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theyellowhobbitArchaeology has been moving towards the inclusion of more advanced technology in both the field and in the university. And one of those advanced technologies is a program called GIS.
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nerdx111 and son_of_paladin might also remember the blue cluster days in middle school, and how we used ArcView GIS in order to make maps. (Though now memories of middle school are coming back and are making me shudder. "You want to know about squirrels, well you don't know jack about squirrels!..." [2 points if you guys get the reference and the response that was given to that...])
The technology was pretty cool, but of course I haven't touched it since either 7th or 8th grade. And at the time it was annoying because we were being instructed in a big group, and had to go step by step, and wait until everyone got to a certain point before moving on. And of course, I would inevitably want to go ahead.
Anyways, after I left middle school, I pretty much forgot that GIS existed.
Last week, in a conversation withmaric23 GIS came up. He said that GIS was very important to archaeologists, and to take a class in it if I could.
Looking here and at the course register, it seems that the useful classes, such as cartographic imaging, are either only offered in the fall, or were a one-shot thing that happened in 2003.
That and I can only take anthro classes next semester (besides my JWST thesis.) I'm allowed to petetion for up to 3 outside classes to count towards my major. I'm only petitioning for one so far, Jewish Folklore. (If I succeed it will be the one useful thing I can get out of Ben-Amos' class.) So I have two more. And one of those could be the GIS class. But I'm thinking that learning urban planning, while interesting, isn't going to help me with archaeology at all. Or would I learn most of what I need to know about the program even if I'm doing stuff comepletely unrelated to archaeology with it? How can I get archaeological GIS skills?
I suppose I could go to the lab and play around with the technology on my own, and see if I have any computer skills left after spending 3 years learning liberal arts. But then it's not going to show up on my transcript or curriculum vitae. Though I suppose I could say that I know GIS if I get to the point where I know it, and then people can give me stuff to do, and either I'll succeed or I won't. And I still would technically be telling the truth if I said I've taken a class in it. Granted, it was 8-9 years ago, but I still did it.
But I'm annoyed at having another missed opportunity, and only finding out about it when it was too late.
How am I ever going to get into an archaeology graduate school with no practical knowledge, no outstanding achievements, no language skills, no knowledge of art history or the classics, and in general nothing that would set me apart from any other applicant? There are a lot of people who want to become archaeologists. (Even when they do get their degree, it's near impossible to find a job.) There were a lot of volunteers this summer. Perhaps the vast majority of them are not going to become archaeologists, but even of the few that will- PhD programs are small. Upenn maybe takes up to 12 grad students a year across the whole anthropology department. Maybe 2 or 3 of them are archaeologists.
So I spent the summer digging in Israel and might be able to get letters of reccommendation from people who are regarded as important in the fields of anthropology or archaeology. Maybe. Janet Monge I can for sure get a letter from, assuming it doesn't get buried under her never-ending piles of work. I'm probably going to get a really nice one from Ben that I'll never be able to see, though he's not a professor yet and is not famous. Maybe I could get one from Dr. Saboloff, though I haven't seen him around this semester and am wondering if he's on sabbatical (even though he just came back from a sabbatical), and he probably doesn't know my name, even if he does say hi to me when I see him in the halls of the museum. He might just recognize me as that smart girl who sits in the back, is perpetually late, and asked that really good question when one of the TAs guest lectured. Maybe I can get one from Dr. Schuyler if I survive the semester, and if he doesn't hold the fact that I call myself a [proto] Biblical Archaeologist against me. He's probably one of the top historical archaeologists in America if not the world. (Though the question is then whether or not historical archaeology is real archaeology. Some people, likemaric23 think that it's better than biblical archaeology. I laugh at them.)
So is that enough?
nerdx111 and son_of_paladin might also remember the blue cluster days in middle school, and how we used ArcView GIS in order to make maps. (Though now memories of middle school are coming back and are making me shudder. "You want to know about squirrels, well you don't know jack about squirrels!..." [2 points if you guys get the reference and the response that was given to that...])The technology was pretty cool, but of course I haven't touched it since either 7th or 8th grade. And at the time it was annoying because we were being instructed in a big group, and had to go step by step, and wait until everyone got to a certain point before moving on. And of course, I would inevitably want to go ahead.
Anyways, after I left middle school, I pretty much forgot that GIS existed.
Last week, in a conversation with
maric23 GIS came up. He said that GIS was very important to archaeologists, and to take a class in it if I could.Looking here and at the course register, it seems that the useful classes, such as cartographic imaging, are either only offered in the fall, or were a one-shot thing that happened in 2003.
