STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Alikat · Kate Spade

Grad school reality check

cc · Marc Jacobs

Haha this is exactly the reason why I never bothered applying to grad school. Except in my field I probably would have had to go to a top 10 school if I wanted any job opportunities.

If you buy or subscribe to the US News & World Report grad school guide you can see the acceptance rate for the top history programs. Also if you already have certain schools in mind sometimes the department website will provide information on acceptance rate or average GPA and GRE scores.

How long ago did you get your masters and are you still in contact with any of your professors? I think they would be a great resource since they will have a sense of what the departments at other schools are like as well as a familiarity with your academic record plus they knowledge of where other students were accepted.

Alikat · Kate Spade

Thanks cc. Actually I did my master's only a couple years ago, but it was in the UK. While they will be helpful with letters of rec, they don't know much about US admissions, unfortunately.

I love history, but I'm not sure if its worth the investment in a PhD, even my local state college has professors from Harvard, Yale, etc.

I'm confused what to do next, so I'm just weighing out the options. Right now I'm doing Admin and some Technical processing at a University Library, which is all right for now... but I'd like to be more involved with the material or in research.

cc · Marc Jacobs

I understand how you feel, it can be so discouraging.

I'm actually a librarian (have my MLS) and I work in a law firm library but I have thought about going to get a second masters and working in a university library. I know I would love that sort of working environment but I'm just not sure how challenging and/or interesting it would be to do reference in a college library. I fear it would be more ready-reference - helping students find books, etc.

Alikat · Kate Spade

At the university I work at (University of California, Davis) the librarians work about 5-6 hours a week on the reference desk, a decent amount of time in meetings, but the rest of the time they work on their collections.

They are quite busy, but I think all of them love their jobs!

What puts me off pursuing the academic librarian track is that I feel like it is quite competitive (and a bit snobby) as well. However, I haven't actually discussed with the librarians how they feel about the atmosphere. My department is very friendly.

-- Edited by Alikat at 19:57, 2005-05-17