Some GOOD News!

[AmateisGal]

In the midst of everything we've been through in the last year and, well, the first month of 2021, I wanted to share some good news!

This morning I just received my letter of acceptance for the PhD program in history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I will start in the Fall 2021 semester. I'm quite excited! Yes, I'm 45, will be 46 when I start the program, but I feel far more focused now than I did when I got my MA in 2004 (I had a toddler and two elementary-aged kids at home). All my kids are grown, and my personal life has settled down (divorce in 2017 and I've been with my boyfriend for a year now), so I'm eager to start!

I'll be focusing on American fascists and fascist/nationalist movements of the 1930s, early 1940s and leading into WW2. That's the plan right now, but that could change once I get into the program. But whatever it is, it'll be something related to WW2!

 

[belfastboy]

In the midst of everything we've been through in the last year and, well, the first month of 2021, I wanted to share some good news!

This morning I just received my letter of acceptance for the PhD program in history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I will start in the Fall 2021 semester. I'm quite excited! Yes, I'm 45, will be 46 when I start the program, but I feel far more focused now than I did when I got my MA in 2004 (I had a toddler and two elementary-aged kids at home). All my kids are grown, and my personal life has settled down (divorce in 2017 and I've been with my boyfriend for a year now), so I'm eager to start!

I'll be focusing on American fascists and fascist/nationalist movements of the 1930s, early 1940s and leading into WW2. That's the plan right now, but that could change once I get into the program. But whatever it is, it'll be something related to WW2!

Congrats! I left University in 1971 and when I first retired in 2005 I thought going back to get a Masters just for the hell of it would be a good thing to do. I went to see an academic advisor, showed her my transcript from 1967-1971 and she announced that she would have to go down to the basement archives, dig out an old course calendar from that era so she could identify and cross reference most of the courses...if in fact she could at all. She didn't recognize most of them..... and said that many of them would not be recognized and that I would have to go back and redo much of my undergrad work. She leaned in and said...."you realize the length of time that has passed and we have learned much in these intervening years." I never went back, never applied and decided to go back to work thus ending my academic career. I felt so very old.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Congratulations!!! That's a field I've done some research in myself -- and I'm really glad to see it getting the scholarly attention it deserves! There's no pleasure to be had in associating, even at eighty years separation, with the likes of Coughlin, Pelley, Dilling, Winrod. and Kuhn, but it's a field that, especially in this day and age, needs deep digging.

 

[AmateisGal]

Congratulations!!! That's a field I've done some research in myself -- and I'm really glad to see it getting the scholarly attention it deserves! There's no pleasure to be had in associating, even at eighty years separation, with the likes of Coughlin, Pelley, Dilling, Winrod. and Kuhn, but it's a field that, especially in this day and age, needs deep digging.

Thanks! The parallels to today are unavoidable. I'm focusing on two men from Nebraska who wrote and published anti-Semitic/Christian nationalist/pro-German pamphlets during the 1930s. I'm looking forward to diving into my research, but also being back in the classroom. I miss lectures.

 

[Harp]

I'm looking forward to diving into my research, but also being back in the classroom. I miss lectures.

I absolutely think this is wonderful news kiddo.

But missing classroom, lectures? Wow!

I didn't start college until I was twenty-one, and I couldn't stand classes or lectures, not my thing.
I would visit the prof in his or her office and tell them I didn't need lectures, I would read the assignments,
and take the midterm and final, submit papers, but not show up for classes. I was more to hanging
out in the student grill, drinking coffee, and regaling girls with poetry.

I had this gorgeous blonde American Lit prof who chewed my ass up one side, down the other.
Best ass chewing out I ever had. So, I showed up in her class the following week. Gorgeous asked
the class a few questions, no answers offered. And she called on moi. I nailed it and a few other
witty quiz show stuff she posed. And she stopped, and asked if she was boring me....
I replied that she could never bore me. Coulda heard a dollar bill hit the floor. I just smiled my
usual Tom Cat smile.

The academic dean sent later word he wanted to talk.

Ahh, I wound up in college by accidental chance.

Good luck kiddo. And congrats again.

 

[AmateisGal]

I absolutely think this is wonderful news kiddo.

But missing classroom, lectures? Wow!

