Kelli Sholer: Alright.
Kelli Sholer: We are starting the anthropology transfer student Q AMP. A we're going to wait a minute or two is more attendees.
Kelli Sholer: Virtually make their way into the room. Welcome, everyone.
Kelli Sholer: cameos we always love with them.
Kelli Sholer: And maybe just another minute.
Christyann Darwent: This is my ugly to our
Kelli Sholer: Well,
Christyann Darwent: You can see his tongue is hanging out because he has no teeth.
Oh,
Jeffrey Kahn: I will dizzy, Chris.
Christyann Darwent: He's 11 we got him three years ago. He'd been he'd been abandoned twice at the at the ASPCA
Christyann Darwent: And he had like no hair and a broken toe, and it was always a mess.
Kelli Sholer: He sees a cookie Chihuahua. Yeah.
Christyann Darwent: So he has hair again and we fixed his toe.
Kelli Sholer: Alright, we'll go ahead and get started I'm
Kelli Sholer: Just
Coming in and out.
Kelli Sholer: So, welcome everyone to, again, the anthropology transfer student at question and answer session, we're glad that you could join us today.
Kelli Sholer: Even though it has to be virtual but we hope this is a good space to get some of your questions.
Kelli Sholer: About the manager about the department answered. So we'll start off with introductions, you can know who is on our panel today.
Kelli Sholer: So I'm Kelly schoeller I'm one of the anthropology undergrads stuff advisors in our advising office and I have been with the department since 2014
Kelli Sholer: And just find it really fascinating to work with the apology students because there's such a wide breadth of different interests that people have in studying and pursuing anthropologists or major so very dynamic. The purpose and I'll throw it to my colleague Carolyn.
Caroline Herrod: Hi there everyone, I'm Carolyn, I'm the other staff advisor for anthropology and I've been with the department since
Caroline Herrod: And prior to that. I did some career counseling at another institution. So I love to talk to students about not just their academic goals with their career goals as well.
Caroline Herrod: And just love working with the answer students. They're so diverse and a lot of fun to hear about all the cool things they get to do and all their labs and and other research. So welcome everybody. And congratulations on getting accepted here.
Christyann Darwent: Um, do you want me to hide.
Christyann Darwent: Right well
Kelli Sholer: We'll have our faculty go neck.
Christyann Darwent: I wasn't sure if we were next. Hi, I'm Chris Darwin's I'm one of the archaeology faculty here at at UC Davis. I've been here since 2001
Christyann Darwent: So I'm kind of, I guess, old now.
Christyann Darwent: And I do research in the Arctic regions. So I work in Greenland and Alaska and I do take students with me or have taken students with me to the field. And I also bring students into work in my lab and sorry about my dog and that's what's barking in the background. So I will mute that
Jeffrey Kahn: Muted again. All right, I am Jeff con I'm in the socio cultural Wang of that topology apartment. I've been here on campus and
Jeffrey Kahn: I do research on migration law orders, but also ritual and religion and geographically. I work in the United States, Haiti and I also have done some research and field work in West Africa as well.
Jeffrey Kahn: And welcome, everyone. And congratulations on being accepted to
Kelli Sholer: And now we'll have our peers who are both with us today, who've been in the department and have had the experience of being students and are probably the voices you most want to hear from today. So we'll have them introduce themselves. Let's start with Sarah.
Sara Jhanjar: Guys. Oh. Sorry. Hi guys, my name is Sarah jar. I'm a fourth year Bachelors of Science in anthropology and I've been working as a period visor since my sophomore year at Campus.
Sara Jhanjar: So I have. I'm not a transfer since I've been working here since my sophomore year, but I have interacted with a lot of transfer students and just in general, I think that, you know,
Sara Jhanjar: Our department is a really special place on campus because of our mixture of faculty who
Sara Jhanjar: Do all these different disciplines and our students who are super motivated. So it's been a pleasure to be on campus. And even though I'm enjoying my time here at Davis and quarantine.
Sara Jhanjar: You know I'm there were obviously still all connected. Even if it's through zoom. So thank you for being here.
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Hi everyone, my name is Sophia, and I'm a fourth year transfer student in the anthropology department. I'm a double major in evolutionary wing anthropology as well as communication.
Sofia Veronica Rhea: And I'm obviously I'm also a pure advisor and I've been having this position for around a year, and I think that one of the best things about the anthropology department.
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Is how welcoming. It was when I first transferred here. I didn't really even know of all the possible opportunities within this field and the faculty, students, and advisors were just all really welcoming
Kelli Sholer: Awesome. So as we go. Feel free to please use the Q AMP a throw questions up there and we'll be answering them either live or one of our folks school
Kelli Sholer: Type you the answer. If we can't get to all the questions we had folks submit questions beforehand. And so let's start with and actually this be for both of you, Sophia And Sarah.
