msafiri

Last year, Central America applicants were notified the first week of April. I forget the exact date but I know it was after the 1st and before the 8th.

Do you know anyone else that has contacts at the archive? If so, maybe that person can help you get the records you need. Have you talked to the folks at the USHMM about who you should be contacting? That may be another avenue to pursue. Or do you know anyone that speaks better Bosnian than you? If so, you could ask that person to help you with the phone call aspect of getting permission.

In addition to PODS, U-Haul offers a moving service that is similar, as do some of the moving companies. I believe my friend moved cross-country with ABF, a freight company, last year though I have no idea what the price was. Other options might be checking to see what Penske, Budget, etc. currently offer. Oh, and there's websites you can use to get moving quotes and read reviews on moving companies. Personally, I've never had a problem shipping books thousands of miles using USPS Media Mail. All I've done is try to minimize the gaps between books (sometimes using newspaper or plastic bags to do this) and using small to medium-sized boxes. I'm not sure why someone suggested that you'd have to be super careful but, this could also be because I don't own any rare first editions or anything. InquilineKea, I think a lot of it depends on how much you have to move vs. how much you want to move. I've moved 1000+ miles several times and each time I've decided to start over on the furniture front because it would be cheaper than mailing things. When I moved 1300+ miles by flying, I put my clothes into suitcases, my electronics into my carry-on bag so I could protect them from damage, and shipped my books. Granted, I did this back when bags flew free on all airlines but it was definitely cheaper than the alternatives, particularly because I was traveling with another person (so four free checked bags).

Funding for what? Conference attendance? Summer research? Fieldwork? The answer to your question depends on what you're looking for funding for more than anything else.

I definitely agree with this. That said, make sure you talk to a few students and from a few different cohorts if you can as each cohort is different. While this is a great idea, it may not always work. A couple of people in my cohort tried this and the end result was always that it'd be the same 4-5 people each time (from a cohort of 15). The only time our entire cohort was ever together was at the departmental orientation and while sitting in the required first year course. And, in spite of that, I'd still describe my department as collegial even though my particular cohort is not.

ohhello, don't discount that! I did and it has definitely been awkward being one of the only minorities. There are 2 in my cohort including me but the other doesn't really self-identify as minority... I used many of the criteria already listed. Other things I considered: - Cost of flights home - Cost of flights to visit my best friend - Access to funding for conference travel - Collegiality of the grad students In the end, I went with a piece of advice from my mother: Go with the best advisor, assuming you don't hate that person.

Well, I have experience related but not exactly the same. I did my MA at a university that grants PhDs but, you apply to the MA and PhD program separately (and, if you do the MA, you're basically guaranteed admission to the PhD program). While I was there, my interests evolved and changed and while I did apply to do my PhD there, I also applied to several other universities and ended up attending them. There's no hard feelings from the faculty at my MA program and they admitted that this other program was a better fit for my interests. I see them at the annual conference and we chat and catch up, which is nice.

There is a great "Art of Proposal Writing" document available from the SSRC that may help you. Basically, you want to make sure that you convey your project clearly to your audience (which means knowing whether you're writing for specialists or generalists in your area, or even if you're writing for people with very different academic backgrounds), that your language is intelligible even to a non-specialist, and that you follow their guidelines. Lots of applications get thrown out for being too long, using the wrong font, not including something that's required, etc. Make sure you tell them why you/your project are a good fit for their program. As for success rates, that varies. I've gotten almost every grant I've applied for as a graduate student, with the exception of three (two of which are rejections from the same program twice), which is pretty good since I've applied for at least 10 things.

In general, yes, because there are no classes over the holidays.

The only person qualified to answer the question of whether you're doing enough or doing it right is the professor that you are TAing for. Ask this person to go over your performance with you in an evaluative sense. It's the middle of the semester so it's a good time for that anyway.

