6 Things to Consider Before Starting a History PhD Program
A PhD in History is an ambitious goal…just make sure you really want it first.
I had a tough graduate school experience — I won’t sugar-coat it. In December 2019, I received my PhD in History, and a part of me is still recovering a year and a half later.
Some people have fantastic grad school experiences, despite the challenges. Do I regret it? No. But my time as a PhD candidate made me a realist — sometimes brutally so.
Would I do it again? Maybe. I had amazing opportunities that only could have happened in grad school, including research trips and fellowships abroad. And I was dedicated to my research topic. But before I signed on the dotted line, I wish I’d paid closer attention to advice of “to go or not to go” to be absolutely sure it was the best fit for me.
Here are things to consider before you apply or say “yes” to an offer. Most of this is geared toward potential History PhDs, but can be applicable to other fields as well.
1. Why are you pursuing a History PhD?
Simple, obvious question, right? But ask yourself specific questions: Do you love history and want to make it your career? Do you like the idea of the life of a professor/museum curator/archivist? Make a list if you have to, and don’t hold back when you write it out.
What’s your true motivation behind it? Is there another reason, one you’re hesitant to admit?
One of my “hesitant-to-admit” reasons — a valid but not ideal one, in retrospect — was to leave the 9-to-5 grind. At the time, I wanted the lifestyle of a history professor. But that reason on its own was not enough.
My advice: Communicate with as many current history PhD students as you can. Numerous programs list their current graduate students and their specializations. See if you can visit nearby universities you’re interested in, or attend a virtual prospective student event. Not all programs are the same, but you want to make sure you’ll feel at home at a school before proceeding with next steps.
If, after you’ve done significant research, your “why” is still strong and you know a PhD program is a good fit, then great! But if you’re second-guessing doing a PhD after learning more about it, it’s a good idea to trust your gut. And even then, if you decide you still want to do it after letting the idea sit for a while, then go for it! But remember: It’s OK not to go, too.
And, on the subject of research…
2. Are you willing to commit long hours to reading, research, and writing?
Another obvious question, but think about it. Studying history requires a LOT of time with books, articles, primary sources, and many, many, many hours in front of your computer writing and editing a dissertation.
I enjoyed poring over document collections, listening to testimonies, writing out notes for a chapter, or getting crafty with words when I found an interesting case or anecdote. Yes, that romanticized image of historians hanging out in gorgeous libraries and discovering something fascinating is partly true.
But are you also ready to:
- Spend hours in classes (if your program is structured that way) before being able to dive into your dissertation?
- Hit dead ends in your research?
- Collect a high volume of sources, only to use a fraction of them in your writing?
- Remove huge chunks from your dissertation?
- Discover holes in your argument?
- Spend a lot of time alone?
3. Do you have a time period/theme you’re truly, deeply interested in?
In the same vein as point #1 above, how much do you love history? If you’re at the stage where you’re considering programs and reading this piece, then I’ll assume it means you have a deep interest in history.
My question, however, is: Do you have an idea of what you want to study and research?
If you’ve already received an offer for a graduate program, then you know on some level which time period or topic you’re interested in, whether that’s 18th-century America, the history of medicine, 20th-century Japan, colonialism, etc. You had to know in order to write your statement of interest and get matched up with an advisor.
But is that interest enough to sustain you through a program? Do you have an open mind about possibilities?
For example, I started my PhD program thinking I was going to study 20th-century Germany. With that in mind, I wrote a first-year seminar paper on female doctors in late Weimar and early Nazi Germany. But after doing an internship in Holocaust education and a summer graduate student fellowship in Poland, I ended up writing my dissertation on hidden Jewish children in Poland during the Holocaust.
In order to choose that topic, I had to dig deep and go back to the reason why I became interested in history in the first place. I dug all the way back to middle school, when I had read stories about children’s experiences, from The Diary of Anne Frank to Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars. Like point #1 on this list, think about your “why” again, and be ready to do some soul-searching.