Kelli Sholer: Someone wanted to know if there is an anthropology club and what kind of activities do they do.
Sara Jhanjar: Well as you can see us based off Sophia shirt, we both are in the anthropology Club. I'm actually the president of the anthropology club this year and Sophia is my social media and marketing manager.
Sara Jhanjar: And so, yeah, we pretty much we've been in operation, you know, started up again. I think it was like five or so years ago by one of the students
Sara Jhanjar: And, you know, we've been keeping going since then. And this year, as President. We've had a lot of really we try to make our puppets more broad and
Sara Jhanjar: We switch between I've kind of lecture based style to more activity based so like one of the activities we did was
Sara Jhanjar: We borrowed some gravestones from the seed, which is the Center for experimental archaeology on campus and we
Sara Jhanjar: Made a corn flour. So, you know, we kind of do a mix of topics we have a mix of faculty come and then grad students so
Sara Jhanjar: It gives them an opportunity to share the research and more casual setting and also give their students to interact with
Sara Jhanjar: Physicians opportunity to interact with faculty, it may be a less
Sara Jhanjar: You know classroom setting where they have obviously the instructors and charging your grades and is that kind of dynamic going. It's a little bit of chiller and I think students really like it. Plus, we have snacks. So that's always a bonus
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Yes, sir. That about covers it. I know we had before quarantine became the new normal. We had some also like trips together that we had planned like to go to museums or cool local sites. So hopefully that will continue on in the next year's once we're no longer on zoom
Kelli Sholer: Great. Yeah, thanks.
Kelli Sholer: So they're definitely like Sarah and Sophia both have mentioned, there's a tight knit community within the department and joining after college transfer student
Kelli Sholer: And you know, I think, since you mentioned, it is a nice way to immediately feel part of that community with that group of students that you know we're obviously all coming together in the department.
Kelli Sholer: So the next question that we have gotten a lot of
Kelli Sholer: Kind of around is field school until I'm going to throw that to Chris Darwin.
Kelli Sholer: Just questions around what kind of field schools are there for anther students in our department.
Kelli Sholer: Someone wanted to know if there are language requirements field schools, if they're abroad, I guess, just in general, do you want to chat about our field school and then just maybe other schools, students may participate if they don't do the one that UC Davis, so
Christyann Darwent: So UC Davis has actually been
Christyann Darwent: offering an archeological field school since 1968 or 69 so it's actually one of the longest running field schools in the country. And the big thing about our department in terms of of archaeology compared to the other UCS
Christyann Darwent: In the system is the focus on studying hunter gatherer populations. So these are folks that are kind of pre cities and so very mobile groups of people.
Christyann Darwent: But the other focus of this department has been the focus on on people who lived here in California and the great base and region in the past. And so the of the the reason, though, that this kind of initiated as
Christyann Darwent: More of a local field school is because it is often very cost prohibitive for students to take field schools and other countries. I know to do a field school at CU before, which is
Christyann Darwent: Used to be run through Rutgers University was about $10,000 and you hadn't even got to Kenya yet. And so we have tried to keep our field school as cost effective as possible because we wanted
Christyann Darwent: Any student to be able to take it. I know when I was an undergraduate at the University of Calgary taking a field school was required to get your degree in archaeology, because a field school is kind of like your trade certificate
Christyann Darwent: It's what gets you jobs afterwards as a field technician and so it's it's not just about kind of doing like a fun summer adventure.
Christyann Darwent: Although that that is part of it. But one of the other reasons for doing a field school
Christyann Darwent: In the United States is because you're more likely to be employed as an archaeologist in the United States than you are to be employed working on a site in Kenya.
Christyann Darwent: So, just out of the the realities of it and and so I do encourage students who want to stick with
Christyann Darwent: With archaeology as a career in the US to take a US based field school but um but the other thing is that if you are really interested in another part of the world.
Christyann Darwent: Please, by all means look into other fields school opportunities and you know we've had students go to study medieval sites in Ireland to work on Paleolithic sites in France.
Christyann Darwent: And we do sometimes have opportunities, not specifically as a field School course but opportunities to go with faculty who work in France, South Africa.
Christyann Darwent: Mongolia, Belgium, so this summer. In fact, we have two undergraduates, who were awarded small fellowships about I think there were three or $400 from the Sacramento archaeological society to help fund.
Christyann Darwent: Field work that they will be undertaking in Belgium with doctors Vince, who's one of our professors and so although all of us who do archaeology in this department focus on hunter gatherers, we do that in different parts of the world. So I've taken students to Alaska to Greenland.
Christyann Darwent: Dr. Perkins has taken students to California.
Christyann Darwent: I always I always joke with him that when he complains about logistics. I go, Really, what would that be starting the engine of the car and driving it to the site.
Christyann Darwent: Whereas my logistics usually involve helicopters boats twin otters and so forth. So, so again the field school versus your opportunity to to undertake different field experiences can often be two different things.