I wouldn't bother doing the reading in advance. You might want to see if you can meet with people about their research BUT expect profs to be busy/unavailable over the summer. I'd take the time to read 10 books you've been wanting to read for fun/pleasure and haven't had the time to read yet, getting your household organized into an easily manageable system, and (if I were really planning ahead) starting to make extras of meals and freezing the leftovers (with labels on them, of course). That would be some awesome preparation because then you wouldn't have to think about meals or cleaning as much once the gauntlet that is graduate school begins.

It's probably a bad idea to waste more of my time on this topic when people seem to have deliberately misinterpreted what I wrote. Nevertheless, I'll try to respond quickly (and briefly so as to eliminate the possibility for people to misread what I'm saying). @gracie123: Yes, I do understand how hard non-native speakers have to work. I do my research and a great deal of my academic work in my second language, so I definitely understand. That said, I am always willing to accept help and corrections on my writing from others, and I seek out people that will help me with that because I know it's needed. So, why should I expect less than that from my students? @Armadilla: Being in the social sciences does not mean that I have taken countless courses on linguistics. I'm sure you're aware that the term "social sciences" refers to an array of fields of study, of which linguistics is one. I have not found the time to study second language acquisition in detail at this point, and doubt that I will have the time since I am ABD at this point. Also, Armadilla, you'll note that I never said someone had to memorize all the grammar rules in English. Instead I said (and this is from where you quoted me), "find someone to help you with your writing who can at least point out the problems to you so you can look them up. Seriously, writing requires effort, even for native speakers." If you disagree with that statement, please explain why as I'm sure it would enlightening to many people. @BruceWayne24: Where did I say that someone had to learn all the rules? I said that people have to be willing to be told when they're wrong and to look up the things they don't know. That's just as true for me when writing in English as it is for a non-native speaker. When I don't know a grammatical rule (in any of the three languages I know), I look it up. Why is it that you and Armadilla seem to think that language learners shouldn't have to look up or know rules for English? Native English speakers look up these things all the time. That's part of the writing process and part of learning to write well. @LoLu: When you get to the point where you're looking for funding to support your research and provide funding so that you can focus on your dissertation without having to teach every semester, you'll understand what it means to be on the hunt for $$$. Until then, perhaps you should refrain from commenting. If you don't think that part of being successful in graduate school is hunting for and obtaining funding, you might want to find new mentors to get advice from. @Koolherc: Thanks for trying to understand what I wrote. I probably conflated spoken and written language because this post is explicitly about grading written work. And I don't need anyone to be patronizing about my confusing what you have to learn and what is learned automatically since I have put forth a great deal of effort to learn two languages since I went to college. So yes, I know that there are a great number of things that native speakers have no trouble with that I have had to force myself to learn and that I still struggle with in some cases. The subjunctive has presented particular difficulties for me because of its absence as a separate conjugated form in English and because it is used in different situations in each of the other two languages I have studied for the past 10 years. I do find it interesting that everyone assumed that I wrote this as a monolingual male, though I am neither of those things. That said, it's interesting that every time I get in a disagreement with anyone on this board, I am referred to with masculine pronouns even though I have made it pretty clear elsewhere that I am female (insofar as gender constructs even matter, which goes well beyond the original scope of this post). ---------------- I'm happy to return this to the original conversation, which I actually thought was quite productive. In particular, I would like to hear from other TAs who have dealt with this issue in their classroom, rather than just speculation and hyperbole from those that have not yet been in the situation or have been in it as students and not as instructors. As with many things, I think you'll find that things are different when you are the person doing the grading, rather than just criticizing the grading choices made by someone else. On that note, I should point out that different instructors make different choices. I TA'd for an instructor that didn't believe that any comments about students' grammar or style should be made on their papers and that a one sentence comment on the grading rubric about both of those would suffice. Personally, I don't find that to be sufficient when I'm grading as I like to point out where students are making their errors or note that they make a particular error repeatedly, rather than trying to summarize it all by writing something like "The grammar used is appropriate, though the essay could be written more clearly", which does not really help a student understand how to improve. And I guess that's sort of my focus: on helping students understand where and how they can improve. If that's wrong, so be it. Just don't take my class.

