heeby

Confirmation just came in the mail today!

I'm with appletree123 on the waiting. This is going to kill me. Moinonplus, could you tell us how long you had to wait between the email and the letter confirming? What you say is like sweet, sweet music to my ears but I'm not celebrating until I get that letter.

Still standing by for a "stand by for cash" email. Ugh.

OOF! That would leave only 2 weeks to revise and resubmit! Please don't be that way, Wenner-Gren.

Hello fellow anthropologists. Has anyone out there heard anything about when we'll hear something about whether we've been awarded a Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fellowship? I'm so anxious I can hardly write clearly.

Hi kphd, This really depends where you are applying - in the USA, or another country. Finishing an anthro PhD in the US typically takes an average of 7 years. Finishing in 5 is really, really challenging at most departments. This is because a grad student there typically takes 3 years of coursework (after which point an MA is awarded), does 1-2 year(s) of fieldwork, and then takes 1-2 years to write up the dissertation. If you don't get funding to do your fieldwork right away, you might have to delay another year while you apply for other fellowships; if you don't get a job on your first try, you might delay graduating for one year so that you can continue to teach as a TA and have health insurance/affiliation. By contrast, cultural anthro PhD programs in most other anglophone countries are much shorter. You might have 1-2 years to complete an MA and then spend the rest of your time doing research and writing up. The same potential delays for funding or jobs apply, but the entire process is much faster. Having a PhD from another country can make it difficult to get a job in the USA if by chance you want to work there, but you can still get a great education. Australia, South Africa, Britain, and Canada all have fantastic universities. This is the only part of your question for which I can hazard an answer. Hope this helps.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by wanting to get a PhD for "the experience," but I would discourage anyone from embarking on such a difficult journey without some kind of career goal in mind. The journey can be very rewarding for many reasons, but you don't want to find yourself 7 years from now with lots of debt and no job. Sadly, this is the case for a lot of recent PhDs today.