I didn't start college until I was twenty-one, and I couldn't stand classes or lectures, not my thing.
I would visit the prof in his or her office and tell them I didn't need lectures, I would read the assignments,
and take the midterm and final, submit papers, but not show up for classes. I was more to hanging
out in the student grill, drinking coffee, and regaling girls with poetry.

I had this gorgeous blonde American Lit prof who chewed my ass up one side, down the other.
Best ass chewing out I ever had. So, I showed up in her class the following week. Gorgeous asked
the class a few questions, no answers offered. And she called on moi. I nailed it and a few other
witty quiz show stuff she posed. And she stopped, and asked if she was boring me....
I replied that she could never bore me. Coulda heard a dollar bill hit the floor. I just smiled my
usual Tom Cat smile.

The academic dean sent later word he wanted to talk.

Ahh, I wound up in college by accidental chance.

Good luck kiddo. And congrats again.

Such a great story! You made me laugh!

And thank you! I'm excited and nervous and wondering if I'll be able to pull this off!

 

[Harp]

Such a great story! You made me laugh!

And thank you! I'm excited and nervous and wondering if I'll be able to pull this off!

You will do fine. Maturity, prior scholastic, published author. Bring a lot to the table kiddo.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Congratulations! Very inspirational. My wife got her Masters Degree at age 50. In large part, due to her experience and hard won practical wisdom, she aced the program with a perfect 4.0 average. So, don’t give that aspect a second thought. Best of luck to you!

 

[Trenchfriend]

Good to hear such news, these days!

 

[CatsCan]

Congrats to your acceptance and above all to your decision! There is no age set for goals and some are better achieved later in life when the ship enters a harbor after riding the storms of the seas. Not a historian and as prehistorian not as close as one may think our professions and passions might be, I would have a hard time staying serious reading my own thesis from my older and wiser point of view. But since defence went well more than two decades ago, at least all the others involved weren't much wiser than me at that time obviously. If I only had waited for the right time to come. But when is the right time? It is always now!
Too lazy myself, too settled myself, too ignorant myself I adore your courage and wished I had it, too. No PhD for me anymore. Wife agrees . Good luck to you!

 

[CatsCan]

My wife got her Masters Degree at age 50

My wife was 27. It was the hardest time I can remember in our time together She talks about a PhD from time to time, but when she sees how the sweat pours out my skin and my hand starts shaking and my eye brows lifting she says: don't worry, sometimes I need to test my weapon systems to see if they still have an effect on you". They have. She IS historian btw, Bismarck era (the gluttony addicted chainsmoking beast...)

 

[SlyGI]

In the midst of everything we've been through in the last year and, well, the first month of 2021, I wanted to share some good news!

This morning I just received my letter of acceptance for the PhD program in history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I will start in the Fall 2021 semester. I'm quite excited! Yes, I'm 45, will be 46 when I start the program, but I feel far more focused now than I did when I got my MA in 2004 (I had a toddler and two elementary-aged kids at home). All my kids are grown, and my personal life has settled down (divorce in 2017 and I've been with my boyfriend for a year now), so I'm eager to start!

I'll be focusing on American fascists and fascist/nationalist movements of the 1930s, early 1940s and leading into WW2. That's the plan right now, but that could change once I get into the program. But whatever it is, it'll be something related to WW2!

Congratulations, that is so awesome!

 

[AmateisGal]

Thanks, everyone, for the well wishes! Pretty excited, yet also terrified. But here's the thing: if I get into the program and after awhile think, hey, this isn't for me, then there's really no shame in quitting it.

 

[Harp]

My wife was 27. It was the hardest time I can remember in our time together She talks about a PhD from time to time, but when she sees how the sweat pours out my skin and my hand starts shaking and my eye brows lifting she says: don't worry, sometimes I need to test my weapon systems to see if they still have an effect on you". They have. She IS historian btw, Bismarck era (the gluttony addicted chainsmoking beast...)

Otto opined God protects drunks, fools, and the United States of America.
An interesting blood and iron ba***rd.

 

[CatsCan]

An interesting blood and iron ba***rd.

