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[22277253]

My daughter has wanted a career in archeology/anthro since grade school.  She will receive her B.S. in Biology/Anthro from the Univ of Chicago with a 3.9.   She did her first summer field school in Peru, her second at Angkor Watt, and her third this summer will be in the Urals.  She applied to and was admitted to the one year program at Cambridge in Archaeological Science but did not get funding.   She says she did not know what her grad school focus should be and that was why she did not want to apply to grad school last fall.  She has narrowed her interests somewhat but not completely. 

She has not published any paper(s) yet.  Her summer Peru adviser canceled at the last minute due to a family problem, and (I think) she was hampered at Angkor Watt due to having no French and a lack of intellectual prep for that particular project.  This summer she has a project lined up in the southern Urals with a guy who has ongoing funding. 

Her choices for her pre-Ph.D. gap year are: 

(1)  Take money from us for Cambridge.  We are aware of the shortcomings of the one year Master's and her contacts say it's not necessary to spend the money.  Up until she did not get funding I think she and we thought she would get funding as her school recommended her to several highly placed opportunities.
(2)  Return to Denver and live with us, find a job, and save money and apply to grad school.  She is already quite frugal and saves. 
(3)  Look for another overseas job such as teaching Spanish. 
(4) Find another relationship—such as the guy doing the Russian project-- and use the time to work on a joint publication. 

My question is, what is the best way for us to support her in her goals, and should we encourage her toward one of the above choices as clearly more helpful?  I am concerned that as a female, the implication of a directionless gap year could make her look less attractive to a PhD. Program.  My husband is not concerned about this.  We both have advanced degrees but neither of us is in academia. 

[t_r_b]

A few thoughts:

1. it's great that you want to support your daughter's career, and that you'd even suggest paying for a year at Cambridge for her. That shows unusual commitment and generosity on your part. That said, this is really not your business: your daughter is at a stage in life where she needs to steer her own course (in fact, she's been there for a while), and I worry that if you try to nudge her one way or another you'll either annoy her or keep her from taking charge of her own affairs. So I think the best way you can support her is to take a few steps back and let her figure it out on her own (though mentioning the fact that you're willing to support her financially for a year, regardless of which option she chooses, would be great).

2. Regarding the "gap year": I think this is much less of a problem than you suggest. I had three "gap years" between my BA and grad school, in the sense that I spent three years doing work that had nothing to do with my research interests. That didn't hurt my applications one bit, presumably because I briefly outlined in my statement of purpose how my experiences during those years had informed my professional goals and research interests. So my advice for your daughter would be to spend the year doing something she finds intriguing, especially if there's something she's interested in trying out that she won't be able to do as easily after launching her graduate career. Even if she does something completely unrelated to archaeology, if it reflects her own interests and personality and helps her learn and grow as a person, then it will help her clarify where she wants to head over the long haul, which will in turn make her a stronger grad school applicant.

3. If the one-year Cambridge program is a bad fit, for whatever reason, then there is no point in going there simply to have something to do next year. Far better to take the year off and go to the right program, than to go for the wrong program right away.

[hollow_man]

Your daughter is building a pedigree that will look fantastic to a graduate program.

I would think a "gap year" would not matter much. Yes, there is a longstanding tradition of sexism in archaeology; but it's not pervasive anymore, and she doesn't want to work with sexists anyway, right?  Obviously, if she can do something professionally productive with the year off, though, so much the better for Ph.D. admissions.  Has she looked into museum work, or research assistantships? Even HS teaching experience could help.

Frankly, I would tell her to do something other than grad school for a couple of years, despite the longstanding interest you report. People who take teaching jobs having never done anything but be students make me skeptical.

Given the variety of archaeological sites you say she's worked at, I am slightly unclear about her research interests. But then, I have experience in a different variety of archaeology, so maybe that's not an issue for anthropological archaeology.

[svenc]

I'm not in archeology, but a gap between undergraduate and graduate school is generally not a problem.  Graduate application committees will certainly focus on your daughter's field experience and strong GPA from a great school. 

Something other than university for a year, even a job in an unrelated area, may well allow her to better define her interests.  It also sounds like she may need this year to gain some independence from her very supportive parents.

I guess that means I would advise against option #2.