Christyann Darwent: Last year, for example, our field school went to Peru and that was partly subsidized by the faculty member who ran that
Christyann Darwent: And so he took students down there to to the Lake Titicaca region. This summer, we are still hoping to go out in summer session to
Christyann Darwent: To the Great Basin. Um, and, you know, I think as long as everybody goes in there, healthy, they should be fine.
Christyann Darwent: Because they're going to be in a very remote part of Nevada and the Bureau of Land Management, which is the land.
Christyann Darwent: That they will be working on looking for antelope drives, which are drive lanes for hunting antelope.
Christyann Darwent: In the past, there's very eager to have the students come out there, this summer. So again, very
Christyann Darwent: Fingers tightly crossed. I'm sorry, I'm just scanning over to see if I answered all that as far as the language requirements. There are no language requirements for field schools.
Christyann Darwent: just about anywhere in the world that you go to, most of them are if they're offered
Christyann Darwent: To English speaking people. They're usually offered in English, but you can take field schools that will then immerse you into a particular language. If you are interested
Christyann Darwent: And then probably Jeff could speak to this more about cultural anthropology, but I know there are a lot of study abroad opportunities to take
Christyann Darwent: Cultural Anthropology courses or other courses in other countries and I strongly recommend students take either a summer or, you know, a quarter. A year study abroad.
Christyann Darwent: It's, it's just an amazing chance to learn another language learn another culture and as anthropologists, that's kind of what we do. That's what makes us different from sociology is this kind of world perspective, um,
Christyann Darwent: Oh, and so sorry I'm getting distracted because I'm noticing other questions coming in. Do you guys should we start answering some of those
Kelli Sholer: Yeah, I think I just wanted to note, real quick with field school that there are some options, not through UC Davis, but through other organizations that offer ethnographic field schools.
Kelli Sholer: We have gotten some emails from different institutions and organizations and our faculty, you know, we need to look over the syllabus for those to see those can give credit for our curriculum, but there are those opportunities for cultural answer of students to do
Kelli Sholer: Field SCHOOLS RELATED TO ethnographic methods and there's one that's typically offered in believe
Kelli Sholer: And then one that's has been offered in the past in Malta. And so these are opportunities that we send out on a weekly basis as they come to us through a newsletter.
Kelli Sholer: A MailChimp newsletter that our peer advisors put together every week. So, you will get that automatically starting in the fall. So all these kinds of opportunities will be in there, but there are field school
Kelli Sholer: Options for culture and so students to just know that specifically through UC Davis.
Kelli Sholer: Okay, so I think school is one
Christyann Darwent: Sorry, Kelly, just don't. Yeah. Yes, there are a number of field schools.
Christyann Darwent: For primatologist as well.
Kelli Sholer: Yeah yeah I mean once but
Christyann Darwent: Also the Smithsonian Institution in in Panama.
Christyann Darwent: Where one of our former faculty members is now kind of director
Christyann Darwent: Of in Germany, but they take students there as well. And she's taken a number of undergraduates when she was here.
Kelli Sholer: Yeah. So I think, I mean, definitely as a transfer student link up with our different faculty who can direct you to these different opportunities that they may know about through different colleagues.
Kelli Sholer: For every kind of, you know, interest in STEM fields within anthropology, there's probably an opportunity
Kelli Sholer: You know, for field school or for studying abroad, we are getting some questions about sending abroad and like Chris was saying, that's definitely encouraged.
Kelli Sholer: And cultural ethanol, that's definitely part of the curriculum. Jeff, I don't know if you want to speak to your thoughts on studying abroad. If someone is in the cultural and throw emphasis
Jeffrey Kahn: Sure.
Jeffrey Kahn: Yeah, I mean I can talk about that. I can also talk
Jeffrey Kahn: About honors thesis research because I know there was a pre circulated question about that.
Jeffrey Kahn: And I think kind of the primary way that one would go into field work either abroad or in the United States in the anthropology, the socio cultural emphasis
Jeffrey Kahn: Would be through the Thesis research or right Kelly, there are ethnographic field schools as well that are not runs through UC Davis, but in terms of being supervised by faculty members here that's often done through the honors program or some other form of kind of culminating writing
Jeffrey Kahn: Exercise. So basically, for that, you know, there are certain GPA requirements to have to be met. I think it's like a 3.6 or something like that in the major. Is that right, Kelly Kelly's nodding yes and
Jeffrey Kahn: And what you'd want to do is when you get here. You want to look over the different faculty members in the department.
Jeffrey Kahn: And think about what you might be interested in. You might come with an idea already in your head.
Jeffrey Kahn: There might be something that sparks your curiosity and some of the classes you're taking in the fall. You can talk to professor's into classes.
Jeffrey Kahn: Who are teaching the classes you're taking in the fall, if there's something that kind of falls out of their area of expertise and see if they can recommend anyone else in the department.
