A variety of resources are available to support graduate students as they prepare and search for an academic position or other professional work that reflects the range of skills and knowledge gained from doctoral study. History at Illinois is a pioneer member of the American Historical Association's Career Diversity project. In 2019, it became one of only five history departments chosen to participate in the American Association of University's PhD Education Initiative, with the goal of fostering student-centered doctoral education and preparing students for a full range of career pathways.
Workshops
Each semester the Department of History offers workshops for graduate students who are entering the job market.
Practice job talks
Graduate students who receive an invitation to give a job talk as part of the application process will have the opportunity to give a practice talk to faculty and students in the department. This provides the job candidate an excellent opportunity to practice the presentation prior to the formal interview. At the end of the presentation a question and answer period provides the candidate ample opportunity to practice the content and to receive feedback about the presentation.
Pedagogy Course
We offer a departmental pedagogy course for graduate students, which engages a broad range of teaching questions, includes discussion of literatures on pedagogy and history education.
Campus Resources
The Graduate College Career Development Office holds workshops for humanists on careers inside and outside of academia. Its Office of External Fellowships also holds grant-writing workshops and offers one-on-one advice and other resources.
The Humanities Research Institute, especially the Mellon-Foundation funded Humanities Without Walls program, a collaborative program that, among other activities, holds summer workshops for pre-doctoral students in the humanities who desire to explore careers outside the academy as well as cross-institutional teams of faculty and graduate students pursuing research that focuses on a grand challenge.
Digital Humanities resources and relevant courses at the School of Information Sciences are summarized here Digital Humanities in the iSchool.
Additional Resources
Visit our professional development resources page for links and information compiled by our Job Search and Career Development committee.