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The Path to a Ph.D. in Anthropology


Dreamer23

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I'm currently finishing up my senior year of college and am looking for advice pertaining to getting a Ph.D. in Anthropology. In the fall I'll be leaving to begin two years of Peace Corps service in Eastern Europe. Upon coming back to the United States I would like to pursue a Ph.D. in Anthropology. As I have a rather average undergraduate GPA, I'm considering the possibility of first pursuing a Master's degree in either Eastern European Studies or International Development (I should also mention that I would like to focus my Ph.D. work on Eastern Europe as well). My thought was that by the time I apply to those programs I will have been living in Eastern Europe for nearly two years, and hopefully that may give me an edge in the admissions process especially when it comes to the language requirement that many Eastern European Studies Master's programs require. 

The other option would be to apply for the Ph.D. straight out of the Peace Corps. I know many Ph.D. programs offer Master's degrees on their way to the Ph.D., but I don't believe I will be as competitive of a candidate if I were to go this route, since my undergraduate record is, as I said, average. As a result, I think I might stand a better chance at getting into a top program for a Master's degree then in-turn have a better chance at getting in to a top Ph.D. program down the road. 

I've just started the process of researching what option might be best in the long-run, but I thought this would be a great place to get some practical advice on where to go from here. 

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Why not do both? In your last year in the Peace Corps, if you can afford it, why not apply to both a lot of master's programs and to a few of your top choice PhDs? Then if you get into a PhD, you've saved yourself two years, but you've also done your best to give yourself a variety of master's options.

I would be a little wary, by the way, of getting an international development master's on the way to an anthropology PhD. Many international development programs have neoliberal outlooks that relate a little awkwardly to anthropology, which likes to avow an anti-neoliberal perspective for itself. A development master's shouldn't prevent you from getting into anthropology PhD programs or anything—I've already met a couple admitted students with that sort of degree—but I'd guess that applying right out of one would mean that your essays would need even more careful attention than usual. 

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