I am going to start off by saying that I am writing this from three weeks in to my research stint abroad. Therefore, I am by no means an expert on this topic, and I predict that my rationale, methods, mood, etc., will oscillate and change through this whole process. That is precisely, though, why I am documenting this to convey and debunk some of the myths that I held about life beyond comps and planning for research year, while still in this process, reflecting, and figuring things out for myself. So, while it is still fresh, I want to write about the last few years, focusing on how to prepare for more or less a year-long stint traveling, either domestically or internationally. I am going to talk less on specifities of where I am going, and just what I did.
I also want to put in a bit of a disclaimer. I am going based solely off of my experience and what I did leading up. I recognize that I am extremely privileged being that I am on my own without a partner, child(ren), or those that I need to care for, that I conducted prelim research in a country that is somewhat easy and inexpensive to travel to and from, and that I had access to pots of funding to conduct these trips during the summer months. Take what you can from this.
To start off: I have known since the beginning of my second year that my research year would put me squarely in Mexico City, Mexico for at least half of the year or more. So, with the generous help of the History Department at UT, I was able to take two scouting trips, one at the end of first year, and a longer one at the end of second year. I cannot say this enough: these trips were invaluable for many reasons that I get into below. Manage what you can, with what you can, but try to do as much scouting as you can beforehand.
The first trip I spent two weeks, which was only enough time work-wise for general introductions to some of the archivists at one of the places that I would be working at, get updated indexes for this particular archive, and do some cursory document collecting. This worked perfectly for a few different reasons. First, I had never been down to Mexico City, so it allowed me to get a feel for the city, for the areas I would want to stay, and the general gist of how things worked in the archives. It allowed me to test a workflow that I had in mind when collecting and going through documents, which ultimately failed, and I still have a few folders of documents that I haven’t touched since that year. But hey, low stakes and a good trial run. Another big thing that was beneficial about this short trip was that it enabled me to work at a paid internship at the Latin American Library at UT, which set me up for two more years of paid work, great experience, and connections to many of the visiting scholars there. The summer after first year does not have as much pressure to be hard core parcore research heavy, so having my focus be on the internship, getting acquainted with where I would most likely be researching, and test-driving how to collect and manage massive amounts of data worked well. Takeaways: I have learned graduate school is figuring out your personal style of navigating the “hurry up, but slow down” mentality. First year summer’s primary focus should be on finding an internship or an opportunity that you can build up experience, read more literature in your field, save up money, and recoup from the first year. If you are able to do some archival research, especially if you have not been to the location you are thinking of, try to make it work, but it is not an absolute necessity. IMO start saving money and recharging, being the last “break," should take precedence.
Second year, or for my department, the final year of coursework, focuses on sharpening two sets of writing skills; on one hand, to ultimately draft a large-scale term paper or masters report, and on the other, starting to practice writing grant applications. Both of these processes, in separate but equally important ways, helps you to fine-tune what exactly your dissertation project will initially look like. Something that I brought from my process of applying to graduate schools is to start EARLY creating an excel document of things you’ll be applying for. In this case, for grants, including information like when they are due, what they require, website of requirements/application, etc., of not only ones I could apply for in second or third year, but also ones I had general interest in. Starting to compile this during second-year will help enormously moving forward, as many of the bigger applications for research year are due in the fall, meaning you should start working on them during the summer between second and third year, and we all know how hard it is to corral faculty during the summer. I have four different tabs on this spreadsheet, a pre-research, research, writing/writing competition, post-doc.
Although this may seem excessive, starting in second year will allow you to just add to it when you see an email come in with a grant that seems particularly interesting to you, whether it be something you can apply for currently or something in three years. Add in as many as possible, even if they seem like a long-shots. The whole name of the game is applying for as much as possible. You will get rejected by many, unfortunately that is the process, but the sting burns less with time (perhaps? It still hurts), and the more you apply, the more of a shot you have in getting one. Also, you have no idea where your research may develop as you move along through the process, so adding in things to the spreadsheet that may have only a slight relevance to your current research, may prove to be THE ONE later on. I think my sheet has about 100 currently, some I probably will never apply for but it never hurts. It will also save you a massive amount of time just sitting through and google searching or scouring H-net for grants that you can apply for. Asking around, particular older students, looking at CV’s of people in your field to see what they’ve received, taking note when you read monograph acknowledgements, seeing even applicants that are applying to work on your department’s CVs are great ways to know which ones you should add to your list.
