HELP deciding what to specialize in for PhD

Graduate School
1

<p>Hello all!
I'm an ascending junior at the University of North Texas majoring in Anthropology with a minor in History. I have an overall GPA of 3.1 with a major GPA of 3.5 (which will likely rise as I only have classes within my major left). My main issue is deciding what PhD track I want or will even be successful in. I would like to shift my focus more towards History, specifically British history. </p>

<p>Professionally I would like to work in social history, conservation, and public education/consulting rather than professorial work. My openness to so many career options is the main reason I'm having trouble planning what exactly I need to do. I've been leaning towards pursuing a PhD in history but from what I've seen it's extremely competitive and my scores aren't exactly stellar so I'm open to other avenues like Public History or Museum Studies or anything else. </p>

<p>My universities advising department has proven pretty useless when it comes to specifics and searching on forums like this has only turned up scenarios in which the student intends to go into pure academia. Would my interest in British History make applying to schools in the UK more ideal? To any who have transferred US to UK; what is that like?
Is funding for international students common? I plan to move to the UK permanently in the future but if there was a US program that would work out more in my favor I would rather stay state-bound for it.</p>

<p>I realize this post is a little scatterbrained (sorry!) but that's how I am right now.
Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks so much</p>

2

<p>Several factors to consider.</p>

<p>First of all, jobs in the heritage sector are quite competitive to get nowadays, and not being an EU citizen will make it harder. Anything funded by local authorities (like many archive jobs, the field I know best) is being squeezed massively; and the museum jobs market has been awful for years. Pay isn’t great either.</p>

<p>By conservation, do you mean museum/archive/art conservation? You need a pretty solid chemistry background for that area, but perhaps you mean management of historic properties or something in that vein?</p>

<p>Do you have a route to live and work in the UK <em>without</em> an employer-based visa? I.e. dual citizenship with an EU country, or a SO who would bring you over on a spousal visa? (The one US citizen I know who did train and work in this kind of field in the UK did so because she married a Brit first). If not, then you’d need an employer to apply for a visa for you, and they would have to prove no EU citizen could do the job. For the foreseeable future, there is and will be a glut of people qualified for this kind of job, unless you manage to get a unique specialisation which happens to marry up with a job at the right time. It’s all a bit of a long shot, I’m afraid. If you have another route to a visa, and definitely want to work in this sector, then I would advise training in the UK, because the qualifications will translate better for most employers. Generally, PhD students generally get funding, but Masters courses (which might be more relevant for your planned career path) usually don’t, even for UK students, with a few exceptions.</p>

<p>If you do want to do a history PhD, they would almost certainly want you to do a research-based Masters first - it’s a pretty common requirement even for history graduates, and you will only have a minor. Then before you apply for the PhD you have to have a thesis topic in mind. However, few people working in the fields you’re interested in will have a PhD (and they will often have to do further training even if they do). Usually a Masters in a specific field will be the way to go, but you’ll almost certainly need to be able to fund yourself.</p>

<p>There’s quite a useful introduction to the kinds of jobs available in the heritage sector in the UK, and the qualifications required for each here: </p>

<p><a href=“http://ccskills.org.uk/careers/advice/job-profiles/heritage/?gclid=CjwKEAjw9LKeBRDurOugs43jnlgSJACUXqHxPGPOstCgNfCHDEW6pEDytJHkDQ_dVCAQ5FGoIOBY4BoCTgPw_wcB”>http://ccskills.org.uk/careers/advice/job-profiles/heritage/?gclid=CjwKEAjw9LKeBRDurOugs43jnlgSJACUXqHxPGPOstCgNfCHDEW6pEDytJHkDQ_dVCAQ5FGoIOBY4BoCTgPw_wcB&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

3

<p>If you don’t want to be a professor of history, you don’t really need a PhD in history. Or a PhD at all. There are some conservation jobs (particularly in the government) that might prefer a PhD, but most public historical education will require a master’s at most.</p>