I'm someone who did an MA and a separate PhD in English and have been job searching for years trying to get a professor job and move out of part time work. That will be a strong likelyhood for you as well, since the job market for history is similar. Does the thought of being in that same boat discourage you? I want you to think very seriously about it before you decide.

That said, I wouldn't be a good humanities teacher without assigning lots of homework for you to read. The next thing you need to do is get hold of all of these books and read them while pondering your next decision:

-Graduate Study for the Twenty-First Century: How to Build an Academic Career in the Humanities, Semenza
-Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide to Earning an M.A. or a Ph.D., Peters
-The Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career: A Portable Mentor for Scholars from Graduate School through Tenure, Goldsmith, Komlos, Gold
-"So What Are You Going to Do with That?": Finding Careers Outside Academia, Basalla and Debelius

I don't actually know if the last one is any good. The Getting What You Came For and the Chicago Guide will have nice overviews of the MA and the PhD, their history and what they are for. _Getting_ also has chapters about getting funding, although the specific details will probably be out of date and the technology stuff definitely is.

Once you have this background, come back and ask more questions of the forum --- I'm sure they will be much more focused and we could be more helpful.

[ticklemepink]

I remember being in your shoes.  Anxious to get started... wanting to be the best...

Realize that you do have critical things against you.

For one, US history is the most competitive geographical field of them all (except, maybe Europe in some programs).  You are going to compete for, say, 10 spots in US History out of over 150 applications (as opposed to 2 slots for African history out of, say, 10).  Even doing Reconstruction era won't do you any good (though maybe a bit better than 20th century where everybody wants to do Cold War).

Two, you don't need languages for US history, which doesn't help (as opposed to non-US history fields where the more, the better).  So where can you improve in that skill set?  Just work on your writing.

Three, make the most of your thesis.  Get your hands on original/digitized documents and read the awful handwriting.  Read as much as you can and write the best literature review, mainly for YOU so you can understand what is going on in the field and sound knowledgeable in your statement.

Don't bother with publications.  Seriously.   I'm in middle of the process and it's taking a lot longer than I expected (but worthwhile!).  It will take a MA thesis to be able to start, if you plan far ahead and actually have publishable material (read: original research with materials never published before).  You'd need to go through rigorous training and a very supportive committee who is willing to guide you along.

Conferences?  Stick to undergraduate ones so you have the experience of sharing ideas and presenting your research.

I definitely advocate taking time off... enjoy life!  It may be the best thing you can do for yourself (and maybe your application).  Backpack through the South.

[marlborough]

A good program may well require US history candidates to do languages--mine sure did, with all the whining and gnashing of teeth that went along with it.  If you're studying Reconstruction, being able to read accounts of other societies where slavery is ended (Portuguese, Spanish maybe?) is that much more valuable.  One of my students is at a grad program doing Civil War and finding that reading foreign accounts in German is also useful.

I just hate it when students want to do US history because there aren't any of those crazy furrin languages required.

[ticklemepink]

I just hate it when students want to do US history because there aren't any of those crazy furrin languages required.

So, so, so with  you!