Jeffrey Kahn: But you want to start thinking, because you are transfer students and you only have two years here, you want to start thinking about that. Pretty soon after you get here.
Jeffrey Kahn: And then what you want to do in the winter quarter is start talking to the relevant faculty members and start kind of trying to put together a project or idea.
Jeffrey Kahn: Because if you're going to be working with human subjects talking to people doing ethnographic fieldwork, whether in the United States or abroad.
Jeffrey Kahn: There are certain requirements that you're going to have to meet and there's certain deadlines for funding opportunities. So you want to think about that as well.
Jeffrey Kahn: And what you can start to do is put together a project that would most likely be executed.
Jeffrey Kahn: During the summer or the fall and then you'd come back and you do a series of independent studies that would relate to that project. But again, that can involve
Jeffrey Kahn: traveling abroad or again staying in the US and doing ethnographic field field work, but it is that field work dimension, that's
Jeffrey Kahn: That's usually quite important and that might change a little bit depending on
Jeffrey Kahn: What happens with the pandemic, but there will be other types of kind of working with primary source materials, whether it's online, or or through other creative means
Jeffrey Kahn: But there'll be a way to figure something out. But again, you want to start thinking about it when you get here and i think that's that's probably all I want to say about the honors thesis right now.
Jeffrey Kahn: But I'm happy to to answer any other questions, I'll just study abroad stuff. I think it's up in the air right now so we're not really entirely sure about that.
Kelli Sholer: Yeah, yeah. And the honors thesis, just to make it clear is not
Kelli Sholer: Required for students. It's an optional experience that students can have. And typically we have about a handful of students teacher who decide to pursue it, because it is such a large undertaking.
Kelli Sholer: So don't feel like you have to, you know, do this or pursue this, but it is good, like
Kelli Sholer: Jeff was saying to start thinking about the transfer student, you know, by your second quarter and start trying to faculty instead of scrambling to try and find a faculty advisor for that during her senior year.
Kelli Sholer: Because the application is due at the start of the academic year.
Kelli Sholer: So at the beginning of her senior years when that would be do. So you'd want to ask someone, the summer or spring of your junior year
Kelli Sholer: Your first year Davis. So anyway, it's good to just be thinking about that, if that is an interest you have
Kelli Sholer: We're getting a lot of questions about
Caroline Herrod: different emphases what socio cultural
Kelli Sholer: Yes, General. Can you kind of go over some
Caroline Herrod: Of that
Kelli Sholer: Yeah, yeah. So we have within the Bachelor of Arts. We have three different emphasis areas and someone asked the question about the general emphasis, which is new. It just started this fall. So we have
Kelli Sholer: The socio cultural emphasis the evolutionary emphasis and the general emphasis, which is new.
Kelli Sholer: Evolutionary curriculum and this is your cultural curriculum, it's pretty self explanatory. In terms of, you know, they're focusing on either the cultural answer side or the biological evolutionary side of anthropology.
Kelli Sholer: And those requirements are listed on our website under the
Kelli Sholer: Undergraduate section, the general emphasis, we created really because some of our previous period visors brought it to our attention that
Kelli Sholer: A lot of students, especially transfer students really did not want to choose one curriculum of doing only biological answer classes or cultural answer classes in order to do both. So there's a combination of essentially doing half and half for upper division courses.
Kelli Sholer: Have evolutionary classes and have cultural and throw classes. And so it's a nice way if you just have an interest in everything related to anthropology to not have to choose one track or another, and you get to have more the interdisciplinary experience. The Bachelor of Science.
Kelli Sholer: Which may be after I speak, Sarah, can speak to a little bit about because she is doing a Bachelor of Science is a completely different curriculum. It includes as it sounds like a more science coursework. In addition to and throw so biology calculus chemistry, organic chemistry.
Kelli Sholer: And it really is helpful for students who are pre health. So that can be pre med pre dental pre nursing and meet a lot of those requirements. Anyway, but it allows you to study anthropology.
Kelli Sholer: And not just focus on the bio sciences and have more, you know, a humanist the view of medicine, but still get a lot of those prerequisites for those pre health programs done
Kelli Sholer: And the coursework for upper division is a little bit more specific in terms of which intro classes are required and also an operative
Kelli Sholer: biology, genetics classes required along with some restricted electives relating to different BIOS and anthropology options. So it is a very different curriculum.
Kelli Sholer: And you would want to talk to Carolyn or myself. If you have not completed a lot of the lower division coursework for the BS coming in as a transfer student at so we can just talk about your academic plan and how long it would take you to finish.
Kelli Sholer: But there are maybe you can kind of just talk about being pre health. YOU KNOW HOW THE Bs has been valuable to you.
