<p>I have a quandary. I was hoping some of you may have also been in my situation at one time and may know from experience what to do. I am going on my fourth year in a History department. I passed my qualifying exams and have now begun to write my dissertation.</p>
<p>However, there are two enormous mental blocks which have been standing in my way from the beginning and which keep me from making progress on my dissertation. First, I have never felt as though history is the profession best suited to my interests and talents. It is not something I am intrinsically interested in. Second, I have a very poor relationship with my advisor. It is so bad that I cannot rely on her to follow through with a recommendation when I need one to apply for grants and fellowships. I could continue in the program, complete my dissertation and submit it for defense. But at this point I don't know if she'll even pass me, and if she does, I believe that my eligibility on the job market will suffer as a result of my relationship with her.</p>
<p>So, I am considering to apply to other programs this coming fall semester (either to literature or classics departments). But I don't know what admissions committees will think of an application from a student who is leaving one Ph.D. program to start another and, further, without a recommendation from his advisor. Has anyone ever done this or heard of someone doing this? Is it completely unheard of? Must I explain the irregularity of my situation in my personal statement? </p>
<p>Hopefully this will be moved to the Grad school forum and not here in the undergrad college search section. If there is time to edit out your uni name I’d be careful not to put too many identifying details. Sorry i don’t know about this sort of situation, it must have happened before. There is thegradcafe too.</p>
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Yes, I’ve known people to do this, and no, it’s not completely unheard of. I knew of one student who was ABD in classics but then switched to linguistics at another university. Another student was ABD in psych and switched to sociology (same university). That said, I think it doesn’t happen terribly often, and both of those students left their departments on good terms.</p>
<p>How much of your research have you done? If you’ve already done all of the relevant research and could write the dissertation in a year, I say finish and be done. At the very least, you could snag an adjunct position while you work out what you want to do next. </p>
<p>If you’re still in the research stage, getting away from campus (and your advisor) may reinvigorate your interest in history. You surely must have been passionate about it before if you went into a graduate program! A program like the Fulbright or DAAD will let you work on your research and regain some of that passion that was lost in the long hours in the library stacks. The tedium of graduate school is more than enough to wear away the enthusiasm of even really devoted PhD students. </p>
<p>You’ve presumably formed a dissertation committee at this point. How close are you to other people on your committee? Is there someone else you could ask to chair it? Your problems may be solved as easily as switching advisors. An outside mentor - either in a different department or at another university - can be a welcome blessing in the dissertation stage. </p>
<p>If you’re really unsure about what you want to do, consider taking a leave of absence for a semester or two. Scope out some literature and classics programs. Are they really what you’d like to do, or is it a case of greener grass? </p>
<p>Thank you, Warblersrule, for your response. I appreciate it. You are right: there are a lot of options. And the good thing is that I love my dissertation topic, because it isn’t history! The relationship I have with my advisor isn’t damned, but she is just a bit flaky and doesn’t respond to emails for months (sometimes never at all) – both mine and her other students’. You mentioned a Fulbright – that’s fitting, because I just sent her an email notifying her a month in advance that I will be applying to one and I asked if she might write on my behalf…no response. I missed out on a travel grant in the past because she didn’t reply soon enough. I just can’t imagine how reliable she’ll be when I’m on the job market and I need her to recommend me and introduce me to people. Last semester I scheduled a meeting with the Director of Graduate Studies and addressed these issues in a very professional way, and he said that it would basically be impossible for me to switch advisors at this point. (Yet, I have a very good friend for whom the same DGS made it very easy to switch advisors…).</p>
<p>Is there another way that you can contact your advisor other than email? Are you far away from campus and you can’t hunt her down, or does she not have an office phone? Advisors not answering emails is super annoying and totally their fault, but knowing this in advance, you should attempt to track them down in other ways. My advisor was great but could be flaky on email at times, and I usually tracked him down at his office - he can’t ignore me standing in his face, lol. (Also, for future reference - a month may not be long enough for an recommendation request, especially for something big like Fulbright. I know it varies from professor to professor, but most like 6-8 weeks of notice.)</p>
<p>But if your DGS is unwilling to help you switch and you can’t see a way forward with this professor - </p>
<p>Students do transfer from PhD programs in closely related fields. I have a friend who dropped out of a program in immunology and is now doing one in psychology or neuroscience; the research is essentially the same, just approached from a slightly different angle.</p>
<p>When you apply to ‘transfer’ (and it’s not really transferring, because you will have to start over, especially if you are going to another field) you need to explain really well why you are leaving one department and going to another. You absolutely must address it in the personal statement or a supplemental statement. In this case, you need to explain why you are leaving one field and attempting to pursue a different one. Explaining the switch from history to classics won’t be as difficult, if you do classical history now - but explaining a jump from history to literature will be much more difficult (unless you currently do history of literature or something, and even then…) Switching without your advisor’s support - especially after 4 years - will be difficult but not impossible. You need a supportive letter from someone else in your current department who has worked with you and can delicately explain how the situation has come to be - but is also willing to gush about how great a PhD student you are and how they know you can succeed when you find the right fit.</p>
<p>Also, consider having a very frank discussion with your advisor. I would point-blank ask her what she thinks of your work, whether she feels she could recommend you strongly for faculty positions, and whether she thinks you are ready and able to write a strong dissertation. If you are planning on staying to finish if you don’t get in anywhere else this needs to be handled delicately, but if you are going to leave no matter what, you can even ask her if she will support your transfer to another program. Some advisors realize that their rocky relationships with their students are due to fit and not the student themselves.</p>
<p>I also just want to say that I’m not sure how viable a switch from history to literature is. Historians and literature scholars use similar but still quite distinct methods and have different theoretical orientations, so unless your current work is at the intersection of the two fields…you may run into some trouble.</p>