Mother's Day and Other Things

[theyellowhobbit]

For Mother's Day, or perhaps for the one Sunday I'm around RI in May which happened to be on Mother's Day, I gave a lecture at Agudas Achim on the history of Zionism [the abbreviated version] and life in Israel. Of course, the part about history lasted approximately 25 minutes, since my notes weren't so extensive and it had been years since I've studied this material. [I find myself wondering if I'll be this way in another five years with the stuff I've learned at Penn...] And everyone was more interested in Israel anyways.

I got finagled into making lasagne for dinner for everyone. It's mostly gone now. It was pretty good. I need to stop being good at cooking so someone else can cook instead...
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So last night I got an E-mail from Ben about thesisy stuff, which means he still is in contact, though unfortunately he only writes e-mails on the weekends in the summer. Gah. But at least he can be my advisor for the anthro thesis for next year! Yay! I wrote him back about the following dilemma:


The Background:
I got home on Thursday, and my mom said "I was thinking that you should probably apply to some American archaeology programs as a back-up just so you have something in place if you don't get into any of the Israeli grad schools." Much as the idea of being in America for another year after I graduate is not so pleasant, I figured I'd at least look into it...

Except of course I was looking on the Penn website*, and they said that their master's degree was more for people pursuing careers in other fields who wanted to study from an anthropological perspective... And the PhD is 6-[some number <= the human lifespan] years. And although 1-2 years in America would not be terrible, the idea of spending another 7 years here is just frightening.

So my questions based on the above:

-Is there a point to a master's in Anthropology? Does it do anything?
-Is there a such thing as transfers between graduate schools? [ie a year[ish] in America and then go to Israel] If so, how common is it?
-If I dropped out of an American PhD program would that pretty much ruin my chances of getting into anywhere in Israel?
-Do you happen to know how competitive Israeli archaeology programs are to get into? What should I be doing right now? Is a 3.57 GPA really [comparatively] bad?

As much as being in graduate school in Israel for 10-20 years scares me, being stuck in America for 6 years scares me infinitely more. It would mean putting my entire life on stand-still** until I finish. [And I already feel trapped with this 1 year at Penn...] I mean I guess I'll apply to some American places to make my parents happy [or maybe I could do England or Australia or something really cool like that]. And then-what programs in America would be worth looking into? And are all Anthropology master's degrees pointless, or is it just Penn's program that is?

It's bad when you think you know what you want to do with your life, only to find out that your goals may not be so achievable after all. Though I'd like to think that with the fieldschool and with 2 really good theses, I should be able to get into an Israeli program, even if I don't have anywhere near a 4.0 GPA.


*The link was not in the original e-mail. I added it for y'all.[Or would that be "all y'all"?]

**I wasn't going to spell it out in the e-mail, but "putting my entire life on stand-still," in this case, refers to the possibility of ever getting married. I want to make aliyah. I want to marry a guy who wants to make aliyah. Such a guy, if he's serious about the idea, would either already be in Israel or probably would be planning to go there in the near future. I doubt a guy would find something to do in America for 6 years while I finish my PhD. Hence me asking the question about transferring/dropping out. I'll be 28 when I finish my PhD! And I don't even know if an American PhD in Anthropology is respected in Israel.

Ok, fine, I'll grant that that's not a big issue this second, since it's not like I'm dating anyone right now. But I'm just afraid that if I wait until I'm 28 to even start dating, I'll be screwed, and since in Judaism everyone gets married young [yes, that's a generalization], there won't be any guys out there. And I'd like to get married before then if I find someone. Which i won't if I'm stuck in America.

So I guess the question would be "where is a good graduate program that is located near a vibrant Jewish community full of young singles looking to make aliyah within the next decade?" That's not a question Ben could answer.

Or alternatively "who do I have to bribe with deli-roll and biscotti to get into grad school in Israel?" I assume the deli-roll and biscotti should work. I can send them in with my thesis.

Or maybe I can just marry a rich guy who has his own private plane and can afford to own two houses- 1 in America and 1 in Israel. And we could fly back and forth between the 2 countries, so if one of us was working in America and the other was working in Israel, we could still live together and see eachother and not be like those married couples who have to spend years apart. But I doubt such a man exists.

Comments

[masteraleph.livejournal.com]

There is certainly a system of credit transfer between grad schools and people certainly do so. Whether or not such things will work in practice is something that you'll need to talk to the various schools' programs on. The standard rule is that credits only have the possibility of transferring pre-degree. That is, if you were to do a masters, stay for one out of two years and then transfer to an Israeli program, they might take that year's credits, but they wouldn't if you actually filled the masters.

The questions of good programs and Jewish communities of future olim are actually separate. First find such communities. Then ask about programs in those cities, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.