anthroflea

Pushing this back up for people who recently got into places. Will probably turn this into some graphs soon.

Have you decided on a specific area within bioarch you would like to specialize on? Method wise it could be topics such as isotopic analysis, trauma, paleopathology, dental macrowear, dental microwear, taphonomic studies, stress markers, development... Or maybe more specific questions than just your region such as violence, class, sex differences... One way to match up with a potential POI is by your region, the others are by your methods and/or specific questions and/or time period in which you are interested. Ideally, as many of these factors as possible match or compliment your POI's interests. I think I remember reading somewhere you are interested in working in Turkey(?) So, let's say you find somebody doing research in Lebanon - but who is interested in very similar questions - this would be a pretty good match. Or, to include another example, say you are interested in a cultural group which populated more than just the region of today's Turkey. In this case, you might even find somebody who is researching the same cultural group just in a different country. To give a third example, let's say you are interested in diet and isotopic analysis. You may find a POI who is interested in diet, stable isotope analysis and at one point worked in the middle East. The more overlap you find, the greater the "fit", but this doesn't mean everything has to align perfectly. You just have to be the best candidate;) If you've already run into the problem of nobody wanting to take you on even though many of these factors align, I wonder whether they have concerns about you gaining access to a site in the country you want to work in. I know some countries don't really like to give research permits to non-citizens. If any of this would be a concern, but you are certain you would get a permit/already have a site you can help out at/want to do museum work, you should stress this in your statement for next year;) (If this is a problem you've run into). I'm sure you already have plenty of experience in bioarchaeology (probably even in the middle east), but I wonder whether doing a field school with a potential POI would be a good idea? It would give you a chance to A) get to know the POI personally, meet other students who are interested in working in this part of the world and might know some professors in the field and C) you would possibly have a chance to gain experience in your POI's area of expertize. I don't know whether there are any field schools or whether you would even have the possibility to go. It's just an idea

You might already be doing this, but the way I found my potential POIs was by finding publications on the topics that interest me. They usually have a list of authors and their university affiliations. A very quick google scholar search for "bioarchaeology + middle east" turned up this publication http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oa.749/abstract from UC Berkeley. Again, you might already know/be doing all this, but I know there are plenty of other people lurking on this forum looking for similar advice;)

The only one I can think of right now is Dr. Rose at the University of Arkansas. This is his website: http://cavern.uark.edu/~jcrose/

Very interesting discussion on grad school rejections... http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,60689.0.html ....but from the other perspective!

Since cost of living plays a role here too, I just wanted to share this link: http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/ It's a very useful tool which lets you compare specific towns/cities.

On second thought, maybe we should wait in case some more people want to take the survey?

DigDeep, this is AWESOME:) Maybe you could add this to the wisdom repository? This way your and sarab's awesome work won't get lost:)

Yes, there often is a difference in quality of teaching. (I would be very careful in generalizing this. I have taken a summer class with a professor who held some of the most AMAZING lectures I have every heard). I think this is a difference in culture, also. In many European countries, such as the UK, there are a lot fewer universities per high school graduate than in the US. This has a lot to do with the US philosophy of givingt he same chance to everybody. Almost everyone who has earned their high school diploma can find a US university or community college which will accept them. Then, of course, they actually have to make it THROUGH the program. In many European countries you have a much smaller number of universities per high school student and students are much more carefully selected. (I am looking at it as a whole, obviously there are extremely selective programs in the US). But more of the students selected tend to make it to their degree. So, there is absolutely no difference in rigour, simply a difference in culture. Similarly with graduate school. It might seem that it is easier to get into a UK program. HOWEVER, in the UK, the hard part is actually getting funding. Schools tend to be very selective in that respect. Also, at most European universities, the lectures are supposed to be more of a guide. You go to a lecture, take notes, and then go home and read about the subject. In the US, students concentrate on just a few lectures in the semester which they attend very frequently and they expect to learn everything they need to know in those lectures. Now, since you have a lot less universities, the professors there tend to be the people who are at the top of their game. They are often full professors who have published a few books and define their success not in how many students attend their lectures. In the US, since there are so many universities, the climate is a lot more competitive and university teaching is regarded much more of a public service profession. So, in the UK you will have your rock star grumpy old man who still uses physical slides and in the US you can have the young, energetic assistant professor who is motivated and has fun teaching. This is an extreme overgeneralization, of course, and you have both things on both sides of the pond.

