NoSleepTilBreuckelen

Congrats daykid!! Hope they let you know about funding soon too!

hey dana, if you already paid ETS to send the scores, call them and they should resend - you definitely shouldn't have to pay to send them twice. ETS has an online log-in where you can view who you've sent your scores to, and if Berkeley is on that list in the last 5 years, then its on them to make sure the scores get to berkeley, it just might take you calling and hassling them a bit!

Thanks, everyone! I think it'll be sort of like a group interview, which will be interesting - I'll report back about it. Haha, monfemme, yeah, that's the reference, but with the 1600's Dutch spelling of Brooklyn, to make it a sufficiently nerdy for me

Got an invite to travel to NY for an interview at the AMNH - so excited!!!! The program is technically the Biology program and it seems like bio programs are contacting earlier than anthro program... Here's hoping we all start hearing news for our various anthro programs soon

Great answers here already! I'll chime in that I would call this cultural reproduction. Similar to what o.j. said about cultural production, but including change over time (like you described in the use of oriental rugs as tablecloths in the Netherlands), since cultural signs change and are appropriated differently through reproduction. I second the recommendation of Hebdige!

Way beyond

unrepeatable feat

Hey daykid - did you get your language reference question figured out? I get the impression that for languages where applicants are starting at the beginning level, they're looking for a recommender from any language you've previously taken to comment of your language learning abilities. Likewise, I have been out of undergrad for a while now (going on 6 years!) and I cannot track down the person who was my language instructor in college (they were a grad student at the time). So I've I asked one of my high school language instructors to write the recommendation. I never thought my AP test scores would matter again, but it seems they do, haha!

Adding to what monfemme said, basically you can apply for FLAS funding through a university if you are studying a region for which they receive FLAS funding from the US government. Each university has some flexibility in the eligibly requirements for the funding. I've noticed that for students applying to receive funding for language study, there are some languages that you can apply to as a beginner and some where it is recommended that applicants have previous training. Often the languages that you can apply to as a beginner are ones that are less commonly offered in American programs, so they don't expect many student to have had the opportunity to learn these (e.g. Uzbek, Yucatec Mayan, or Wolof). Others that are offered more widely at universities, generally require/recommend some previous study of that language (e.g. Russian).

Losing my cell phone, and then finding it. Losing my wallet, and then finding it. Losing my keys…. It's like I'm too distracted to pay attention to where I set things down. Any guesses on what will going missing next (so that I know what to attach a tracking device to…)?

Yeah, I likewise heard that there would only be one spot for archaeology at UT Austin (also not me). How very Highlander of them...

I completely agree with NOWAYNOHOW (and I love the jeggings example, haha!), fit has a lot to do with compatibility geographically, theoretically, chronologically with research that is ongoing in the department. If you apply to Y University has a strength in jegging-wearer ethnography (or maybe their strength is even more broadly in the anthropology of fashion) and you apply wanting to study how video games are affecting attendance at national parks, and they don't have anyone studying anything related to video games, or national parks, or family entertainment or anything else related, they won't have a faculty to match you up with as a mentor/advisor, regardless of how great your application is. I definitely found it really hard to tell about fit just from the department's/POI's websites. There were two programs that I thought I would be a good fit in, but when I wrote professors in these two programs, they wrote back to let me know that was not so. In one instance it had to do with changes in faculty that weren't yet reflected on the department's website. In the other, the POI was super nice and suggested a program where my interests would fit better. If you are interested in a department because there are faculty or labs there that work on projects you are interested in, then you are definitely heading in the right directions of having a good fit for the department.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York has several types of anthropology internships that involve handling and working with artifacts (that's what I did after college - it was a great and very useful experience): http://research.amnh.org/anthropology/about/internship I'm sure there are lots of others as well, but you might just have to look at museum's website for employment and internship listings. Edit: For some reason I can't get the link above to work, event though that is the correct address, if you search "AMNH anthropology internship" it'll come up...

Great topic! Someone sent me this article earlier and it's been on my mind. I certainly hope the the GRE (and SATs for our college-bound counterparts) gets phased out in US grad applications in light of evidence like this. In addition to the author's point that GREs are written in such a way that they are skewed to certain groups and against others, we all know they are SOOOOO expensive, which can skew the results by socioeconomics (e.g. whether someone can afford to take/retake, and how many an applicant can afford to send out). Great STEM innovators/scientists come from all backgrounds (race, gender, socioeconomics, etc.), so it's frustrating to see something like the GRE that's acting against diversity in the STEM fields. I was about to say that I'm comforted by the fact that I don't get the impression that universities put that much weight on GREs, but even by requiring the GRE they are demanding that potential students shell out a minimum of $185 just to be able to apply. And usually it's more than that, once you factor in 1) study material, 2) transportation to the test, 3) sending the test to more than 4 schools. With a retake that could hit upwards of $500 - yikes!

Hey colorless - I'm interested in human/plant interactions in the past, so I was looking for programs that have environmental archaeology or paleoecology labs. I applied to UT Austin, Berkeley, UChicago, NYU, UNT (Environmental Archaeology Program within Geography), Yale (Anthropology/Forestry joint degree program), and the AMNH RGGS program (Comparative Biology). Now that all my apps are in, I think it's about time I create a signature What are your interests? You're archaeology, right?

