Post-comps bliss...
So it's that sweet spot after the first year where you've finished your comp exams but before I get started on my busy summer plans. I've gone to amusement parks, bbqs, movies, and spent a lot of time sleeping.
My first year of graduate school was...interesting and difficult in many ways. I've learned more than I realized, but the entire year is designed to make you realize just how much you have learned through our comprehensive exams.
Anthropology, in the US at least, traditionally has four sub-fields; biological anthropology (Bones, monkeys, and dna), linguistic anthropology (which is like linguistics, but totally different), archaeology (more bones, pot shards, and material theory), and cultural (my subfield which is completely amorphous but is traditionally what you'd think of when you think of ethnography). During your first year here, you have to take core classes in each discipline with the rest of your cohort which could be made up of people from all different subfields. It's very much an exercise in teambuilding. And then at the end of the year, you take two days of tests on any of the previous eight months of classes which means weeks of marathon studying which culminates in a frenzy of cramming.
And then we get to jump in the fountain in front of the Penn Museum (which everyone should visit, by the way. It's lovely.) Here is the proof that I am now a second year.
This is the fountain. It is pretty and much deeper than you would think.
This is (most of) my lovely cohort except Bea. They are all wonderful people and I'm glad to have met them. Also, this is our student lounge. For an Ivy league school, it is pretty much the dankest student lounge I've been in. The furniture and decor is straight out of 1971, which is when the wing opened. Still, it's nice to have a room somewhere in the building. Since we're far removed from main campus.
This is all of us jumping into the fountain.
It was something like 94 degrees and 80% humidity on that day, so we stayed in the water as long as we could. It was cool and wonderful. And a fantastic reminder that we'd made it through what was so difficult a year.
This time next week I will be back in Anchorage for a bit, then to DC for a museum anthropology workshop, then hopefully Germany for a biotechnology and ethics workshop, then to Ketchikan, and then back home to Philly for T.A. training. It's going to go by sooooo fast.
My first year of graduate school was...interesting and difficult in many ways. I've learned more than I realized, but the entire year is designed to make you realize just how much you have learned through our comprehensive exams.
Anthropology, in the US at least, traditionally has four sub-fields; biological anthropology (Bones, monkeys, and dna), linguistic anthropology (which is like linguistics, but totally different), archaeology (more bones, pot shards, and material theory), and cultural (my subfield which is completely amorphous but is traditionally what you'd think of when you think of ethnography). During your first year here, you have to take core classes in each discipline with the rest of your cohort which could be made up of people from all different subfields. It's very much an exercise in teambuilding. And then at the end of the year, you take two days of tests on any of the previous eight months of classes which means weeks of marathon studying which culminates in a frenzy of cramming.
And then we get to jump in the fountain in front of the Penn Museum (which everyone should visit, by the way. It's lovely.) Here is the proof that I am now a second year.
This is the fountain. It is pretty and much deeper than you would think.
This is (most of) my lovely cohort except Bea. They are all wonderful people and I'm glad to have met them. Also, this is our student lounge. For an Ivy league school, it is pretty much the dankest student lounge I've been in. The furniture and decor is straight out of 1971, which is when the wing opened. Still, it's nice to have a room somewhere in the building. Since we're far removed from main campus.
This is all of us jumping into the fountain.
It was something like 94 degrees and 80% humidity on that day, so we stayed in the water as long as we could. It was cool and wonderful. And a fantastic reminder that we'd made it through what was so difficult a year.
This time next week I will be back in Anchorage for a bit, then to DC for a museum anthropology workshop, then hopefully Germany for a biotechnology and ethics workshop, then to Ketchikan, and then back home to Philly for T.A. training. It's going to go by sooooo fast.