[iomhaigh]

I know graduate admissions directors who are incredibly skeptical about admitting people who have not taken at least a year off from school, who have never earned money other than work-study, and who have few CV-recordable life experiences outside of schooling which will help them to interact with their students who quite likely will have experienced many, if not all, of those things.

Has she worked full-time before?

If she has worked before, then are there jobs that would help her to explore the field tangentially or make her more well-rounded than she already might be?

My grad school cohort included a couple of people who went straight through and a whole lot of us who did all sorts of things between undergrad and grad school.  Some of these things were relevant to our degrees; many were not.  The people who never made it to exam time were the people who never took time off between degrees.  I can only think of one person who went straight through that has finished.      

Even if she's working at Starbucks, advise her to volunteer at a museum or an art gallery or someplace where she can keep that part of her brain active.  

The key to the year off is to be able to explain, as tangy-rakish-babe points out, how that year made her a stronger candidate, even if that is simply because she was able to spend time away from school, refresh, refocus her interests, and volunteer.  

[shovelbum]

Taking time off between undergrad and PhD will make your daughter more attractive to programs, no matter what she does. She has a great GPA from a good school and plenty of field experience. However, I think the decision of how to spend her year must be entirely up to her.  Since it is her career she needs to learn how to make these choices independently.

I also think it would be a VERY bad idea for you to fund her in any way. Do not give her money for tuition, travel, rent, or even a shopping spree. If she is going to be an archaeologist she needs to start learning IMMEDIATELY how to live on a tight budget without help from parents. Those who enter this field without a deep understanding of the limited financial prospects tend to drop out before they finish their PhD.

Finally, archaeology is a very small world. You have presented enough details in your post to identify your daughter, who would probably be mortified that other archaeologists (including those who may be reviewing her grad school applications) know that her mother is managing her career. I recommend that you desist from further posts about her. If she is truly motivated to follow this career path and truly wants advice, she will post these questions herself.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

Peace Corps. - DvF

[unspoiled]

While the OP could have been more discreet in posting identifying snippets from her daughter's professional bio (coming from a new poster this is obviously due to inexperience and this too, will pass), I do not understand why she is being identified on another thread, with a link to this one, as a helicopter mom.  I do not post a link to that message because I know that often links within such messages are invalidated by moderators. 

The OP' s question was how to better support her daughter in her professional goals, in other words she was asking what SHE should do, not what her daughter should do.

Posters so far seem to counsel the OP to back off completely, and that's a point of view as valid as any. However, parents of potential archaeologists could probably benefit from listening to voices in graduate school here but stemming from as many cultures as possible. 

I understand that some professors here in the US have a "sink or swim" mentality when it comes to graduate school, as opposed to medical school or law school in the US where the contractual responsibilities on both sides are more clearly defined.  Enough said that in the process of maximizing the student's responsibilities to the limit, some professors often neglect their own responsibilities, and many redefine these responsibilities to be minimal in the name of the graduate student's autonomy, but in reality for their own convenience. 

I don't understand why the "sink or swim" mentality should be extended to the parent, however. If the OP's daughter were considering medical school instead of archaeology, would the more experienced posters here counsel the OP not to dare pay for the daughter's medical school tuition, "or trips, or books, or even a shopping spree", or even not to loan the daughter money at lesser interest rate than Fannie Mae? 

Just curious.  And if so, why? Because medical school is an investment that pays for itself within a decade after graduation, and graduate school doesn't?   Spiritually, they both pay for themselves. And not that I favor unfunded programs (I truly don't) but financial-wise the OP' s dilemma seems  more about helping launch someone's dream in any way, shape or form (and debating the many shapes and forms) than about subsidizing someone for life.

Advocating anything than cutting off all communication on daughter's professional goals, it seems, would be tantamount to producing another graduate student drop-out. 

Maybe the graduate student drop-out rate would not be that high if they had support from anywhere else than their own families. 

And also, whatever happened to a parent being a son's or daughter's best friend, even if the parent is not an archaeologist? 





 

[iomhaigh]

And also, whatever happened to a parent being a son's or daughter's best friend, even if the parent is not an archaeologist? 

Where to start....the daughter is no longer four years old and needs to learn to manage her own career and education? 

Look around these boards, unspoiled, and you'll discover stories of students who are so incapable of managing their own lives that they bring their parents with them to job interviews.  Is Pops going to DO the job for them as well?  Is Ma going to negotiate their next raise?   How many of our students have anxiety problems because their parents are far too involved in their child's life?

