Gender Studies

Contrary to what you probably think when you hear the words “Gender Studies,” this field is not just about looking at women’s history. When I started my Masters Degree in History, I was concerned that I would need to take a course on Gender Studies and would feel uncomfortable as a male in a class that I perceived to be about male domination in society. Much to my surprise, I ended up enjoying the class as we studied not only women and their gender roles in history, but also the evolution of the idea of manliness and masculinity. I never expected to spend a week of class discussing the image of the male body presented in Rambo and the portrayal of war as a sport.

My Gender Studies class focused on gender roles and their evolution during war throughout American history; there was a particular emphasis on the Spanish-American War. I incorporated the lessons I learned in this course with the class I taught as a part of my GTA, one of the Graduate School Scholarships that I received. The concepts were very clear and applicable to myself and to the students I passed them on to. Although I’m not certain that I agree with every conclusion that my professors taught us about, I do think that there is some very interesting work being done today in studying the evolution of gender perceptions. I certainly gained a new understanding and perspective on American history through this course.

Graduate School Scholarships

How many Graduate School Scholarships should you be applying for?

The short answer is that you should apply for everything you possibly can. You never know, you might get all Graduate School Scholarships that you apply to receive, covering your tuition, fees, rent, and cost of living with a little to spare.

While I was working on my Masters Degree in History, I applied for the department specific graduate scholarship, the GTA, and a couple of other minor grants and received all of them. I had to work for the department, but the tasks were all relevant to my future as an educator in history and paid all my expenses. I actually managed to make money going to graduate school without an actual job off-campus. This is actually pretty realistic if you apply for the right types of Graduate School Scholarships.

The most desirable form of financial aid is a Graduate Teaching Assistantship (GTA). I had one my first year in my MA, teaching a Gender Studies class. It was a little outside my field, but I knew enough to teach the basic concepts while I learned more advanced material to bring into the classroom later. My GTA was the most rewarding part of my Graduate History Degree.

So, the long answer is to apply for everything that you can, but especially be sure to apply for any GTA positions. Also, remember that you have to pay loans back, but not grants or scholarships. Applying for scholarships is sometimes a time vs. reward consideration, if an essay is part of the application. Be sure to look into financial aid that is specifically intended for students in your department.

Masters Degree in History

While I was working on my Masters Degree in History, one of the required classes was a Research course on Historiography. The purpose of the class was to expand student’s understanding of various fields and schools of history. We discussed a wide variety of methods of research and writing for history, such as Microhistories, Environmental Studies, and Gender Studies.

I admit, I was fairly worried about the course; the syllabus predicted a significant amount of reading and writing throughout the term and I had a busy term grading as a service project for my Graduate School Scholarships. But, as I said, the course was required, so there was no way for me to finish my Masters Degree in History without it.

The final project for the class was a 15 page term paper on the historiography of any topic we chose. We had to present our project to the class the week before our final copy was due. One of the other students was presenting her research and we all noticed that she seemed to have done a lot more than the rest of us; she had a huge stack of notes and tons of information on the sources she had studied. It turned out that she thought it was 15 pages, single-spaced. Needless to say, the other 5 of us in the class were suddenly terrified that we needed to double the length of our papers. Fortunately, we were correct about the double-spacing. Funny little stories like that were some of my favorite moments during my Masters Degree in History.

Graduate History Degree

One of the classes I took during my Graduate History Degree, a course on Politics and Culture in Eastern Europe, had us reading a book each week. Based on that reading, we wrote a 1,000 word review of the book and rotated leading class discussion. My favorite week during the class, we divided the class into two groups and assigned each group a different book to read. One group read one side of the story of Tito and WWII Yugoslavia, while the other group read an opposing viewpoint. Basically, one author wrote a report for the Allies suggesting an alliance with Tito and the other author has the opposite view. So, all these students, each working on a Masters Degree in History, came in on discussion day with a biased view of the events. We sat down and argued about the interpretation of events that had been presented to us.

I had to lead discussion that day, which means I had prepared questions to ask everyone about the reading. Fortunately, when I’d applied for Graduate School Scholarships I was awarded a GTA position, so I already had quite a bit of experience with crafting discussion questions between the class I was assigned to help lecture and writing discussion questions weekly for my Gender Studies class. I’ve found that good questions are one of the more valuable skills you develop in a Graduate History Degree program.