Interesting, yes. There are a lot of people who still adore him and say, he was a great strategist. But his praised diplomacy of balancing powers was a fragile cardhouse, prone or even deliberately designed to collapse when he got dismissed. His political measures often falsely undestood as war prevention laid the fundament for two world wars. Of course not without help from a sleeping London (after Prussia/Austria's victory 1864 over Denmark with the shameful role of Denmarks Government under Monrade). Otto made the Austrians run into a well prepared trap shortly after. France to follow. Purely "accidental" in an innocent case of defence against attackers (Denmark, Austria, France) Prussia or it's then "unified" Germany made it's way to a european central power. A well thought-through calculus. And the beginning of all evil. Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt once said: we've had two Thirty-Years-Wars. One from 1618 - 1648, and the second from 1914 to 1945. When Germany or German States were weak, Powers at or beyond Europes margins pushed into it's center. But once it was strong, Germany pushed to the margins and beyond. Bismarck maybe never had any greater interest in any kind of a balance of longer stability. He would never have agreed to a European Union I bet. A truely bad guy.

 

[Harp]

^^^Versailles presaged tragedy as vindictiveness often does. But the Weimar dissolution, rise of National
Socialism; Sudetenland/Munich cannot be cast away from deliberate intent. And the Soviet Union
post war invasion of eastern Europe, cold war etc. fits snugly the Schmidt view.
Herr Schmidt I regard very highly, and found his preference for Ford over Carter, his addiction
to tobacco and nasal snuff made him a less remote world figure.

 

[Harp]

Melisa: Why not keep a journal PhD, publish an account of the academic hike like Scott Turow
did with law school? I met Turow once, just to shake hands and small talk, but I dearly wanted
to know more about his decision to pen One L. I have a gal pal who
went to medical school at forty, and I've tried to convince her to write
her scholastic experiences to no avail.

And, you will do fine kiddo.

 

[CatsCan]

the Soviet Union
post war invasion of eastern Europe

here we have a very interesting perspective. Germany of Schmidt's youth had just shaken off the first very delicate experience of what it means to live a progressive lifestyle in a kind of a tender childhood state of democracy with the lacking capabilities of toddler and limited opportunities due to war compensations. It longed back to it's former control of things. Germany was more of an eastern culture than one would like to believe. It's "western" part fully opened up to the western culture not before the '60s and not without riots. For only about thirty years there was a smell of America in the air. It was the air that I was breathing until I reviewed my favors and switched to the postmodern British culture (yep, I was a Punk). This period of change at the end of the age of americanism is well represented in many of Bowie's song's (his Berlin period). The fading '80s brought "the east" back to this half grown "west". Schmidt always maintained his central view. He never went tired to stress how much Germany is surrounded by neighbors we have to have friendly relationships with according to the view of the founders of the EU. But from the mouth of a man who opted for the deployment of nukes in W-Germany directed against the East, he was not visionary enough. Kohl was an opportunist. Merkel - as much as she is critizized - will maybe one day be looked at as the first real "european" german chancellor with a sure instinct for the interests of a greater east and a greater west. You will have noticed that I skipped Schröder. Rightfully so.

And here we have a fully flowering history thread on FL, thanks to a gal who announced the start of her push for a PhD.

Isn't there at least someone here who want to talk prehistory? Late Palaeolithic - Mesolithic transitions? No? No.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Napoleon is a pastry,
And Bismarck is a herring.
Alexander's a creme-de-cacao mixed with rum.
And Herbie Hoover is a vac-u-um.

Columbus is a circle and a day off,
Pershing is a square, whatta pay off.
Julius Caesar is just a salad on a shelf,
So little brother -- get wise to yourself!"

-- Arlen & Harburg, on the evanescence of history, "Hooray for What!", 1937

 

[AmateisGal]

Melisa: Why not keep a journal PhD, publish an account of the academic hike like Scott Turow
did with law school? I met Turow once, just to shake hands and small talk, but I dearly wanted
to know more about his decision to pen One L. I have a gal pal who
went to medical school at forty, and I've tried to convince her to write
her scholastic experiences to no avail.

And, you will do fine kiddo.

Thanks!

And actually, that's not a bad idea. I'll put a reminder to myself to try it so I don't forget because my brain is so discombobulated lately that it's very possible I WILL forget.