The first thing every new History PhD student should know: This is not your undergraduate experience. A few of your undergraduate history courses may have required some heavy reading and intense discussion, but in a graduate program, be prepared to work even harder. Below is information about what to expect from the first semester...and advice on how to handle it.
What is the Work Load Like During the First Semester of a History PhD Program?
There is no way around this fact: In history, expect to do a lot of reading. If you hate reading, you should either start liking it really quickly, or decline your program acceptance and run in the other direction. You will probably do more reading in one semester than you did in a year or two as an undergraduate. Many graduate courses require reading one monograph per week; at an absolute bare minimum, expect 50-100 pages per seminar per week, unless it's primarily a writing-focused course. Two hundred pages will quickly become "only" two hundred.
At first, the work load may be overwhelming, particularly if you have been out of school for some time. In addition to the reading load, most courses require at least one paper. Paper assignments can be anything along the lines of a historiographical overview of a topic, a book review, a research proposal or full research paper, or an analysis of a theme or theory. Some courses also require students to give a short presentation on a particular reading, so expect to do at least one of those in your first semester (and be ready to answer a ton of questions about it).
How is it Possible to Manage the PhD Work Load...
Maintaining some kind of master calendar is important. Know when assignments are due, and try to read with some kind of order in mind. Prioritizing is essential! Let's say it's Thursday, and you have to do readings for a Monday class and a Wednesday class over the weekend. Logically, it would make sense to work on the Monday readings first. On the other hand, if the Wednesday reading is a bit more daunting (i.e. a challenging 300-page monograph versus Monday's two short-but-dense articles), start to tackle the Wednesday reading and break it up with the Monday reading.
And here's a trick they didn't want to teach you in your undergraduate education: You don't have to read every word of the assigned reading. Yup, you read that correctly. This is a Grad Student Secret that may help preserve some of your sanity. This Don't-Read-Everything trick is especially vital when you have papers to complete for each of your seminars, plus (if you have been assigned a teaching assistantship) some undergraduate work to grade. (And don't expect grading to be any fun. Most people would tell you it's the worst part of an academic job.)
Use this strategy if you have to skim a book: Read the book's introduction and conclusion in full, and skim the rest of the book, pausing to read pieces of chapters that you think will be especially important in the seminar discussion. Familiarize yourself with chapter titles and subheadings. Of course, take notes as you go. The ultimate goal is not to remember every word and fact and figure of the author's argument, but to get an overall sense of the book's argument and its broader significance in context.
...And Still Have a Life Outside of Graduate School?
Know when to call it quits for the day. Period. Set aside time just to do schoolwork, be it as close to a nine-to-five schedule as you can get, or 9pm-1am every other day, every day after lunch, whenever you have a spare minute, whatever works for you. Just don't let school consume every second of your life.
It's also important to find something regular to do that's completely unrelated to schoolwork, be it physical activity like going for a run around your neighborhood three times per week, or something creative like taking a pottery class in town, or something social like meeting a few friends for coffee on Sunday afternoons. That way, you know you have something to look forward to every week that does not involve school.
Where to Go for Support When Stressed
Family and friends are, of course, a valuable support network for many graduate students. If, however, you are far from home, there are additional sources of support available.
At some time or other, pretty much every first-semester graduate student will, unless they have a freak grad school stress-repelling gene, feel overwhelmed. If your fellow students never appear stressed, they are probably just hiding it well. Talking to each other about how everything's going can actually be therapeutic. (And don't worry, there will be at least one empathetic ear within your program! If you're lucky, there will be many.)
University counseling services are available for one reason: To help! If you're feeling overwhelmed and it's interfering with both your performance as a student and other aspects of your life, it may be time to sit down with an objective listener within the university environment.
Additional Web Advice for History Graduate Students
Websites like GradCafe, which is home to several discussion forums on graduate school (including history-specific forums), is a useful tool for getting inside advice and info from fellow graduate students. A History Graduate Student blog on LiveJournal is also a good place to find fellow graduate students and get their advice.
The first semester in a History PhD program, and in any kind of graduate or professional school in general, is rarely easy for anyone. Know that if you made it into a graduate program in history (when admission has gotten progressively tougher over the years), you deserve to be there. Some people do decide, after the first semester, that graduate school is not for them. But if you know it's the right path for you, graduate school can only become more manageable after that first semester.
Suzanne Swartz - During college, Suzanne spent a semester in southwest Germany. After receiving her B.A. in History and German Studies, she went back to ...
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