In the end, my questions were primarily aimed at analyzing the biases of each author. The discussion went very well and everybody, I think, learned a little about identifying bias in a source. That postmodern idea of “Truth” being tainted by perception is one of the main themes of a Graduate History Degree.

Graduate School Financial Aid

If you are looking at pursuing a Master’s Degree, there are quite a few options available to you for Graduate School Financial Aid to assist you with the costs of tuition, fees, and living expenses. Your school will be able to give you the most information that is specific for the program to which you are applying, but I will tell you a little about the possibilities in my MA History program as an example. It might not be exactly the same at your school, but this might give you a few ideas on what to ask about.

The first thing to do is find out if your Graduate Degree Department offers specific scholarships to its students. My History program had several scholarships that were only available to History Graduate Students. You could only get one of them and you were required to perform some kind of service for the History Department, but it was a fairly easy process. Well worth the half hour or so it took to write an application. Your Department might also be able to suggest a number of other Graduate School Financial Aid options that are available from your school in any Department. Even if you are in the History program, the Music program might have a project that would make your skills useful.

Make sure to ask if your program offers any GTA (Graduate Teaching Assistantship) positions. Grading papers, teaching classes, and working for a professor teaching an intro class gets you valuable experience and funding. If you intend to teach with your Graduate Degree, this is a wonderful way to see what it is actually like. These positions are highly competitive, so prepare a strong application.

The last form of Graduate School Financial Aid that I have personal experience with is the Student Loan. Obviously, this is the least desirable option, as you have to pay back the money you receive with interest. Try not to rely on this option for you tuition needs. If you have no chance of receiving another type of funding from the school you are applying to, I would reevaluate your choice.

MA History

I remember one of my first classes when I was working on my MA History degree, we were all sure that we could do the same thing we’d done as undergrads and just slap together a term paper at the last minute. We were in this Latin American Studies class and needed to turn in a 20 page paper Monday that was worth around 40% of our final grades. We got together on Friday afternoon at the library to start our papers. At least we’d been smart enough to do some limited research earlier in the term. We had our topics picked out and we’d ordered a half-dozen books and several journal articles each for our various papers. After all, we had this illusion that we were Graduate History Degree candidates who were better than undergrads, somehow. We couldn’t put everything off until the last minute.

We were sitting in our study room, skimming through our books for useful bits of information worth citing in the paper when we started getting calls from our friends and roommates asking if we needed anything, so we asked them to bring food and drinks for our work session. James asked his roommate to bring him a thermos full of coffee, as “It’s gonna be a long night of MA History writing fun.” So, we’re sitting there reading away, picking at the delivered food, and James was typing a quote from one of his books when he knocked the thermos full of coffee over. Of course, it goes everywhere. We were all scrambling to grab our stacks of books and laptops off the table before the coffee could get to them. Everyone but James was successful. He’d dumped the coffee right on top of the page he was typing, staining it brown and wrinkling the pages. It was a terrible mess.

Of course, the moral of the story is not to put off your research papers until the last minute while you’re in the MA History program. But, the other moral is to apply for all the Graduate School Financial Aid that you can receive: library books are expensive to replace.

Graduate Degree in History

Why should you consider a Graduate Degree in History?

To borrow from Star Wars, like the Force, History is what connects us and, literally, binds us all together. Studying History will teach you the backgrounds and formation stories for the world’s modern nation states. Everything from the events that shaped nations to how social classes formed and modern gender roles were defined is there for you to study and, as you pursue a Graduate Degree, to comment on the discussion yourself, contributing your voice to the topic for future historians to consider.

I can hear you asking, “Discussion? What is there to ‘discuss’ about history? What happened is what happened. Isn’t it just facts and dates?” If you do decide to earn your MA History, you will quickly learn that one of the major arguments in History is the pursuit of “Truth.” Is objective Truth, with a capital “T,” attainable for a historian, whose very nature as a human being is biased? Every event is interpreted by a biased viewer and recorded in a source. Those biased sources are consulted by biased readers who re-interpret it. At the end of a long chain of these “middlemen,” you read it and interpret it yourself through your own biases. If, for example, you are taking a course on Latin American Studies, whether you feel the U.S. intervention in a particular nation was legitimate or not largely depends on your interpretation of the events, based on your biases. So, in the end, do you see why there is so much to discuss about history; so many biases and interpretations to sort out?

