s3raph1m

You're right. I just sent them an email.

Hmmm. I know the possibility is there. There's a page about it on UT's website, but it doesn't mention what the costs are, which is my main concern. I'm starting Latin at ACC after I get back to Austin, which is pretty cheap at $40 per credit hour, but I want to take Greek and Biblical Hebrew too.

Anyone here do this or have done so in the past? I'm wondering what the average cost of doing this is. I'm a college grad and live near UT Austin, which has a ton of offerings in languages such as Sanskrit, Aramaic, Akkadian, Latin, Greek, Biblical Hebrew, etc. and would like to take advantage.

I've never heard of this before. Study abroad is a requirement for graduation at my undergrad institution, but I think it's the only college in the US that does that. From my understanding, most students do not study abroad during undergrad. I wouldn't listen to any of those articles.

What did you end up going with? And what is the funding situation like? I am also looking at those two schools.

Anyone here going to Texas State University for their MA that could tell me what the funding situation is like? I've got a really sweet deal on housing with a friend (1 bedroom house, $325 a month for each of us, utilities included, and it's a 10 minute walk from campus!). My rent and utilities are going to be a total of $3,900 per year and I won't need to own a car since I'm such a short walk from campus and downtown San Marcos. It seems like this *could* be great, but the program cost is still $3,626 per semester (as of fall 2016) for a 9 credit hour graduate student and could still require me to take out a lot of loans if the funding situation isn't a good one. I have substantial undergrad loan debt from going to a small LAC, so I'm trying to avoid taking out anymore for grad school. What are the chances that I could fund my MA here without student loans?

I don't actually know how the other UT schools are. I just know UT-Austin is the best one out of all the UT schools. The Jackson School of Geosciences is fantastic. Also, I just really love living in Austin. I don't think I'll be applying to UT-Austin though. I'm interested in possibly doing paleontology at the JSoG, but I'll wait and see if I want that for a PhD later. I'm actually applying to Texas State for a master's in anthropology (focus in archaeology) as my top choice.

That actually does help. I know that I don't have enough experience in the field to have developed any extremely specific research interests. I have a range of interests. Thanks for the clarification. I've mostly been looking at course lists for Master's programs and descriptions of the program. For example, I know that Rice University in Houston offers a terminal MA primarily for those looking to do field work in Africa and offer courses like "African Prehistory," along with courses in archaeology and some methodological courses. To be honest, I haven't been looking at faculty very much. I'll change that now though.

Okay, so I'm intending on getting my MA in archaeology. I do not want to make the decision to do a PhD program at this time. Essentially, I want to get my masters and then work in archaeology or a related field for awhile before making the decision of whether or not I want to continue on to a PhD. I'm already working on developing my list of schools to apply for and I know what sort of courses I'd like to take/what subfields of anthro/archaeology/regions of the world I'm interested in. I'm wondering how different applying for a terminal MA is when compared to applying for a PhD. I know with a PhD you need to have a fairly good idea of where your research interests lie, but how far do I need to take that when applying for the MA? Do I need a POI? I mean... I imagine a lot of MAs in archaeology offer a lot of similar courses and I'd only be going to school at most two years to get the degree. I know I'm interested in bioarchaeology, osteology, and prehistoric archaeology (hunter gatherer tribes and native Americans). My region of interest is in the southwestern US and Meso-America. How much more do I need?

Why wouldn't you be capable of getting into TA&M or UT-Austin? I think you should apply. 3.5 is not a bad GPA and you're a double major in Geology and GIS. If you don't get in, apply next season, but do a ton of related internships in-between then and now. You'll be a good candidate then. I'll be graduating with 7 internships under my belt. Get some related work experience, man. That year of research experience will look really great on you.