Sara Jhanjar: Yeah, so, um, as Kelly mentioned, I am doing the BS degree. And I actually been doing it since the beginning, since I came in, I decided to do the BS. And that's because as I was mentioning it
Sara Jhanjar: I felt like it would give me a more holistic sense of people in general. I didn't want to do the traditional bio sire chemistry.
Sara Jhanjar: Because I felt like that would make me lose insight and kind of focus on people, which is why going into medicine.
Sara Jhanjar: Or why I'm interested in going into medicine. So I think that the boundaries of science has been helpful in that way. And I like how most of our requirements are focused on lower divisions that a majority of pre health or cremated schools or medical schools want
Sara Jhanjar: So, you know, if you just did it being a nurse, a PA a doctor or something along the lines. I know I've seen some people ask questions about forensics, it does cover a lot of the basic science courses that forensics students in need to
Sara Jhanjar: So I feel like it's been pretty helpful. You know, if you're interested already at this point in the specific field, I would
Sara Jhanjar: You know, do more research in the grad school requirements that you are interested in, just so that when you're coming into our major especially with the BS. You kind of have it all mapped out
Sara Jhanjar: Because even though it is pretty setup for you. It's good to have your own like knowledge of what grad schools are expecting from you so that you don't lose
Sara Jhanjar: Sight of what is important when you're taking classes because it's really tempted to just take a bunch of classes because all of our classes are major super fun.
Sara Jhanjar: But saying that I did have a lot of time to take classes in the s going to even with the BS nature and those classes have been really valuable to me.
Sara Jhanjar: As well. For example, I took medical anthropology and when 9121 with Christina Giordano, one of our faculty and it was
Sara Jhanjar: Like an invaluable colostomy and I think it opened my eyes to a lot of aspects of healthcare that I hadn't realized before
Sara Jhanjar: So even if you're taking a wing or, you know, wanting to take the Bachelor of Science wholesale. Don't forget about other courses that we offer that can really broaden your horizons.
Kelli Sholer: All right.
Kelli Sholer: So Chris,
Kelli Sholer: Maybe Sophie and third do all want to speak to how labs are done within the answer evolutionary sure
Christyann Darwent: Sure yeah I'm fact, actually. Those are the questions that I had like highlighted that people had
Christyann Darwent: Sent in earlier and a few folks are asking about. Now I'm just to caveat this. I'm not sure how this is going to go with online in the fall. I am currently teaching a lab based course in online and I'll have to say it is probably one of the most difficult
Christyann Darwent: Things I have ever done.
Christyann Darwent: To try and transfer hands on learning of skeletal anatomy, which is a very tactile thing and very three dimensional thing to
Christyann Darwent: To a two dimensional images and drawings to try and bring this across. And so, and as you probably are, you may or may not be aware
Christyann Darwent: You know in the in the semester system schools they kind of were they shifted over to online about halfway through their quarter or their semester, whereas we
Christyann Darwent: It happened right at our finals week and then the faculty were basically told you got a week and now you need to completely reconfigure your course and so
Christyann Darwent: I literally spent about 10 to 12 hours per one hour lecture to redo my class. So I would prefer us to go back to having real labs. It's definitely a lot easier because I really have to think much more in depth about how to describe everything as opposed to being able to experience it.
Christyann Darwent: So that being said, if we are online.
Christyann Darwent: Human archaeology is going to be taught as an online courses fall if we if that's where we go, as well as, you know, Introduction to archaeology intuitive biological anthropology.
Christyann Darwent: And any of the other kind of hands on classes that we have. So it says so. Sorry, I'm just scanning it. The, the questions. There are other research projects that are done in labs that are not part of a class. Yes.
Christyann Darwent: Unfortunately, right now, one of the major labs that we have is our archaeology lab that's run by Dr. Eric ins and it's completely shut down right now, in part because
Christyann Darwent: The stable isotope facility which runs the samples that he processes in his lab is close to the submission of any new samples. So in fact all of
Christyann Darwent: With the exception of one all of his honors thesis students are on hold. As far as their results go of the projects that they started. And so I think he's actually been giving them other data that he has to work on himself.
Christyann Darwent: And to try to get them through that way. They also had their conferences that they were all supposed to go to to present cancelled as well. So normally we have an
Christyann Darwent: extremely rich hands on experience with students interning in the museum or interning with Dr. King's lab with my lab.
Christyann Darwent: Sarah is one who who worked with my husband and on our material from Greenland that we brought back she got to kind of clean and
Christyann Darwent: rehabilitate the material that came from the field. So she learned what beilein looks like and what bone and ivory
Christyann Darwent: Look like. So there are a lot of hands on activities that we normally do. And so I'm very hopeful that we'll be able to get back to those, at least in some form.
Christyann Darwent: Just to see if any, any folks are wondering, we did actually just received an email from the chair of our department asking us about how we would potentially transfer our online courses or our courses and fault online. I think what they're trying to do is
Christyann Darwent: Judge that if there are certain classes I can imagine like a chemistry class lab have been able to potentially keep the lecture online but have
Christyann Darwent: In person labs where folks can be spread out more across multiple classrooms, I think, is what is kind of being thought about. That's what they're doing at Sac State with nursing classes.
