DaddyTorgo's RL Grad School Dynasty
 

I think Izulde had a cool idea, and getting motivation and over my fear is a huge thing with me, so i thought I'd start my own Grad School Dynasty as I look towards a PhD in History.

I will be following along!

thanks cronin! i'm in the stage right now where i'm freaking over the bleak job prospects on the other side, but OTOH I have the self-confidence/arrogance to believe that i will be in that small % that will get a job.

also still debating Roman history (and learning Latin and/or Greek) versus either colonial American history or Civil War era American history.

both have their advantages/disadvantages

roman: way fewer people studying it=better prospect of a job even with fewer open jobs, however it means learning more foreign languages and working with primary sources in a foreign tongue. took several classes (2) on it as an undergrad, but it's only really come on strong after my visit to Rome in '04 and my observation of the obvious parallels between the Roman Empire and the American "Empire"
colonial/civil war american: civil war american history was my first love, took as much on it in undergrad as i could and shined. i have lived in boston most of my life, so colonial/revolutionary history is literally alive around me, however there are a large # of people with American history as their specialty (although a lot of this is 20th century) which means that the research is by necessity much more focused, and also the job competition is stiffer. advantage would be that with this it would likely be easier to secure a non-academic job post-phd.

outlier choice:
russian history: i took a lot as an undergrad (4 or so courses, mostly soviet-era stuff with a fairly well-regarded (i think) professor). i love the grand sweep and the epic scale of russian history but i havn't checked to see what the job prospects are like in that area.

Latin is pretty easy to learn, and can definitely be done via self study. Greek takes a little more work, imo, but I became a pretty good reader with a little less than a year of study. I recently read most of the Odyssey in Greek. I can definitely help you if you decide to pursue the languages.

There are a couple of places that offer post-baccaluarette programs in Classical Languages. I believe Penn does, for example.

read my edit for my expanded musings, but if i decide to i'll definately take you up on that

Awesome idea Daddy! I will be reading along every step of the way. I loved Latin in high school and almost studied Roman culture in college. That should be so fun to learn!

Just so you know, Russian is one of the more difficult languages for native English speakers to acquire.

But good luck! I'll naturally be following along. :)

What kind of non-academic jobs are there for History PhDs? I was being heavily pushed in college to persue grad school work in history, which I didn't have an interest in doing. I never realized, however, there was any demand for PhDs outside of academia.

How are you coming on this, DT?

I've started poking around history programs myself as a backup. Decided to pursue the MA route first.. but I have no idea what programs are the best in respective fields, etc.