bioarch_fan

I go to Mississippi State and I am from a very liberal town in Ohio. I came down here as a gay male with similar fears as yours and I have acclimated quite well. You have to remember that anthropology departments and academia as a whole are completely different atmospheres than you'll have in other areas of the state. Yes, you'll still come across some crazy people but you'll come across more friendly people than anything else. I have friends at Bama and some who went to Bama and they love it there. They are one of the top schools for medical anthropology and personally I believe that if you want to get your MPH then you should really have a degree in medical anthropology too. You can't be expected to know about the nuances of health without being able to tease out the intricate details within the culture as a whole. With just an MPH, you aren't exactly learning how culture might influence biology and how biology might influence the culture. Bama is a huge program for the biocultural approach and would go a long way in helping you in future careers. I'm also a strong proponent for not going to a school where you don't get funding for sure the first year. I came to my program because I was given one year of funding at the very least. Yes, I still took out loans to pay off the rest of my tuition that wasn't covered by the tuition remission but it helped me from having to find a job off campus somewhere else. I would highly suggest giving it more thought about going to Bama over CWRU. If you have specific questions about living in the south compared to the north or somewhere else that is very liberal/"welcoming" then please feel free to PM me.

Source?

Well thankfully Mississippi State's MA program is designed to be a 3 year program. We require our students to do an internship, as well as thesis, for cultural students and an internship, survey field school, excavation field school, and the thesis for archaeology/bioarchaeology students. So this takes time to complete.

Ah ok. You didn't look at Mississippi State? Our department is pretty big for bioarch, especially down here. Lol.

If you don't mind my asking, what subfield are you in? I'm a little north of Southern Miss at Mississippi State.

I'd be surprised if offices were closed. The only time that university offices are closed are for weekends, inclement weather, or most federally recognized holidays.

I know a little about isotopes but probably not nearly as much as other people. I'm willing to help as much as I can though.

They're both on my list for potential PhD programs too! I'll be doing my applications for PhD next year.

Congrats!!! Purdue is definitely on my list for PhD programs to apply to next year!!!

All are amazing schools! My advisor is really good friends with Christina Warinner from Oklahoma. And I almost applied to Reno but decided to get my MA first...I kind of wish I would have at least tried to apply straight to their PhD program though. One of our current profs here studied at UNLV under Deb Martin, so we have close ties to that program (one of our current MA students also went to UNLV for undergrad).

Oh awesome! Good luck! UWF is the only school out of the ones you listed that I applied to. I wanted to work with Kristina Killgrove. But U Pitt and UMass-Amherst are both on my list for PhD programs.

Where else did you apply if you don't mind my asking? I'm also bioarch, but I'm not applying for PhD until next Fall since I have another year left in my MA program.

Mushroom at the end of the World is amazing!!! I read that in undergrad. Something that I'm reading for my quant class this semester is actually pretty interesting, if you're interested in reading about quantitative methods (in a way). It's called The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow.

Ian Boellstorff? Do you mean Tom Boellstorff? And omg...only read Hodder if you want to go insane. Lol.

If you're an American student, I've been told by numerous people that if you plan on getting your PhD after getting your masters in the UK, it's a lot harder to get into a program. This is because most of the masters programs in the UK are only one year and many future professors think that it's not enough time to gain the experience needed for future studies. I'm not 100% in agreement with that statement, but I would say that you should take it into consideration. Maybe talk it over with your current professors and American students studying at these universities or who have studied there to see what they say about their experiences after finishing there. I know that I really wanted to study at UCL for bioarch, but decided against it for numerous reasons, but mostly because of the cost of attendance for international students plus the cost of living in London is extremely expensive. If you don't have any funding from the university, I would suggest against attending the universities. I don't know much about the cultural side of anthropology at these schools, but I will say that they are well-known around the world anyway. But again, I'm iffy about doing a masters there and then coming back to the States for a PhD. Maybe if you plan on getting your PhD abroad too it won't be as bad.