Christyann Darwent: So, and then the other question that was on here related to Labs was what says, how are the labs, hopefully I've explained that does the Department of bone. Examples of our fellow ancestors. Yes, we have two classrooms that are dedicated to biological anthropology that have
Christyann Darwent: Cast fossil casts of all of the various
Christyann Darwent: Huge humanoid or hominoid ones that are on our lineage, as well as the ones that are on the other primates lineages.
Christyann Darwent: Just to pick the kiss and various other ones like that. And we also have a zone archaeology lab where we have animal bones that we use for identifying
Christyann Darwent: Animal range from archaeological sites for Paleo climatic reconstruction or past dietary reconstructions so
Christyann Darwent: And that's my lab space so so yes we have lots of opportunities for hands on interacting with kind of the, the real thing.
Christyann Darwent: And that's, I think, one of the advantages to coming to a UC is this ability to interact very closely with faculty and get to do research yourself, which is often a rarity in community colleges.
Christyann Darwent: I know, I think, I think I answered all those questions.
Christyann Darwent: There was one question.
Christyann Darwent: Related to the museum that I'll just touch on
Christyann Darwent: And so I mentioned that there are museum internships, our museum has no money.
Christyann Darwent: So donate. If you have the ability, but um
Christyann Darwent: The reason I say that is somebody was asking about federal work study federal work study is something that only works if we have money.
Christyann Darwent: So because federal work study will pay for it used to be set. I think it was 75% and then 25% came from.
Christyann Darwent: You know the place that you were employed and so we do have federal work study for some of our office staff assistance, but we don't for the museum. So, so we don't have any funds that we can that we can match federal work study funds with but
Christyann Darwent: You know, so, but you can do it for units. So, so there are other ways to get involved.
Kelli Sholer: Awesome. Um, so, Sarah, and Sophie, I mean in terms of pre code life. Is there a favorite lab classes yours that you can maybe speak to, just in terms of the hands on experience.
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Um, I think my first class that I, one of the first classes. I took once I first got to Davis was human asked geology and that's definitely up there. And one of my favorite classes and also along the lines of that so archaeology has also been one of my favorite
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Courses just having that
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Hands on really kind of close interaction with specimens was something that I felt like I didn't get enough of in my community college, so it was really great to get to explore that more
Sofia Veronica Rhea: And I kind of took what I learned from those classes to my internships and the department as well. I work with the center or well I worked with the Center for experimental archaeology, working with animal remains for a graduate students.
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Big thesis. And then I also help one of our faculty members with the paleoanthropology lab with all the human remains helping curate them and identify them and
Sofia Veronica Rhea: keeping everything organized so it's good for lab. So it's definitely you get to use the experiences that you learn in these lab classes and like more real world applications.
Sara Jhanjar: Yeah, I'm pretty much the same thing as Sofia my most memorable allows probably human archaeology.
Sara Jhanjar: And that's actually the class that got me an internship with Dr. Weaver who's instructor of the course.
Sara Jhanjar: So yeah it you know to go on internships today. I've seen a lot of questions pop up in the chat box about internships in our department, it's fairly easier. I feel than other
Sara Jhanjar: Majors to get an internship, because the faculty are all very knowledgeable about of course work then with within their own lab but also work done within other faculties lab.
Sara Jhanjar: So if the particular faculty, you're talking to ends up not having any open spots are research that you know kind of meets with your goals as a student.
Sara Jhanjar: They will often know what research their faculty members are doing and they can refer you to those
Sara Jhanjar: You know either grad students or faculty for doing research. So this is the same for both the evening and the SV
Sara Jhanjar: So, you know, if you have a class that really inspires you and you really like what you're learning in there and you want to take it further and to go hands on.
Sara Jhanjar: You can talk to your professors, you know, all our faculty are obviously, as you can see from Dr. Khan in a bunker went are super nice and easy going. So you talk to them. They're really valuable resource for you guys.
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Yeah, I think that's one of the most valuable things that you can do as a transfer student is just getting involved in research on
Sofia Veronica Rhea: The second you have the opportunity to I know from personal experience. I felt kind of a little afraid to go talk to faculty members or
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Like, I didn't really even know if I could do research or if I had a place in that world. But the second that you just kind of start trying opportunities will come. That's the great thing about Davis in our department.
Kelli Sholer: Carolyn, do you want to speak to the question someone pre submitted about if they're unsure of which route to take an anthropology is that someone that can help them through it, the short answer that is yes.
Kelli Sholer: And I think just speaking to. I did by using for transfers and how they'll be connected with us this summer.
Caroline Herrod: Great. Um, so as far as, for those of you who accepted come to UC Davis, you will go through an orientation program there will be an online.
