August 27, 2008

Well, it's that time again. Classes started last evening at Fairmont State for my final semester as an undergraduate. I think I am really going to enjoy my Tuesday night class. It's U.S. Naval and Maritime History. As many of you know, I plan to study maritime history in graduate school. That's part of what makes me excited about this class. It is the first time that Fairmont State has offered the class and I was really surprised when I saw it on the schedule.

As far as graduate school, I have 2 of the six applications complete - University of Delaware and University of Maryland. I still have to submit letters of recommendation and transcripts, but otherwise those are complete. I have started the applications for Johns Hopkins University and University of Pittsburgh. I hope to have those done this weekend. I will hopefully start the last two applications next week - Ohio State (sorry all you Penn State fans - better OSU than Michigan?) and William & Mary. Wish me luck. The best thing would be for me to get accepted at all the schools and have my choice, but I don't know how likely that is to happen. I'm just hoping I get accepted to one of them. Competition in history is pretty tough. Only about 7-8% of applicants get accepted to any one school. That's why I had to apply to six - to increase my odds of finding something.

Well, it's off to do my homework. A 20 page annotated bibliography on U.S. maritime history. Believe it or not, I am actually excited about doing it because I will then be able to use that bibliography in grad school and it is a subject I really enjoy.

Thanks for reading.