This surprises me. I've never had a student say that s/he found visiting the Writing Center with a draft unhelpful. I have had students say it wasn't helpful but those are the students that go there wanting someone to tell them how to write the essay without having ideas of their own on paper. Maybe if you explained why these resources aren't helpful, I could understand what you're saying here. I'm really not sure what you're saying here. It isn't enough just to attach the comments your tutor made. That is one part of the process of improving your writing and getting feedback from your professor is another. And really, it isn't up to the instructor to give you points for going to the Writing Center. You should go to there to improve your writing, especially if you know you need it. The one time I've given students points for going they were first year students, most of whom had no idea such a thing even existed. I encourage all of my students to go because it will lead to them earning a higher grade in almost all cases. That said, it almost sounds like you're saying the professor should read over your grammar mistakes and not point them out to you at all. Then, how will you learn that you're making mistakes and not repeat them in the future? Getting good grades is not necessarily about working hard. I don't know why undergraduates have a hard time understanding this but quite a few do, as do you it seems. You get your grade based on the work you turn in. As your instructor, I don't know whether you spent 2 hours or 2 weeks writing a paper and, quite frankly, I don't care because I'm going to grade what you give me. If it takes you 2 weeks to write an A-quality paper, that's fine. If you can do it in two hours, that's fine. But I don't care "how hard you work" because you can work really, really hard and still be a mediocre student. I never said anything about taking grammar classes. Please don't put ideas into my mouth and act as if they are my own. What I said was that there are many, many rules of English grammar that can be memorized. I know this because, though I am a native speaker, I have had to memorize English grammar rules. And, if you can't memorize them, find someone to help you with your writing who can at least point out the problems to you so you can look them up. Seriously, writing requires effort, even for native speakers. You have to be willing to learn from the criticism of others, to make mistakes and fix them, to ask for help, and to read well-written pieces if you want your writing to improve. And that advice is the same whether or not English is your native language.

Think about it this way: As your instructor, how am I supposed to know that you went to the writing center and got assistance? Should I just intuit it somehow from holding the pages in my hands? Granted, there was a course I TA'd where students who went to the Writing Center could get a form signed confirming that someone had helped them with their paper and then receive extra credit. BUT, that was one course. The rest of the time I simply have no idea whether or not my students go, even though I encourage ALL of my students (not just the non-native speakers) to go. That's not really fair. Are you saying that we shouldn't penalize students at all for making grammatical mistakes? If so, why even both having grammar rules or teaching them in language courses? I realize that not all languages use articles and that some use articles all the time in places where English doesn't. But, learning to use articles correctly is part of learning the language. And, honestly, I've had to learn when to use and not use articles for two languages besides English already and there are rules that can be memorized.

Before you go, find out if you can arrange meetings with other professors whose work interests you (people you might take classes with or that might be on your committee). See if you can sit in on a graduate class, just to get a feel for it. Then, try to make sure you can have lunch or dinner with just the grad students so they can be honest with you. Not just your POI's grad students but other grad students in the department too. You want to get to know as many of the people that will be your future colleagues as you can, you know? Oh, and see if someone will take you around the city, ideally a grad student. Maybe someone that can also give you ideas about where grad students live, where they go for fun, etc.

Why are you so eager to publish? Publishing something that isn't good or goes in a poorly perceived journal is going to look as bad as or worse than not publishing it all. Moreover, those publications will be on your CV for the rest of your life! When you go to apply for a postdoc or asst prof job, they'll read those pubs. Is that really what you want? If you want to improve your qualifications for getting into an anthro program, take an anthro grad course, or even some undergraduate courses. Talk to the anthro faculty whose classes you took in your MA program and get their advice and recommendation letters from them.