Caroline Herrod: workshops that you'll be attending and they're calling it Aggie one on one, and you'll have access to that as of June 1 once you complete those modules, then you will meet
Caroline Herrod: Via zoom individually with either Kelly, or I, and we will help you think about registration for fall help you pick which direction you want to go, you know, talk about BA vs vs vs general emphasis socio cultural evolutionary
Caroline Herrod: All those questions will help you answer and help you pick some courses.
Caroline Herrod: To take and fall. Make sure you're not already taking something that you've taken at your community college, all of those great things. So we're going to go over all that with you individually. So yes, there is definitely help
Caroline Herrod: As far as helping you pick a direction.
Caroline Herrod: One of the things I can honestly say is our answer faculty are absolutely wonderful and love to talk to students and can answer your questions too. So
Caroline Herrod: If after talking to us, you still feel confused. I would definitely reach out to them. I'm sure they'd be happy to have a conversation with you.
Caroline Herrod: If you're worried about certain things and we can direct you to like specific faculty member that might have the answers to your specific question so
Caroline Herrod: Everybody is willing to help you out and support you and make sure you're headed in the right direction. So, so that's kind of how that will work you'll definitely have time to talk with us.
Kelli Sholer: Yeah, and we can help you navigate
Kelli Sholer: You know, between the different emphasis areas. It's not something that from your very first week on campus, you need to know whether you're doing the general emphasis or the
Kelli Sholer: cultural emphasis or the evolutionary emphasis that is something that you can decide, you know, your second or even your third quarter.
Kelli Sholer: If you are planning to try and do the Bachelor of Science, so are undecided between the BA or the BS. That is something I would say definitely your first quarter or in your idea advising appointment this summer.
Kelli Sholer: You want to talk through with us, just because the curriculums are so different and we want to make sure you're taking the right classes. So just wanted to address that.
Caroline Herrod: And your registration employment won't happen till the middle of August. So you'll have plenty of time to connect with us in between.
Caroline Herrod: June and August when you'll have your registration. So you can can think about some of the things that we talked about in your appointment.
Kelli Sholer: Okay.
Kelli Sholer: So I think this is a good question that we get a lot
Kelli Sholer: Is just what folks want to be doing with their enter degree after they graduate and what resources there are for helping navigate that.
Kelli Sholer: And yeah, if their careers outside of academia to apply and throw two
Kelli Sholer: Yes, the answer to those questions is a resounding yes there are definitely resources, both in our advising office, but also through a great
Kelli Sholer: Resource on campus, called The Internship and Career Center that can help students navigate the career development piece.
Kelli Sholer: Of how you want to, you know, take different things you've learned a different skills you've gained from your major and an answer. Again, it's very broad, you're going to get
Kelli Sholer: You know, strong analytical skills writing skills, critical thinking, all these things that can apply to really any major or any career.
Kelli Sholer: In any kind of Avenue. So I think it's just trying to figure out what your interests are and which kind of career fuel you want to enter and then
Kelli Sholer: Working with, you know, are advising office, but also the internship encouraged her to
Kelli Sholer: Be getting the hands on experience through internships. It is just really important to get the outside of the classroom.
Kelli Sholer: Experience and you know if you're interested in archaeology of the field school is a great way to do that.
Kelli Sholer: Not everyone in the answer department wants to pursue something specifically and throw as a career. So that's where the Internship and Career Center will be something where they can give you, you know, more broad
Kelli Sholer: Help with the career piece, but we have alumni who go into all different all different paths from education to counseling to government to nonprofit work.
Kelli Sholer: To digital media and marketing and other aspects of business human resources.
Kelli Sholer: I mean, really, the list goes on and on. So we encourage students to, you know, explore your career interests and majors don't equal careers.
Kelli Sholer: anymore it's giving you skills that you can apply it to any kind of career. So it's more so you exploring and thinking about
Kelli Sholer: What career interests you have and then talking to us and the internship and Kirsten are about how to be getting outside of the classroom experiences to help with that.
Kelli Sholer: Maybe Sophia can kind of address amateur and throw and communication double major kind of how you foresee you know now that you're graduating like how's your experience. I know you're thinking of things outside of anthropology.
Kelli Sholer: Um,
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Yeah, I think that anthropology has provided a lot of not not just research based experience but also just a better understanding of humans and honestly a lot of grad programs really look for that kind of more wide based
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Education, and I think that anthropology definitely provides that to students because you can kind of study a little bit of everything within this department. And that's helped
Sofia Veronica Rhea: I'm involved in research within the communication department. So I'm currently trying to finish my honors thesis and although it's not
Sofia Veronica Rhea: An anthropology honors thesis. I have used a lot of the kind of tools and series that I've learned in anthropology to help kind of backup my research.
