TaciturnTales

Haha, thanks! Doesn't the light at the end of the tunnel mean that I have to die first, though? I'll probably be dead by the time I get to go to graduate school.

Thank you for your input! Villanova is actually on my short list, so I'm glad to hear that they have a good program. I hope to move for my master's degree, so I suppose my main concern with living in PA is that the overall cost of living is somewhat high? I'm also looking at schools that have a Museum Studies Certification of some sort. I feel like that will make me more marketable once I start job searching.

To add on to the above question, does anyone have any information about Queen's University? I am from the U.S., so my knowledge of Canadian universities and their reputations is somewhat limited.

Not discouraging at all - I like people to give it to me straight. ? I have found multiple programs in classical arch. that either only require experience in Latin OR Greek, some that will let you by with very little experience, and others that require no languages at all. (Of course all of this is contingent on you rectifying the situation during the program.) I've been systematically contacting all of them to see exactly what their requirements are and it really just depends on the program what they'll let you get away with. I should have at least five schools to apply to that might take me. I was already accepted to the one that I had wanted to attend for this fall, but then the funding that I was hoping to get fell through because of the pandemic. This being said, I am currently working on the situation by teaching myself Latin. I should be done with Wheelock's Latin and reading lower level Latin literature in March, which will give me some experience by the time I start a graduate program. I did want to do a post-bac. but, like you said, they are expensive and I can't afford it. x_x

I am hoping to find a solid research topic before I (hopefully) start graduate school in the fall of 2021. If I were to be able to think of something before I submit applications for this cycle that would be even better! While looking at advice for finding research topics, I have often seen that I need to read "the literature", so would anyone have some resources for recent publications, etc. for classical archaeology?

Yes, as long as I can also have a hand in research, I am willing to take on some administrative duties if that will help me. I was hoping to get into an M.A. program at a school where I could also get a Museum Studies Certification. I thought that might make me more marketable? Ultimately I am more interested in the research/educating the public side of curation, though.

Honestly, I'm pretty discouraged. I graduated with my B.A. in 2011 and it took me some time to figure out what I really wanted to do (shouldn't have let people push me towards college right after high school). Then I realized that, to be decently prepared and get into a M.A. program, I needed a second bachelor's degree. Originally I planned to start graduate school in the fall of 2019, but there was a scheduling issue with a course for my B.S. and I wasn't able to graduate until this past December. I did actually get into the school that I wanted to go to for the fall of 2019, but deferred until fall of 2020. What's even worse is that I got interviews for two of the three assistantships that I applied for, only to be told a month after these interviews that they weren't going to be hiring anyone (I'm assuming because of pandemic related funding issues). I can't afford graduate school without funding (see debt for two bachelor's degrees) and I can't defer admission to this school more than once, so I get to reapply. All this to go into a field that is going to be difficult to find a job in and will likely not pay a ton once/if I get there. It sucks because it took me so much agonizing to figure out what I wanted to do.

My background is a B.A. in English with a minor in violin performance and a B.S. in Anthropology with a focus in archaeology. Due to my lack of experience with Latin/Greek, I'm guessing that a Ph.D. in classical archaeology without a M.A. first would just not happen. Therefore, I am applying to master's programs that have no language requirements or who might make exceptions for students whose main interest is material culture rather than language. I am attempting to teach myself Latin and hope to be done with Wheelock's Latin before starting a master's program, but obviously that isn't going to get me into a Ph.D. In order to curate, is it a definite that I would need a Ph.D.? Would it be possible to find a low level curation position with an M.A.? Could I find a job that might fund me to get a Ph.D.? I honestly feel pretty discouraged about the whole thing, given the present situation with the pandemic. I was so close this year to attending the school I wanted to go to and was even interviewed for two of the three assistantships for which I applied. Then they told me that no one was getting hired, presumably because of pandemic-related funding issues.