So, with this in mind, I took a stab at applying for a few different grants during my second year, which was a great, low stakes way to practice writing these persnickety things and build up those hard-hitting lines that every grant-reviewer looks for. As well, it helped me work out some of the ideas I wanted to develop on in my research during that summer and helped me build relationships with the members that I wanted to be on my comps/dissertation committees. Building this process of looking for potential grants, drafting some of the shittiest first copies of these grant proposals, asking for feedback early on, and honing on these skills allowed me to spend six weeks my second-year summer down in Mexico City getting in research that would give me specifities that I needed to write larger grant applications, as well to write my dissertation prospectus that following spring. I was able to build a folder of grant proposal iterations that proved invaluable to draw upon for some of the writing projects I did during third-year while reading for comps.
This second pre-dissertation-research research trip I would argue was the most invaluable for me as a person and for the development of my project. For one, I spent the entire trip by myself. The first go-around I traveled with a friend, which worked out so well for the purpose of the trip of getting adjusted and acquainted to Mexico City, which is extremely large and overwhelming despite having lived in large international cities before. Going by myself, however, gave me time to figure out how I wanted to research/work/live a little more long-term. Being on the younger-end of graduate students, this experience taught me that research involves little-to-none daily or weekly accountability, so it forced me to develop both the mindset that this is a work trip, not a party-vacation trip, and methods that I can put into place to allow me to be as productive as possible. From my perspective currently, building these skills with higher stakes, but still not as high stakes as full on research year, are proving invaluable to ease myself into being a full-time researcher, at least for this period. Especially as I did not go through a Masters program prior to starting, which would also be a great time to create these habits, this was crucial for me to gain confidence that I could do this. During this time, I was also able to solidify relationships with researchers and archivists that I am working with now, make connections with sponsors for some of my larger grants, and test another workflow for how I would manage documents.
This trip was far from easy, however. With my failed first stab at collecting documents, I came prepared with a new method (that I currently am using and will elaborate on in a connected post) and ready to get as much work done as possible. As life happens, though, the first week I was in Mexico City, I spilled a latte on my brand-new laptop, absolutely frying my hard-drive. So, while I was not able to use this workflow, this trip taught me another key research-year skill, how to not absolutely melt down when a key tool you need is out of commission, and how to pivot to still get as much work done as possible. So, while I ended up spending umtheenth more hours processing the documents I collected after I got back into the States and acquired a new, functional laptop, this trip really gave me a sliver of confidence that I can work in a foreign country, I can maneuver my way around difficulties that arise, and I can thrive despite it all. Mind you, being 23 at the time, this is HEADWAY.
Comps year. This is why building, layering, and practicing these skills are so crucial before you are hit with a 150+ book list, TA responsibilities, life, and what-have-you. First off, especially if you are going to be traveling away from where your university or where you are currently are located, have in mind a time that you want to leave for research and adjust your housing for third year based off of that. I made the mistake of starting a January-January lease my second until third year, which resulted in me paying premium prices for a six-month lease to leave during the summer, which is when I planned to depart. This can be a flexible date in your head at this point, but I will say it is much easier to find short-term housing than trying to get out of a lease. Beyond having rough dates and budgetary ideas in mind for however many research locations you have, which are needed for many applications, I would not focus as much on clarifying these until spring as much as I would use your time on revising your proposal and getting great letters of recommendations.
