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kalosskylos

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  1. Thanks for the advice! I'll definitely be taking advantage of office hours in the future...
  2. I'm in a mess over what I can do with my B.A. in Anthropology. I'm currently a 3rd year undergraduate. The thread title basically reflects what I feel about my undergraduate education at the University of Chicago. As a transfer student, I spent my first year fulfilling distribution requirements at my first school. When I transferred, most of my credits transferred as elective courses, so I basically spent my 2nd and 3rd years at UChicago taking Core curriculum courses. When I finally got around to taking courses I actually wanted to take, I was mainly restricted to taking whatever courses were available at the time to fulfill requirements within my major in Anthropology. There doesn't seem to be any kind of thematic trend in all of the courses I've taken, except that I've taken 2 history courses on Eastern Europe, 2 in Ottoman history, and Elementary Greek (higher levels aren't offered). The rest feels like a random sampling of theory courses in the various social sciences. I'm really interested in modern Greece and the Mediterranean, but I haven't really been able to find any courses that have anything to do with this area of the world (everyone's still stuck on Classical Greece). I had plans to go to Greece this summer on a language program and to base my BA paper on a project I had planned out, but it all failed spectacularly. I had applied for two travel grants, one for Greece, and one to go to Turkey. I got the grant for Turkey, but turned it down to do the Greece one, because I knew I had a scholarship from the Greek university. Well, the university in Greece basically decided to cut the scholarship significantly this year because of Greece's financial woes, so I won't be going there either. I was clever, so I had a back-up plan to intern at a local museum over the summer (their site advertised 8-week internships), which I got, only to be told later that they'll only take me for 2-weeks to work at their children's summer camp. So basically I'm stuck in New Jersey all summer, trying desperately to find a job and/or internship, and alternate BA thesis topic. I expect good GRE scores and SOP, but my LORs are going to be bland and impersonal because I haven't had the chance to really get to know any professors ( I did share an elevator with Marshall Sahlins once). It doesn't look like I'll be doing much productive this summer, and the summer before that I worked in a law office, which isn't too interesting or relevant. ***So at this point, I realize I'm probably not a very good candidate for a Ph.D. program in anthropology, especially coming straight out of undergrad. I feel like my transcript looks like an indecisive undergrad's shenanigans, even though I have a decent GPA (3.68 overall, 3.87 in my major) and studying basically takes up my entire life. The question is, what can I do instead? Should I apply to Ph.D. programs? Should I apply to an M.A. program in Mediterranean or European studies (I'm worried about funding)? I'd take a year off and find a job, but if I can't even find a summer job after searching for three months, I don't see how I can find a full-time job...I'm quite hell-bent on going to grad school. I'm sorry for the rant, but I would really appreciate even some basic advice.
  3. Hi! So I'm a 3rd year undergrad at the University of Chicago (Anthro major) and my one biggest fear in applying to grad schools is the fact that I really do not have any professors who know me well at all (at least, not ones who are connected in any way to the area I'm interested in). I have the following problems: 1. I'm a transfer student, so I only had my 2nd and 3rd years to familiarize myself with faculty. 2. UChicago runs on a quarter system, so the time spent with each professor is less. There are so many different people teaching courses, it seems very difficult to take more than one class with the same instructor. 3. Nearly all my transfer credits transferred as elective credits, so I've been plowing through Core Curriculum courses the past two years, most of which are only remotely related to my academic interests. 4. I've made the mistake of taking a large portion of Anthro courses taught by grad students rather than actual professors, so even though they know me very well, they can't exactly write my LORs. 5. I want to apply to a Master's Program in Mediterranean Studies or European history (with a focus on modern Greece/Mediterranean), but the courses I've taken in that area were in my first-year/previous school and I doubt if my professors remember me much, if at all. I've taken a handful of courses in this area at UChicago, but one was a big lecture course with hardly any student/teacher interaction and the others were taught by a professor in the Slavic Department who is going to write one of my LORs (she's not renowned or anything). So my questions are the following: 1. Would it be a bad idea to request an LOR from a professor whose areas of expertise aren't that relevant to what I am applying for? I have a few professors who would write me great recommendations, but I've only taken general theory-type courses with them, not courses related to my specific interests in Greece/Europe. Obviously the Anthropology department at Chicago is not exactly Europe focused. 2. Should I shop for a course these upcoming Autumn and Winter quarters basically with the purpose of milking a recommendation out of someone? I don't want to seem like a leech, though. I have a 3.68 overall GPA and a 3.87 GPA in my major, I expect to have good GRE scores (I had SAT 800 Verbal, 800 Writing scores, and I'm studying like mad for the GREs, so I think they should turn out well), my SOP seems pretty good...I'm not that ambitious, I would just be glad to get into ANY graduate program...
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