That and I can only take anthro classes next semester (besides my JWST thesis.) I'm allowed to petetion for up to 3 outside classes to count towards my major. I'm only petitioning for one so far, Jewish Folklore. (If I succeed it will be the one useful thing I can get out of Ben-Amos' class.) So I have two more. And one of those could be the GIS class. But I'm thinking that learning urban planning, while interesting, isn't going to help me with archaeology at all. Or would I learn most of what I need to know about the program even if I'm doing stuff comepletely unrelated to archaeology with it? How can I get archaeological GIS skills?
I suppose I could go to the lab and play around with the technology on my own, and see if I have any computer skills left after spending 3 years learning liberal arts. But then it's not going to show up on my transcript or curriculum vitae. Though I suppose I could say that I know GIS if I get to the point where I know it, and then people can give me stuff to do, and either I'll succeed or I won't. And I still would technically be telling the truth if I said I've taken a class in it. Granted, it was 8-9 years ago, but I still did it.
But I'm annoyed at having another missed opportunity, and only finding out about it when it was too late.
How am I ever going to get into an archaeology graduate school with no practical knowledge, no outstanding achievements, no language skills, no knowledge of art history or the classics, and in general nothing that would set me apart from any other applicant? There are a lot of people who want to become archaeologists. (Even when they do get their degree, it's near impossible to find a job.) There were a lot of volunteers this summer. Perhaps the vast majority of them are not going to become archaeologists, but even of the few that will- PhD programs are small. Upenn maybe takes up to 12 grad students a year across the whole anthropology department. Maybe 2 or 3 of them are archaeologists.
So I spent the summer digging in Israel and might be able to get letters of reccommendation from people who are regarded as important in the fields of anthropology or archaeology. Maybe. Janet Monge I can for sure get a letter from, assuming it doesn't get buried under her never-ending piles of work. I'm probably going to get a really nice one from Ben that I'll never be able to see, though he's not a professor yet and is not famous. Maybe I could get one from Dr. Saboloff, though I haven't seen him around this semester and am wondering if he's on sabbatical (even though he just came back from a sabbatical), and he probably doesn't know my name, even if he does say hi to me when I see him in the halls of the museum. He might just recognize me as that smart girl who sits in the back, is perpetually late, and asked that really good question when one of the TAs guest lectured. Maybe I can get one from Dr. Schuyler if I survive the semester, and if he doesn't hold the fact that I call myself a [proto] Biblical Archaeologist against me. He's probably one of the top historical archaeologists in America if not the world. (Though the question is then whether or not historical archaeology is real archaeology. Some people, like
maric23 think that it's better than biblical archaeology. I laugh at them.)So is that enough?
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-01 10:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-03 04:01 am (UTC)Wanna do computer stuff for my hypothetical future dig? We'd dig in the summer so it's not like you'd be teaching math then anyways.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-02 05:46 pm (UTC)Ask Erickson, or poll the folks in the dept if hes not available. Assuming they're teaching ESRI ArcGIS/ArcView, the program will be useful to be familiar with...
Also, if theres a final project, find a way to tie in your thesis, or at least some archaeological question. Most professors are fascinated when they find someone from a strange arcane discipline interested in what they do, and you'd be amazed how much leeway that buys. The GIS professor at Cornell loved having me around cause I was always asking the most random questions based on the vagaries of archaeological and historic data. Very practical questions, yet ones she'd rarely dealt with.
Also, do recall that odds are most of the GIS folks there have worked with Erickson back in 2003, so they're all aware that GIS is used in archaeology, which should put you a step ahead of my fun with it. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2006-10-03 03:58 am (UTC)So by "the department" do you mean the anthro department or whatever department the GIS courses are in?
And are you saying then that I should sign up for whatever course they have next semester (assuming they have something) even if it isn't all archaeological?
As for my thes[es], um...yeah...not so practical. Considering my archaeological evidence is few and far between. This is mostly anthropological. You'll see eventually when I finish it. Maybe if I can get a hold of Ronny Reich's dissertation on miqva'ot and then map out where the different excavated miqva'ot were found and stuff...But it seems like a stretch. Though I could probably do something archaeological. And now that I think of it, city planning and city virtual reconstruction are probably very similar in terms of mappingness, though obviously you're using different information. I could also compare geographical/environmental stuff with landscape archaeology.
And yay for possibly being a step ahead of you! (And I'll totally out-archaeologicize you as soon as I order and get my shiny patiche! Laugh all you want at my hobbit-tools, but someday I'll use it to find something big and important, and everyone will say "wow, Rachel is the awesomest archaeologist ever." And I'll say "not really, I just have a good patiche." And they'll still think I'm awesome and will let me run their excavations and they'll even pay me. You can have a [paying] job if you want {and you can even look at historical stuff like the Ottoman period} but you'll have to use the ginormous hoe and pickaxe, and maybe if you're really nice I'll let you borrow my patiche. But only if you admit that it's useful.:-p)