Continuing with your med school and law school do not have a "'sink or swim' mentality" (which is lunacy, but whatever) argument, are Mum and Dad going to help come over and wake you up when you oversleep during your residency?  Are they going to doublecheck your sutures?  Seriously.  Grad school is pie compared to law school. 

Grad school is not like undergrad, and parents are parents, not bosom buddies, agents, personal assistants or life planners. 

It is time for this current generation of students to grow up and learn to care for themselves, or else this planet is going to be in dire shape once they start having children and start being responsible for the world. 

What many of us on this thread are trying to do is convince this well-meaning and caring mom to make sure that her daughter can stand on her own before going into grad school.  Self-sufficiency does not cause people to drop out of grad school, unspoiled.  Spoiled students who have never learned to function for themselves, make choices for themselves, and think for themselves are the students who drop out of grad school. 

[ideagirl]

the OP' s dilemma seems  more about helping launch someone's dream in any way, shape or form (and debating the many shapes and forms) than about subsidizing someone for life.

Beautifully put. I agree with everything you said, and I think it's great that this future archaeologist has such a supportive mom. She does need to learn self-sufficiency, but if she's already "frugal and she saves" (which is a heck of a lot more than I could say for myself at that age), she's got a head start on handling the financial limitations that her dream career generally imposes. To be frugal when you have parents as supportive as hers--i.e., when you don't have to be frugal--to me that shows that the kid already has a good head on her shoulders and some self-sufficiency.

[ploughandstars]

She says she did not know what her grad school focus should be and that was why she did not want to apply to grad school last fall.  She has narrowed her interests somewhat but not completely. 

Seems the gap year would serve for her to pick the grad school(s) she most wishes to attend, based on their offered specialties as a real fit for her interests. I'd avoid Cambridge till she's targeted and MET with the faculty at the school(s) she is most interested in attending. 

[litcrittr82]

Odd advice from someone about to start a doctoral program who went straight through undergrad and M.A., and is now in the middle of his 'off time': encourage her to consider a corporate 9-5.  Seriously.  If I had any doubts before I started this corporate job about whether I'd want to give up high salaries for my academic work, I have zero doubts at this point.  I post on the fora all day just to stay sane.  Plus I make (and save) a lot of money, which will come in handy for grad. school next year.

Also, discourage her from taking a European vacation year.  One of my MA professors once told me to take the year off and travel Europe.  With what money?  I was disgusted by this.  I suspect quite a few admissions people would be too.  If language experience is as crucial to archeology as it is to something like comp. lit., then maybe teaching English abroad or enrolling in a foreign language institute (still expensive, but at least it looks productive) would be a solid substitute for the European vacation year.  I'm only commenting on this because I have close, rich friends in academia who did the European vacation year.

[aymonos]

I have been lurking here reading, and wanted to offer another perspective as someone whose best friends are grad students in archaeology. Bear in mind that funding across the board for grad school is being cut drastically, and it is not necessarily about what she wants so much as how she can position herself strategically.

Here's another idea: your daughter could take a year and do some CRM work with a firm as a shovelbum to make sure she really really wants to do archaeology. Most of the people - if not all - who are in my grad program have done CRM (sometimes for up to five years) before coming to the MA/PhD. They have a much easier time getting funding and are able to come into the program with a defined research interest and can progress more quickly. If she isn't actually in school doing archaeology that way, she could still be getting valuable experience by digging in the summer and doing lab work the rest of the year. She is going to have to make herself as competitive as possible. She doesn't need to worry about publication so much right now; it's the daily experience of doing archaeology over a long-term haul that may be important.

I would also suggest using CRM work as a way to narrow down a regional focus so that she can formulate a research question that might interest her. She has moved around quite a bit regionally in a short time and may need to appear more focused.

Also, the kinds of education she would get at a US program and one in Europe may differ theoretically and practically. She really needs to understand that before she makes a decision. There are different kinds of questions that are asked in different settings. It's not just a matter of choosing Cambridge as one among similar options. What she learned at Cambridge could be quite different than what she learned elsewhere. She also needs to be comfortable with the dominant theoretical paradigms at the school she chooses.

At this point, maybe she could register and take over this discussion. We need to know what she knows in terms of practical knowledge, etc., so we could give better advice.