Scheduling First Semester Classes

[hantoo]

I finally accepted an offer (Woo!) and am already preparing to schedule my first semester of courses. In addition to my RA position, I'll be taking three courses my first semester. One is a mandatory pro-seminar so I don't need to worry about that, but I am free to choose the additional two. I am a cultural anthropology student, and in looking at the course catalogue, I see there are quite a few classes that are very relevant to my proposed research that I think would be really interesting to me.

I am definitely going to contact my POI for advice on what classes would be best for my first semester, but for current grad students, what types of classes did you schedule for your first semester/year? Would it be better to schedule courses with a somewhat broad focus like "Ethnographic Field Methods" over a course with a much more specific topical focus? Obviously I have quite a few years to take classes, but I want to make smart scheduling decisions for my first year in the program.

Let me know what you think!

[museum_geek]

Congrats on accepting an offer, exciting stuff!  If you don't mind me asking, where will you be headed in the fall?

As for which classes to take, I think your advisor will be super helpful.  It also depends on your prior training and what your project will look like.  For instance, my project and proposed field site is in an area where I'm not super familiar with the language, so my first semester I'll probably take a more introductory language course.  On the other hand, I'm taking an Ethnographic Field Methods course right now as I finish up my Master's, so I'll probably take something more topically focused instead of just "Foundations of Anthropological Theory" or something along those lines.  But yeah, in general I think your advisor will be able to help your sort this out.

[hantoo]

Thanks for the feedback @museum_geek And I'll be heading to the University of Florida this fall for their doctoral program in Sociocultural Anthro with (hopefully) an interdisciplinary track in Latin American Studies. Since there wasn't a ton of opportunity for me to take cultural anthro courses during undergrad, I might go for the ethnographic field methods course. But there are also some other super interesting/relevant classes I saw listed, like International Heritage Management, Ethnoarchaeology, and Photoethnography (!!!!) which all sound mind-blowingly awesome to me and would fit in really well with my proposed research. But I'm guessing I'll have a chance to take them all at some point!

[museum_geek]

That's awesome, UF has a really great program!  I didn't end up applying there but as a Brazilianist in training I'm a big fan of Mike Heckenberger's work.  Best of luck!

[rising_star]

Are you looking at the potential course (that is, the course catalogue) or the online schedule of classes? I ask because these are often quite different things and the schedule of what's offered may help determine some of what you'll be taking. FWIW, I would do a mix of broad and topical courses because you'll need a mix of both for your comps/quals.

[hantoo]

Thanks @rising_star---I've been looking at the fall 2017 schedule of classes for the dept. I'll make sure to ask my POI if that includes everything that will be available for the upcoming semester. And yeah, mix of broad/topical seems like the best route to go. Thanks for the advice!