 While at Harvard, he spent the 1968-1969 term studying at the Centre for the Study of Social History at the University of Warwick in Coventry, U.K..He obtained his master's degree in 1971 and his doctorate in 1977, both from the University of Rochester, where he studied with Herbert Gutman.After obtaining his master's degree, from 1972 to 1974 Fink was a lecturer in the Department of History at the City College of New York.