High school: 3.98 GPA Community College: 3.7 GPA University: currently all A’s
Hello all! I’m a community college transfer in my first semester at a university. My end goal is to become a history professor, so I’m deciding whether getting a master’s first and then a PhD. I’ve done a lot of research on funding and how that works, so I know a master’s likely won’t be funded unless I work as a TA or something. Really, I’m wanting to know how difficult a history master’s is vs a PhD. One of my history professors told me that getting his master’s was really easy because all he did was read and write papers (my two strengths) and he didn’t have to worry about all the exams all the time. I was just wanting to know if this is universally the case for most people and if I should do this or go straight from undergrad to PhD. My main worry is that I’m not smart enough for a PhD, but maybe I am. I’m really not sure. Any advice or firsthand accounts would be awesome!
EDIT: For what it’s worth, I am in the USA and I’m mostly interested in 20th century US (and I’ve found recently I’m really loving colonial America too).
Note: Please don’t try to dissuade me. I know all about the job market, but this is 10000% my passion and I’ve never enjoyed anything other than history.
It really depends on what school you go to and the specific requirements of the program - sometimes you can do a one-year MA, or sometimes it's two years, and sometimes you might need to write a Master's thesis, and sometimes it will just be coursework and essays and exams. Things might differ depending on what kind of history you want to study.
Since you mentioned community college and GPA, I assume you're in the US, and since there's an enormous amount of schools there it's hard to be specific...but from my experience (in Canada, University of Toronto), the MA was basically just like "year zero" of the PhD program.
We could have done a two-year MA and could have written an MA thesis - that was the "terminal MA" option, for people who didn't plan on continuing to the PhD program. Personally I can't think of anyone who chose that route.
For people continuing into the PhD program, we didn't have to write an MA thesis, but there were classes and exams. Assuming you passed all the exams with sufficiently good grades, you were allowed to continue on into the PhD program...you still had to apply, of course, but almost everyone in year 1 of the PhD with me had also been in the MA program the year before. For the PhD there was a couple of years of coursework and more exams, and then you spent the rest of your time researching and writing your thesis (which generally took 5-7 years, among the people I went to school with).
So for me, the MA was sort of like the minor leagues of the PhD. It was like practise for the stress of the PhD program. If you could hack it in the MA year, you'd probably be fine...some people eventually did drop out as PhD students, but definitely, the ones who couldn't handle the MA year didn't apply (or didn't get in) to the PhD program.
Also some people did the MA in Toronto and went somewhere else for their PhD, and some people had done an MA elsewhere first. Sometimes that is preferrable, apparently - maybe in some areas of history it's considered bad form to stay in one place? But like I said, almost all the PhD students in Toronto did their MA there too.
Hello! Not a History major here (final year of Anthropology, admitted to a PHD program for the fall), but if you are going to get a PHD eventually in order to be hired as a professor, then you should shoot for a PHD program. Most require you getting your “masters” along the way, so if something changes and you want to stop at your masters, most PHD programs have a solution to let you end at your masters. It is more difficult to get into PHD programs of course, but not impossible if you work hard, focus, and make good connections! As you seem to be passionate about your field, look into getting some undergrad research experience to make sure you are ready for the graduate world of academic research. Also, I would never say that a masters program is inherently easier than a PHD program; they both have positives and negatives and some people are suited for one or the other. Good luck!
Answering entirely from my own personal experience here. My BA is in Historical Studies and I asked one of my mentoring history professors the same sort of thing. The general advice was:
And 2) many of the PhD programs will require you to essentially do an MA in your first two years of the program, even if you already have one.
I am currently in the terminal MA program—not a History program but related to my area of interest—that my mentoring professor suggested as a non-PhD option. It is unfunded and very expensive (out of state still applies for graduate students.) I like the program, but having decided to actually apply to PhD programs this past fall I know I will, for sure, have to do not one but two more Master’s degrees for my top choice if I get in.
So that is definitely something to consider.
The other thing to consider is that there are a vanishingly small number of terminal MA programs for History, going to PhD programs gives you a much wider pool of options.