Haha. It's probably very obvious that I am new to the grad school search. From what I gather, I should probably stop looking at primarily small private colleges or I'm going to get nowhere very fast. I would very much appreciate a detailed list if it's not too much trouble. Just out of curiosity: how are graduate classes in archaeology generally structured? I'm looking for something very hands-on within a seminar type environment. I was told graduate courses are all structured like seminars. My upper level seminar courses at my undergrad institution are supposedly structured like graduate courses (or so I'm told), but I assume the structure of courses differ from institution to institution so I'm not entirely sure if this is a good representation of what a graduate course actually feels like.

Do you know of any MA/MS only programs that focus on bioarchaeology? I haven't found any thus far. What do you think of Rice University's anthropology programs? In terms of the MA in Archaeological Field Techniques and Laboratory Analysis. Does Rice have a good program overall? https://anthropology.rice.edu/uploadedFiles/Graduate/ANTH Grad Handbook 032714.pdf

Oh, I don't mind relocating for school. I just don't want to relocate in terms of where I live now after I finish school. I like Austin too much to leave and there are lots of jobs in archaeology in the area (I'm several hours away from the ocean though, so I should probably nix maritime). As for school, the sky is the limit in terms of location. I just need to narrow down my choices for schools. One of the issues I've faced thus far is that a lot of schools do not offer terminal masters in anthropology and I'm not sure I want to get a PhD, so I don't really want to apply to programs that don't offer just the MA or MS. I'm much more seriously considering the William and Mary program at this point. I've been looking at the course list and they offer graduate courses in biological anthropology, bioarchaeology, zooarchaeology, human skeletal biology, material culture, conservation of artifacts, and North American prehistory in the anthropology department. That's pretty much everything I'm interested in. The degree is in historical archaeology, which is not my main interest, but it looks really good otherwise! I'm going to speak with my historic preservation advisor on Tuesday. She teaches the historical archaeology course within the department and may have some information for me. Thanks for the info! You've been really helpful.

Thanks for the response, bioarch_fan. This is going to be a very difficult decision for me. I'm interested in so many different things and I'm having a ton of trouble narrowing down my interests. To be honest, it all looks amazing! You're right in that I have an interest in bioarchaeology. I would like to have some experience in the bioarch, osteology, and zoo archaeology aspect of archaeology, alongside more field archaeology experience. My region of interest is a bit more broad (tribal peoples of the Americas, whether that be North America or pre-Columbian era Mesoamerica). I do have somewhat of an interest in historical archaeology (I've taken some courses in hist. arch. and I did an internship over the summer where I primarily worked in hist. arch.). However, I'm mostly just interested in the indigenous people of the Americas when it comes to hist. arch. I know I want to work in North America. I do not plan on relocating. I also have no interest in doing cultural anthropology. Maritime is really cool, but most of the cities I would like to live in are nowhere near the ocean, so that's probably not the best idea. I also have a little bit of an interest in the conservation of artifacts, but not as much as the other things I have mentioned. There is no professor at my school that focuses on archaeology, so no one has really been able to help me with my grad school search here (they don't know what's good or what schools I should apply to). The career development office will sit down with me and help me go through my lists, but overall I'm mostly on my own with this search.

Did you intern before applying to grad programs? How many internships did you do and how long did you intern for? Where'd you intern at? What did the work consist of? And how did this shape your grad program applications? Inquiring minds want to know. I have two semesters left of my undergrad after this current semester and have completed a total of two internships thus far. I pretty much interned all summer full time. I received a fellowship from my school to fund a 240 hour field and lab intensive archaeology internship with a local government organization. After that, I went home and then did a historic preservation internship with a main street program in a historic district (I also volunteered at a small local museum while doing this). This winter I'll be interning with a large fine arts museum working with the folks who design and prepare the exhibits. Not sure what I'll be doing next summer, but I'm hoping to do a field school and then do the archaeology internship that this state park near me offers afterwards. I'm thinking all of this will play a big part in my applications when I finally get started, but I'm not sure in what way. For those who got into a grad program, how valuable was internship or volunteer experience for your application process?