Be ready for your direction to change.
4. How do you handle criticism and intense questioning?
Completing a PhD program requires a thick skin. You know the “tears” part of the expression “blood, sweat, and tears”? I’d bet money that even the toughest, most confident student will not complete their program without a few tears along the way.
But the one thing everyone who struggled but graduated had in common was this: They kept going, despite setbacks.
Are you ready to be told that:
- Your idea doesn’t work?
- You need to work harder to illustrate x or y point?
- There’s a problem with the way you’re framing your argument?
- You need more evidence to support your thesis?
- Your project is just not ready to defend yet?
That last one devastated me when I heard it in February 2018, but it only made me work harder — and smarter. I fought off my impostor syndrome and defended a little over a year and a half later.
One other point to add here: You’re training to become an expert in your field, so can you handle in-depth, complex questions about your topic? Your seminars will include tough questions. Your professors, advisors, dissertation committee, and even fellow students will ask tough questions, and you have to prepare yourself to articulate intelligent answers. And if you don’t know the answer, instead of making something up, it’s also perfectly OK to say something like, “I don’t know, but I’ll learn more about it. Do you have any recommendations for reading?”
5. Are you ready for the financial adjustment of being in a PhD program?
I’ll say this in all caps, because it’s so important. Unless you are independently wealthy and/or just won $50,000+ on a game show, PLEASE DO NOT GO WITHOUT FUNDING.
Yes, there’s financial aid. Yes, you may be working full-time or part-time while pursuing a program. If you’re OK with that, then awesome — you may find that a program with limited or no funding works for you.
But if it’s a full-time program that requires you to be in residence (mine was, at least for the years prior to advancing to PhD candidacy), then funding is a must-have. This can come in the form of a tuition scholarship, a stipend, or a part-time salary as a research or teaching assistant.
Ideally, it will be a combination of scholarship/stipend or scholarship/salary. And as far as benefits packages, this will vary, but you can either qualify for a school’s student health insurance or employee health insurance. There might be retirement. I went to a state school where I was considered a state employee as a teaching assistant, so I was extremely fortunate with benefits.
But make sure it’s enough. The adjustment can be especially tough if you had a full-time job with a decent salary and benefits before grad school. This is something I wish I’d thought through more when I lived on next to nothing in New York City.
6. Are you open to career paths outside of the tenure track?
According to an April 2021 piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “The Future of Tenure,” the percentage of full-time faculty has fallen dramatically over the past fifty years, with less than 55 percent of faculty having full-time status during the 2018–19 academic year. To give you an idea of how much things have changed, in the early 1970s, that number was at 80 percent.
The secret’s been out for a while. People also (kind of) knew this back when I started my program in 2010: There are more PhDs than tenure-track jobs.
Even if there were enough jobs to go around, completing a PhD does not pigeonhole you into one career track. PhDs are becoming more and more aware of and open to this. Organizations such as Beyond the Professoriate, for example, aim to educate PhDs about non-tenure track jobs.
I decided not to pursue the tenure track route after graduating, but that doesn’t mean I never want to teach. Some of my favorite moments of grad school were leading discussions in the classroom or advising students during office hours. If you enjoy teaching, it’s possible as a historian to combine various professional activities with part-time teaching. And, frankly, many departments are relying on adjunct professors to cover their course loads, so there are definitely opportunities out there to occasionally teach a class.
The point here is: You can carve your own path, tenure track or not.
So…what now?
First, please do not let this reality check discourage you. I’m not telling you not to start a History PhD program. If you love history and know that a career in that field is what you want, then by all means, go for it!
Just remember to take a realistic — rather than romantic — view of this goal. Consider the multi-year time commitment, the potential mental, emotional, and financial tolls, and whether, deep down, this path is truly right for you. The world needs historians, but make sure you’re ready for the road needed to become one.
