Reputation from anthropologygeek - Page 8

anthropologygeek got a reaction from sareth in self-reporting GRE scores, cherry-pick highest? August 27, 2012

Now you can cherry pick in the past every score went

anthropologygeek got a reaction from kaykaykay in Easiest grad program to get into with funding? July 29, 2012

I'm going with hard sciences

anthropologygeek got a reaction from unpretentious username in Is it necessary to contact faculty for admission to an MA program? July 16, 2012

Oh I forgot to say that if I had contacted my phd advisor in the fall of the year I was applying they would of told me they weren't taking students since in the fall they didn't think they were taking students but decided to. And every prof is different. I know now how to be accepted to each person guaranteed based on what they value most in an application and it is different for each.

anthropologygeek got a reaction from unpretentious username in Is it necessary to contact faculty for admission to an MA program? July 16, 2012

When I applied for my masters I didn't contact one future adviser and got in at 50% of the places I applied. I only 1 future advisor when I applied for my phd and I got into 7 of the 10 places I applied. It is not necessary it just depends on whether or not you feel you should or you want to.

anthropologygeek got a reaction from intlmfahopeful in New Wardrobe October 31, 2012

Most guys were Jean and a t-shirt.

anthropologygeek reacted to scrapster in dual masters vs. PhD... May 16, 2012

It really does depend on what you want to do after school. With an Anthro masters degree and some GIS skills, you can find jobs in various environmental fields. However, those jobs may be heavy on the GIS and have only an indirect connection to anthropology. An Anthro PhD is inherently a research degree. You can work outside of research, and outside of academia, but it's a LONG road to get there. I've also found that, unfortunately, many socio-cultural Anthro profs have no clue about how to apply the discipline outside of academia, or what anthropologists can even do in non-academic settings. So don't be surpised if you feel cut off from the "real world" of environmental issues (policy, advocacy, etc.) if you enter a PhD program.

I should probably note that I graduated from a masters program with a heavy focus on applied anthro. With the standard anthro skillset, most employers don't know how to use you. On the other hand, it's easy to oversell yourself, because we're trained to think that cultural knowledge is key to doing anything and everything. (Yes, you can learn to fix a copy machine using an anthropologial approach, but non-anthros can do it just as well!) In the end, I found myself tracked back into doing research, but prevented from advancing at my job because I didn't have a PhD.

In the end, if you want to work outside of academia with either a masters or a PhD in anthro--you have to be very creative in seeing opportunities and selling yourself. This is especially true if you want to live somewhere in the US other than New York City or Washington,DC. A PhD obviously is the right degree if you decide on a purely academic career. But either way, it really pays to bulk up on complementary skill sets (like GIS, stats, etc.). Folks withAnthro degrees are a dime a dozen. Prove that you can DO something with your knowledge and skills and you'll do fine--because the diploma itself won't open many doors for you.

anthropologygeek reacted to desaparecido in What to do if you've already accepted an offer, and then you get another one April 25, 2012

Protocol aside (I think it's clearly do-able to switch your decision, though I'd personally be wary of burning a bridge with a great school like BC), I completely side with your advisor regarding the one-year MA. I'll probably get jumped on for saying this, but paying for your MA really isn't the worst idea in the world. It's only two years, and I think it's the best possible investment you can make in this case. As has been discussed elsewhere on this forum, doing a one-year MA will likely be a two-year commitment anyway, as I can't see you getting really strong letters of recommendation or a much stronger and/or refined writing sample or SOP while trudging through your first 2-3 months of graduate-level coursework (seeing as your applications will likely be done sometime in November, before any seminar papers are done and before your MA professors will be able to effectively evaluate any of your work). And as much as folks say one's interests will shift during the PhD program, I think there's a more drastic shift during the BA-MA years, seeing as your MA thesis will likely be your first real in-depth, expanded writing project (unless your undergrad institution had serious writing requirements, though; I think my UG thesis was ~28 pages vs. my 80-page MA thesis, which had an unimaginably strong impact on my research focus). I mean, the call is ultimately yours, but I think accepting BC's two-year program, even unfunded, is a much better decision, personal investment-wise, than Rochester's one-year program, even if you had both offers at the same time. Good luck!

anthropologygeek got a reaction from bluebunny in Can I withdraw my commitment? April 18, 2012