I think there are a ton of misunderstandings when it comes to differences in UK and US degrees. It all startes with the BA/BS, really. Not everybody who has finished school with a good grade in the UK will automatically have the chance to apply to university. There are certain prerequisites which have to be fulfilled while still in school. The most common way to qualify for university is by taking A-Level (advanced level) classes while still attending the equivalent of high school. These A-Level classes are similar to the core curriculum classes one would take at a US university. So UK students tend to get through undergrad faster than US students. (The same is actually often true for UK students who attend US universities. They often don't have to take a number of core classes because their "high school" classes transfer). Because people in the US take core classes for so long, they have the option to change their major more than once while in university. This is different at most European universities where you can change your major, but you will frequently have to start from scratch if you do that. So, in the US, undergrads tend to use university as a chance to find themselves and explore more about their interests and in the UK/other European programs, students are expected to be much surer about their professional path from the beginning. So UK students usually finish their undergrad in 3 years. The MA/MSc programs offered in the UK which are just one year are often simply more condensed and people either concentrate on taking classes or doing their own research. (Whereas in the US many students do both). The reason people tend to get through a UK PhD faster than their US equivalents is not so much more or less rigour on one side or the other. It is a difference in academic culture. In the UK, students tend to be accepted for a very specific project. They either propose this project before they are admitted, or their POI accepts them for a very specific research project they have in mind. This is actually the case in many European countries. PhD students are often considered to be an apprentice/intern who works for their professor. In the US, in contrast, this is often more of a teacher-student relationship where the student is trying to find his/her own path in academia. So this is absolutely not a difference in rigour, but just a difference in culture. Most industrialized nations introduced the BA/MA/PhD system so students could freely transfer from one country to another. However, many universities don't really feel like bothering with international transfers since stuff like the types of classes you take are still very different. So going from a BA in one country to an MA in another, is not as easy as it should be. It can be done, however, and I know plenty of people who have moved from one country to another. I have spent the last few weeks looking through faculty CVs of big anthropology departments and there are plenty of people with UK PhDs who teach at US institutions. I can't rememer exactly at which schools now, but I saw people from LES (London School of Economics) are teaching at a number of ivy US schools. If you look at international rankings, many UK schools will rank very highly and LES is one of those. One thing to consider here, however, is that networking is a super important component in the job search. So the geographical region where you spin your social net can be important.

Good point NoSleep. I guess the one year is a bit arbitrary and maybe not the best category choice. This was really not an easy poll to create I know a lot of people who worked in CRM for like 5 years before applying to the PhD and the question was meant to differientiate those from the people who "only" have a 2 week field school. Similarly, I know somebody who spent a year in Africa doing cultural research versus a lot of people who did a summer field school in cultural. I assume that everyone has at least some experience before applying to PhDs. I don't want to change the poll now because that'll change verybody's answers, but I can see how this is an ambiguous category. (Especially when it comes to research for honors/MA theses).

Pushing this back up so people don't forget to take this as they are being accepted into programs;)

Yeah. I guess "top ten" is hard to define anyway. I was looking at the ranking that was posted in the thread earlier and just vague ideas of which program might be more prestigious than the other. While I personally agree with everybody who argues that there are a ton of problems with rankings, I do find myself looking at them every once in a while. I think they matter, unfortunately, because a good placement in a ranking will probably increase the number of people applying to that school and in turn have an impact on the department's prestige. Most people on gradcafe are relatively well informed and will make decisions based on criteria other than rankings, but I am sure there are many people out there who look at these things.

There are a few I can think of. They all graduated at great departments, just not top ten: - Dr. Geoffrey Hayes faculty member at Northwestern, PhD @ University of Utah - Dr. Charles Adam, faculty member at University of Arizona, PhD @ University of Colorado - Dr. Barbara Mills, faculty member at University of Arizona, PhD @ University of New Mexico - Dr. Caroly Rouse, PhD from University of Southern California, chair of the anthropology department at Princeton University - Dr. Christian Tryon, faculty member at Harvard, PhD @ University of Connecticut (Great, great program. I just think Connecticut to Harvard is a step up in terms of prestige). - Dr. Douglas Ubelaker, huge name in bioanthropology & curator for the Smithonian, PhD @ University of Kansas - Dr. Dolores Piperno, archaeobotanist for the Smithonian Institute, PhD @ Temple University

I'm so sorry daykid. I didn't know changing the poll would change the answers. So I think we should just leave the poll as is from now on. My answers are also wrong now:( I think there were only about 4(??) people who had taken the poll before it was changed. So hopefully it won't skew the results too much. Hopefully we'll get a lot of people taking this.