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kojohn11 t1_itgj423 wrote

What periods and places are good to know French as a history student? Clearly, if you were gonna go to graduate school for the classics or the ancient world you would be expected to know Latin. So what periods and places would you be expected to know French?

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Clio90808 t1_itgznax wrote

I did graduate study in Medieval European history and was expected to be able to read German, French and Latin as a minimum.

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kojohn11 t1_itirobc wrote

This may sound like a really stupid question, but what made you decide on medieval European history? Were you always interested in it? Right now I’m in undergrad and I know i want to go to graduate school for in particular. I just don’t have a area I want to specialize in though

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Clio90808 t1_itlrsqf wrote

Well because it gave me chills and I just loved it. Nothing really rational about my decision tbh. I also love ancient history but had enough trouble with Latin, didn't want to tackle Greek. I discovered fairly late that I didn't enjoy teaching that much though. If you don't know Latin well, medieval can be a real challenge. I never mastered it.

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kojohn11 t1_itm4xmk wrote

What profession are you in now?

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Clio90808 t1_itoqoid wrote

I turned to the dark side eventually and got an MBA...worked in research on financial markets...I got to do some financial/economic history along the way. Studying history taught me so much: how to do research; how to analyze; how to create an argument and support/defend it; how to write a paper...I used all that in my career. Also if you work internationally, knowing their history can be a big plus.

For a successful career outside of history after majoring in it, it certainly helps to have graduate training in whatever non-history career path you choose. If you like to teach, then history may be a good path on its own. My problem was that I didn't enjoy teaching that much and you need to love it to make it through, to make history your life work.

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Bentresh t1_ith4dy7 wrote

French and German are required languages for many disciplines in the humanities. I had to pass translation exams in both back when I was a PhD student in Egyptology.

I wrote more about this in Seeing as Egypt was under British patronage for most of the last two centuries, why is the majority of ancient Egyptian research primarily in French?

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outerworldLV t1_itprk6k wrote

Imo, it would have to do with the French and German archeologists that did a lot of work there.

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outerworldLV t1_itpr737 wrote

What about the time of the Cathar’s ? And when the Knight Templars were there ?

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