elanya

I just got back from my meeting with Dr. King, and I though I'd better write some things down here while it is, as the subject says, still fresh in my head.

For one, I found that he was refreshingly frank about things, and personable as well. He asked me some good questions and made some good points, and I think that I did a quite good job at explaining myself and my interests.

He made some suggestions, which basically boil down to that I need to decide what I want to do ;) Okay, maybe that's a lot of boiling... But he suggested that I look into things more, while leaving avenues open to myself to pursue different things, and think outside of the MS box as much as I can while I'm pursuing this degree, for now, especially where it comes to course electives and such things. He suggested some people here in the athro department that I may want to speak to, for one. I also know that there are some prffs here in the department that I should probably speak to.

He also thought that I should look a little more closely at some other PhD programs, like Texas, to consider what they might be able to ofer, as far as pursuing my specific goals.

Basically, it boils down to this. I know I want to go on in academia. His program is more aimed at producing managers... but it would be possibe to tailor it more to the sorts of things I'm curious about. It is a broad, multidisciplinary program. I could sell myself as having that kind of background, and as being able to bring that kind of approach and kind of thinking to potential academic employers. This might make me less attractive to traditional departments, however. I think that I *could* do this, especially if I set myself up in the program as an outside-discipline curious historical archaeologist. Or maybe cultural-history archaeologist? I'm not going to be able to ignore or bypass the management or science aspects of the program, but they may be more flexible than is initially presented.

In anycase, I am going to do some more looking, here and into Texas. He lent me a copy of a magazine that had an article about Texas's program's pirate stuff... And also told me one of the anth proffs here has a book coming out on pirates. Oh, and he *also* said that there is a conference on the (alleged) QAR project this spring, and offhandedly mentionned that I might find a place there, considering my past dissertatrion. The actual QAR project manager is a PhD candidate in the CRM program here, and I shoud also seek him out and talk to him. Maybe he'll be around at the department party thing next Thursday (Dont worry folks, it's *before* perseity ;).

Anyway, these are *mostly* for my own benefit, though if anyone has any thoughts or advice they would like to interject, especially if they have experience in the academic field and have any thoughts about how the CRM degree would *really* influence my job prospects (*hint*Steve?*hint*), that would be keen.

Hmm, I guess some of the guys from last year are meeting with some of the other new folks to talk about the program stuff... things we might have issues with and whatnot, so I'll go do that before I run my other errands.