The University of Washington History Department currently enrolls more than 60 scholars pursuing MA and PhD degrees in a wide range of fields. Ours is in the top third of History PhD programs nationwide, and benefits from a large and vibrant university community and a location in beautiful Seattle. We work hard, have fun, and get to do a lot of hiking.

If you are a prospective student and would like to learn more about our program, our people, and application information, please visit the Department of History's Graduate Studies page.

If you are a current student here or at another program, there are a number of resources that can help you get the most out of your training, enjoy this intellectual journey, and prepare for the professional world ahead. Inspired by Claire Potter's Ten Commandments of Graduate School, here are my suggestions of twelve things you can do to link into grad school life and the broader profession (and none of them will cost you a dime):

1. Sign up for H-Net. This is an invaluable professional network that hosts edited listservs, job boards, conference announcements, teaching resources, book reviews, and more. You can subscribe to email listservs that correspond to your scholarly interests as well as find the most comprehensive job board in the profession.

2. Make the American Historical Association website your browser's home page. You'll keep up with key developments in the academic world as well as public issues of relevance to historians.

3. If you are on Facebook, "like" the UW History Librarian to get Theresa Mudrock's carefully curated feed of interesting news about history and the humanities.

4. Sign up for Twitter and get to know the world of #twitterstorians. Think about how you want to join the historians who are getting their research and insights out there into the public discussion: write an op-ed, a blog entry, even just a thoughtful 140 characters.

5. Get to know the major journal in your field. For Americanists, this would be The Journal of American History. Keep up with what's new in these and other journals by subscribing to Table of Contents alerts and availing yourself of the free content online. But also remember that you can read the full articles through your university's institutional subscription. What's your go-to journal? Find out by consulting the AHA's Directory of History Journals.

6. Go to talks on campus. Attend talks even if they seem far afield from your interests; you will be amazed by how this will help you think about your own work in fresh ways. If you are here at the UW, participate in the History Colloquium on a regular basis, and consider presenting your own work for feedback. (And when you do that - on campus or at academic conferences - make sure you read up on how to give a great academic talk.)

7. Embrace the digital. Technological tools are altering how we research, teach, and publish. You don't have to become an expert programmer (although the free tutorials at codecademy.com are pretty nifty), but you do need to understand how digital tools relate to what you do and how you do it. At UW, a great place to start is the Simpson Center for the Humanities' Digital Humanities program.

8. Think about your online professional identity. Make sure you have a page on your departmental web site. If you want to go one step further, build a web page of your own using Google Sites, Wordpress, or another platform. (I built this page using Strikingly.)

9. Teaching and public speaking is a huge part of what we do, but often graduate students get thrown into the deep end without getting some pro tips first. I've become a better teacher the longer I've been at it, but I also benefited greatly from watching other great teachers do their thing. To get started, check out How to Give a Lecture, where the prize-winning Stanford historian David M. Kennedy explains how it's done. Then, in addition to attending public talks by visiting speakers, consider auditing lectures given by faculty in your department who teach your subject to get a better sense of lecture structure and content. Last, get attuned to research about attention spans and figure out your go-to techniques for keeping students engaged and learning.

10. The life of the mind costs money. Throughout graduate school and beyond, you'll be repeatedly having to convince people why they should give you money to support your work, and apply early and often to all the external sources you can (hey, you never know if you'll get funding unless you try!). The Graduate Funding Information Service at the UW is a one-stop shop for identifying internal and external funding sources. The UW Graduate School holds information sessions about many of these larger programs and keeps a calendar of fellowship deadlines. Two great guides for perfecting your pitch: The Art of Writing Proposals (by the Social Sciences Research Council) and Writing Proposals for ACLS Fellowship Competitions by Christina Gillis.

11. Get career-minded from Day One of graduate school. Don't let it consume you, but have a clear sense of the kinds of jobs you'd like to have and build the skills you need to get them. Be deliberate, be confident, and be prepared. To get a sense of what's out there, check out the AHA Career Center, the H-Net Job Guide, and the Organization of American Historians Career COACH. Understand the other places the PhD might take you by watching the web series sponsored by the AHA profiling historians beyond academe: What I Do: Historians Talk About Their Work. And if you land an interview for an academic job, it is useful to review Mary Corbin Sies' list of questions you should be prepared to answer.

12. Have a life outside graduate school. In between all that reading and writing, make time to sleep, exercise, and spend quality time with people who do entirely different things for a living. If you are in Seattle, this is one place to start.

Last: remember that you aren't supposed to know everything. If you have a question or concern, talk to your faculty committee members, your Graduate Chair, and your graduate office staff before small problems become big ones.

Margaret O'Mara

Howard & Frances Keller Professor of History, University of Washington

Contact

Department of History318 Smith HallBox 353560Seattle, WA 98195-3560 Email me

Department of History
318 Smith Hall
Box 353560
Seattle, WA 98195-3560

Email me