My experience has been that whether or not the prof brings his/her students to a new university depends largely on how far along in their program the students are. Students that are pre-comprehensive exams usually come to the new university and those that are working on their dissertation do not. Of course, this assumes the student wants to move, which may not always be the case.

I got a Kindle Touch 3G for Christmas this year. I love it for reading novels but, I haven't really enjoyed reading PDFs on it. It's hard for me to get the text the right size so that I can read it without having to scroll all the freaking time. And maybe the scrolling is actually harder with the touch screen? I don't know. I'm hoping it'll get easier as I get more used to the touch screen but, I don't know. What I am currently liking is being able to download the first chapter of various academic books I might want to read in their entirety (either by buying them or getting them from the university library). For example, most of the recent Duke University Press books are available for the Kindle, and offer the option to get the first chapter for free as a preview. That said, this is even more useful right now since I'm in the field in Central America and don't have handy access to a library of books.

While they aren't anthropologists, they have had a great deal of influence on the work of anthropologists for the past 30-40 years. Reading them helps put many contemporary ethnographies into an appropriate context and helps one understand the changes in how anthropology has been practiced and ethnographies have been written over the past 75 years.

Honestly, I'm not sure that publishing in a low-tiered journal that isn't focused in your discipline will help you that much. I mean, you could try to find graduate student oriented journals that might be interested in your work or regionally-focused journals. I'd recommend that you contact your university's librarians and see if they can help you locate journals. That said, I'm curious about why you didn't apply to UT given that Kamala Visweswaran is there...

My advice is to just plug away and work through it. As long as you put in a few solid hours of work each day, you'll eventually make progress. And reward yourself. Say things like, I'll read this article then wash the dishes, then read another article and fold my laundry. That kind of thing. FWIW, I went through a huge slump last spring/summer. I basically stopped working altogether and did nothing but search for jobs, goof off on the internet, and read books for pleasure for a few weeks. I'm not actually quite sure when or why I started working again but, it's been several months and I'm still not into a solid work rhythm. Now, some of this may be due to moving abroad for fieldwork but I think some of it is the lingering funk. Do let us know if you figure out something that works. I'll probably try to steal it.

I'm not in anthropology anymore but, here are things I think of when I think of anthropology. The classics: Orientalism by Edward Said The Interpretation of Cultures by Clifford Geertz (also Kinship in Bali) Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande by E. E. Evans-Pritchard The Location of Culture by Homi K. Bhabha Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon Anything by the Comaroffs Modern ethnographies (maybe not essential, but good, with a bit of a Latin American focus because that's where my interest is, sorry): Conservation Is Our Government Now by Paige West Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street by Karen Ho This Land is Ours Now by Wendy Wolford Black and Green by Kiran Asher Territories of Difference by Arturo Escobar Understories by Jake Kosek Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection by Anna Tsing Underground Harmonies: Music and Politics in the Subways of New York by Susan Tanenbaum Global Shadows by James Ferguson I might be able to recommend more, depending on your area of interest.

I wouldn't bother contacting them. They already know your POI doesn't have funding so they're going to be considering you for the range of funding available in the department anyway

Sure, "academic jobs" include positions as Research Associates that go to postdocs and can be multi-year positions. That said, professor positions can be teaching only, research only, or a blend of both (this is what most tenure-track jobs are).

Are we talking academic or non-academic jobs here? A lot of sociology PhDs work for research organizations/institutes, marketing research firms, management consulting groups, etc. when they seek employment outside of academia. Inside the academy, at SLACs and small universities, so-called directional state universities, and community colleges, depending on their interests. Basically, take a look at http://www.higheredjobs.com/faculty/search.cfm?JobCat=93. I'd guess that the jobs at the smaller schools and community colleges listed there are going to be filled by PhDs from non-top 25 schools, unless someone is geographically constrained for some reason.