Anthropology PhD advice?

breathfire
Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:22:24 +0000

Thanks for giving me advice.

Some of you pointed out doing research during the year off. I’ve been a research assistant for two professors and I have a new project coming up with one of them.
Generally, I worked on two books with one of them and an article with the other. Now I’m helping with an anthology. I’ve been doing some data collecting, copyrights and permissions work for 2 years and ongoing. Does that sound good for grad schools? The professors will also be willing to give me recommendations.

About my interests: this is honestly my problem and why I chose to stay out of grad school for now. I don’t know precisely what I’m interested in. Symbolic anthropology–yes–but then there are so many topics. I’m the kind of person who likes to put everything together, I’m very interdisciplinary and love to compare different topics, histories, etc. So my plan of action now is, as many of you have greatly suggested (thank you) is to read through some literature, look up professors at different schools, and see what I can narrow down my interests to. Then, make contact with the professors to narrow down school options.

Also, I’m currently reading on the side some anthro lit on public policy. I’ve considered going into public policy because I don’t want to theorize in academia all my life and stray too far from the reality outside. I’m interested in applying those anthropological models to public policy. If any of you, anthropology students or not, have any suggestions on topics or books you think I can read up on, please let me know.

Thank you StrangeLight for suggesting that I contact Kate Ramsey, I sure will.