One of the biggest deterrents for many people considering a Graduate Degree is the cost. It takes a lot of time and the tuition is more expensive than Undergraduate history studies. The best thing to do is consult your school on what they can offer for Graduate School Financial Aid. There are a wide variety of grants, scholarships, and positions that can give you the necessary funding to make your studies affordable. As for the time investment, if getting your degree is important to you, it is well worth the time spent.

Latin American Studies

First of all, Latin American Studies is a term used by historians to refer to the history of South and Central America from pre-Columbian civilizations to modern politics and relations with other nations. Simple enough, right? The really interesting thing about studying Latin American history is seeing how a region that many people overlook when listing the most important countries in history is integral to understanding the world today.

Think about the influence of the Caribbean and the American continents on Europe during the era of colonialism, how the pre-Columbian cultures affected the European view of the New World. Also, consider the role of Latin America in U.S. history. The Spanish-American War, the Mexican-American War, and many of the western states are a part of the relationship between North America, Central America, and South America.

While pursuing my Graduate Degree, which was an MA History, I needed to take a Latin American Studies course during my last term. Although I am not a Latin American historian, scheduling put me in a position to take the course or delay my graduation by a term and forgoing my Graduate School Financial Aid. I chose to take the class and get out of it as much as I could. While I will not claim to be an expert, by any means, I did learn a lot about how the United States and Latin America are interconnected. That recognition of the importance of Latin America in world politics is, I feel, an important reason for everyone to study history and, in particular, the history of Latin America.

University American History

How should you choose a University American History program?

It is actually fairly easy to narrow the field of choices and find the program that is right for you. If you are concerned about the choice enough to be consulting references such as this one, it is safe to assume that you are looking at a Graduate History Program, rather than your Undergraduate, but the same will apply to either search. Hopefully this short guide will help you decide what is important in the decision.

First, where do you want to study? Is there a particular State or area that needs preference for any number of reasons, such as family? If there is, check those schools first. It might not be the best fit, but if location is important to you, it should be one of your first concerns.

Your second concern should be to ask yourself what you are most interested in studying for your History Masters and look for faculty that specialize in that area. If you read an article in a journal that interests you, find out where that professor teaches and see if the program would work for you. The people that you will be studying under are one of the most important aspects of your degree. If you work well together and get along, you will enjoy your studies a lot more than if you end up having a bad relationship with your faculty. I recommend going to the University American History Department before you apply and try to meet a few of the professors that you will be working with to see how you get along. Your faculty advisor will, of course, be one of the most important people for you to meet.

If you find a school that matches you well there, you should look into what your options will be for financial aid. Are there grants you can apply to receive, especially department specific grants? Is there a History GTA position available? How much does each term or semester cost as a graduate student? Compare this with your other top schools. You might find a school that looks great, but will not offer you any funding assistance and another school that is almost as good, but will pay for all your tuition and fees. You will need to weight the pros and cons of each.

Those are really the big things to consider. You might request contact information for previous graduates from the University American History program or a current student from the Department. They will usually be happy to provide you with that kind of information and the students are normally very honest in their responses. Speaking with a student can sometimes answer questions that the brochures and website cannot. The most important part of the decision is to decide if you would be comfortable working at a particular school. If you like the setting and people, it would be a good fit.

History GTA – Graduate Teaching Assistant

So, I got the History GTA. I was really excited about it, though it certainly turned out to be more work than I’d expected it to be. I ended up teaching a University American History class, which is crazy! I mean, you know me and American History are like oil and water, but whatever. It really wasn’t all that much work, but I had to keep up with their reading and attend class, even on days I wasn’t lecturing. I learned a ton about grading and my own style of grading. I guess I’m a pretty tough grader compared to the profs in our department, Chris tells me that during his History GTA, his advisor told him that most grad students are a little too tough at first. So, maybe I’ll relax my standards in the coming years. I guess we’ll see.

The History Graduate Program has really been a lot of fun. I’m glad I decided to go for it. I’ve still got Comps coming up, which scares me to death, really…but, I should be okay. I’m just worried that I’ll get some totally off the wall question, you know? I keep all my papers in a filing cabinet, so I can go back and read all my reviews of books we’ve read to make sure I remember it all. I fully expect to have my History Masters this year. Sadly, I couldn’t get another History Graduate Teaching Assistant position with the department, as they awarded them to incoming students as incentive to come to our program. I totally agree with that decision, but it’s still a bummer. I really enjoyed the experience.