After I came back from my research trip, I immediately took to writing and finessing my grant applications that were due in the fall, which was a great strategy as the documents and my research were fresh in my mind. I would definitely suggest spending August prior to when school starts in session focusing on going through material that you collected and just write, revise, write, revise as much as you can to prepare yourself for applications. Developing a more long-winded proposal and then a short and succient proposal when you have this time will give you the flexibility to edit it to fit whatever application you need. Another key takeaway I have from comps year in regards to the grant writing process, at least for me, is to eliminate as many extraneous responsibilities, projects, etc., to solely focus on reading for comps, writing and revising applications, and TA responsibilities. I made the mistake of continuing an internship that I thought I could handle, on top of writing my master’s thesis, reading for comps, and revising grant applications, which ultimately took away from the quality of applications I wrote in the fall and why my spring was much stronger. As many departments stress to diversify your skill-set, as much as you want to dip your hand into as many things as possible, as much as you have a little bit of a squirrel mind like me, just focus on comps, grants, work, and having a little bit of a social life during third-year. Nothing more, nothing less. Trying to do so much was one of my biggest mistakes of graduate school thus far, and something I sorely regret about the beginning of comps year.
Come the beginning of spring semester, as my reading was winding down (a touch) and my proposal was strong enough that I only needed to do a bit of revising to send to many applications as possible, I started to map-out what my research year would look like in specifics. Getting a firmer idea in order to start to book flights and accomodations early on that spring was an absolute necessity to help quell nerves that were coming from comps year in general and leaving for research. Spending a weekend or two doing this is something that I would highly recommend as grant money does not come in until middle summer at the earliest, so making your budget as precise as possible, scheduling out when you are going to purchase these expensive front-end things such as flights and housing, thinking about if you need to take out a credit-card, etc., so you avoid paying extra last minute prices, will help you out in the long run. I could talk until the end of the earth how this process really is limiting for many, particularly reimbursement-style grants, but that is not the point of this, this is how I made it work.
From many of my applications, I had identified a short list of archives that seemed particularly applicable to my research, which straddled between Mexico City and Rome, Italy. Prior researching my previous two summers allowed me to have a SUPER rough feel of how much I could get through weekly. Inevitably as we also have outside lives, I needed to account time and money traveling back and forth to the states for my brother’s wedding the fall of my research year. I knew I would be flying frequently, so I took out an airline-geared credit card to help with the off-period of funding, as well as to bank as many rewards from flying as possible. I am a visual person so I printed a twelve-month calendar and filled in the time that I would need to be traveling for family things to start to mentally block off the time, and then started to map out my archival time at each location to have a general idea.
Because living in Mexico City is far cheaper than living in Austin, I decided early on that I would leave July. I knew I wanted to split up my year being eight months in CDMX and the other three-four months in Rome. From there, I started looking at Airbnbs for the Mexico leg and settled on the place that I had stayed at the previous year. Some things I would recommend looking into/thinking about beyond the normal safety/price are 1.) cancellation policies for changing/extending your trip 2.) Airbnb for long-term requires first month up front, as do most apartments, so expect to fork out some extra money for that 3.) transit opportunities from locations to see if you can stay somewhere in the middle to decrease moving places. Airbnb was a crucial choice for me, as staying in the same place two summers in a row gave me the familiarity to jump right into research right away. Additionally, by meeting people, I was able to find a better deal in a better apartment, so having an idea of the cancellation requirements allowed me to commit to this opportunity. (Side note: Always call Airbnb to cancel, they were able to save me a lot of money instead of just changing my reservation online!)
From there, I booked my departing flights and the extraneous flights that I needed. Especially if you are traveling to multiple countries, be sure of Visa requirements. I am able to get by because I am traveling frequently to the US, but Visa paperwork can take months, so schedule that in, if needed. From there, just focus on comps, and following through on plans that you’ve scheduled in.
I get that this is a TON of information, it is what I intented. Honestly, I never got a play-by-play timeline on how people started to plan their research trips, and I wish I knew what intervals to start things at. If you have any questions, PLEASE let me know, and I will be sure to answer them. If not, I will continue on with how I planned/completed comps year.
xo