I think you could talk to the faculty you plan to ask down the road about it now and tell them that after your service you plan to apply to grad school. It'll be like giving them a heads-up for when you formally ask them for the letters when you apply. They may also have some great advice about programs for you to consider or funding opportunities.

Pressure Drop by Toots and the Maytals is a great de-stressed for me! great thread, btw!

Agreed! I have a blast doing it. I teach earth science programs at the museum and at schools, so everything from the history of life on earth to climate and weather. I had been involved in a science education non-profit in college (a paleontology-focused one, which was pretty great) and decided I wanted to give it a try as a career. I applied to museums all over the US and finally got a place at one (it took like 60+ applications!). I've been there three years now and it's been fun (lots of liquid nitrogen experiments and the likes ). I'm applying to PhD programs so that can continue to do my own research, but I definitely looked for schools that had big outreach or engagement programs. My advice would be to get experience, even if its volunteer or part time, an outreach education groups that your school might have or at a museum/nature center. It's definitely that combination of science knowledge and prior experience working with kid that, at least, our museum looks for. One of my friends there has a degree in archaeology and used to work at Disneyland, which totally made her the perfect candidate for the job. I highly recommend it. I think that so many grade school students these days shy away from science careers because they 1) don't see scientists as relatable and 2) don't see science as fun. I was at a school recently and we were doing a really simple demo with dry ice and water to represent the water cycle (the smoke that comes off dry ice is actually condensed water, like clouds...) and one of the kids exclaimed "Wow, this is real science!" While the student obviously enjoyed the experiment, it made me sad that with funding for science the way it is (or isn't, really…), most students don't actually get to do many experiments. They probably just see science as learning hard vocab words. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now, but I definitely recommend it! I'm apply to archaeology programs, what sort of programs are you interested in?

I'm not applying to Duke, but I'm interested to had what others have to about SOP citations. I cited two reference in my SOP. For the most part my SOP was about my interests, my background, and my fit in the programs I applied to. Since I'm interested in studying the domestication of crop plants, I felt it important include a a couple sentences about how I define domestication and I cited two authors whose theories on domestication I was building on. So only one paragraph had citations, simply because I felt it important to acknowledge where my ideas were coming from. Did you include citations?

Thanks for sharing, Canis! Great resource

Me three…. I don't think it's a problem not to have them (i.e. the adcoms know your original thesis had citations), but there have been some good points out there about why to include them.

Agreed! I think in situations where your objective is pretty clear (like applying to grad school), you don't need to include that section. I do, however, put an "interests" line at the top, that is basically my interests in a few keywords.

I completely agree with the above advise - and UNT is a really good school! I have several friends who went there for undergad who now have great grad placements and another who went there for a masters and has a cool job (there are all archaeology folks). One piece of advise that I've found helpful is that schools are looking for student who will be happy in and speak highly of their program to others, and one of the best indicators of that is how you speak about the programs and opportunities you've been involved in. I think if you demonstrate confidence in the program/field school/organic farm that you've been involved in that will definitely be a plus in your application and communication with professors. Sounds like a really cool research interest!

I had not been aware of this series of articles until you posted - thanks for brining this up! And wow do those posts get heated quick! I'm glad this topic is being debated and I really hope some constructive changes happen because of this (both in tenure-track interview scheduling and also higher education blogging demeanor...). One point that wasn't elaborated on in the posts, but that I think would be great to talk about (and maybe people here have ideas…) is how to navigate such a system, where candidates for academic positions are up against steep competition and just getting to the interviews can be daunting. While I'm no expert, I will say that at the program where I am currently a master's student, there is an open tenure track position, and the department interviewed the candidates at a national conference. They did this to try and make it easier for the candidates, so that they didn't have to make a separate trip to the city where the university is to interview. Our department even sent several professors and students who weren't presenting at the conference there just to conduct the interviews. I wonder if a candidate had not been able to make the conference, would they have been allowed to visit the university? From being on the inside of this department (i.e. a student there) I'm pretty sure that would have been okay, but I bet a lot of job seekers would be hesitant to ask for such accommodations. I'm definitely glad to see committees getting called out for short-turn arounds and other moves that are inconsiderate of applicants, but I hope that the impassioned posts on the blogs mentioned above aren't the end of this conversation. I would love to see articles and blogs advising job seekers on what they can and can't ask for and expect in these situations. In the end I hope that search committees could learn from these debates to provide candidates with options - for example, offering either a conference interviews or one at the university. I also hope that all of us in the academic community, whether we're not at the job search part yet, whether we're way past it, or whether we're in the mist of it, can support job seekers with advice, insights, and solidarity. That's the way the system is going to change - if we're working together.

Haha, to the OP, I feel the exact same way! I know it's part of the SOP to mention who you want to work with, and some school specifically ask that you include this information, but I can't help but feel like I'm overstepping my place as a mere applicant to say who I am interested in working with. I always try and remember it's come thing they're expecting and reading from lots of applicants. I usually phrase it "I am interested in the prospect of work with Dr. …."