Sofia Veronica Rhea: And I think that this is a trend that you can kind of follow into careers or other research, even if it's not directly related to anthropology. It definitely
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Will not you will not your only options as a career or not archaeologist or scholar, there's a lot out there that you can choose from.
Christyann Darwent: Sophia, can you answer that other question that's about research opportunities and paleoanthropology
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Um, yeah, there's a lot of really great opportunities within Paleo anthropology in the department I work in Dr Weaver's lab and I help do I help curate things which has been really fun and I've been using my knowledge from human archaeology to help do that or I
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Guess I don't do that anymore.
Sofia Veronica Rhea: But it's definitely there's a lot out there. You can work.
Sofia Veronica Rhea: With the Center for experimental archaeology as
Well,
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Or they can help connect you to people with those types of interest and also i believe i haven't personally worked in his lab, but
Sofia Veronica Rhea: I'm on the more science side of things, but I think that Dr Weaver's grad students also have a lot of cool opportunities and I think Sarah, could speak more on that.
Sara Jhanjar: Yeah, I'm currently working with, I was working with one of the postdocs in the Paleo biology lab and Dr. Laura buck. She's now gone off to London.
Sara Jhanjar: But I was working with her on her project with mechanics and mechanics that are hybridize so that was a really cool project. We got to CT scan so
Sara Jhanjar: You know, that was cool to see that aspect of anthropology. It's kind of like you always think of the physical. So there are opportunities for stuff online. I'm still technically an intern can I'm doing lab work remotely.
Kelli Sholer: But
You know,
Sara Jhanjar: They've got students in the labs are also just as valuable as the professors, because if professors have already too many hands working on a project.
Sara Jhanjar: They know grad students who are always willing to, you know, help undergrads out and also they need help themselves with their projects. So, you know, if you're interested in a particular field. And that Professor doesn't have
Kelli Sholer: You know,
Sara Jhanjar: Any availability.
Sara Jhanjar: Got students are also a great way to get exposure to different research fills in both wings of the department. I know that one of
Sara Jhanjar: It's not in the anthropology department, specifically, but one of our club officers I Tina, she's working with a sociology professor, Dr. Oh.
Sara Jhanjar: And she's doing a project on social media with him. So, you know, those sorts of things that can be done online remotely. So if the fall does end up
Sara Jhanjar: Becoming online, you know, professors, they have to be either in boxes. Now, so, you know, send an email to your professors. If you have any questions about that.
Sara Jhanjar: Especially if their research is really interesting to you and you want to kind of hit the ground running. Because as a transfer
Sara Jhanjar: It's really important to kind of get your foot in the door and talk to professor's early on so that you don't, you know, lose those connections, you know, even if we're not in person. It's good to keep up with them, too.
Christyann Darwent: And I just, I just wanted to add something though that if you email us and we
Christyann Darwent: And for some reason we don't
Christyann Darwent: Reply, Keep in mind that there are many of us who are at home with our own kids. And so we are
Christyann Darwent: Our schedules have been kind of screwed up just like everyone else's. And so there's a there's a lot of faculty, Dr. Khan, there has younger children than I do.
Christyann Darwent: So, so there's so it, it's kind of ended up where I know even my colleagues have been kind of like feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment, just like the students are so just
Christyann Darwent: Just bear. Bear with us for a little slow to respond because I saw somebody wrote I that they wrote a message to to Jeff con and he didn't reply. Well, he has two small children so
Kelli Sholer: Give them a break.
Kelli Sholer: No recognition.
For us.
Jeffrey Kahn: So that the main type of I very the student and invite all of you, if, if you don't get a response. You can also send another email. And in fact,
Jeffrey Kahn: Welcome the reminder
And
Kelli Sholer: You give it give us a week. You don't hear
Jeffrey Kahn: Back from us send another email you won't find it entertaining.
Jeffrey Kahn: To the contrary, exactly.
Kelli Sholer: Krista. There was a question about the size of the department to address that one. I apologize. I was
Christyann Darwent: Actually been i've been typing answers. And then I accidentally hit the answer live rather than
Type
Christyann Darwent: But there are 22 faculty in
Christyann Darwent: In the anthropology department. And there's a there are 12 in the socio cultural side and 10 and the evolutionary side and an evolutionary. This is a, this is a
Christyann Darwent: Boat evenly split between five who focus more on archaeology and five who focus more on biological anthropology and that includes geneticists primatologists paleoanthropologist studying Neanderthals.
Christyann Darwent: And so anyways that's, that's, I meant to just type that. Sorry.
Jeffrey Kahn: I think it's good to hear.
Kelli Sholer: It live
Jeffrey Kahn: Yeah, I was just gonna say Kelly.
Kelli Sholer: Chris was kind of
Jeffrey Kahn: Laying out some the interest in that, and
Jeffrey Kahn: I might just add some of the interest in the swing.
Kelli Sholer: Yeah yeah
Jeffrey Kahn: Wide range from
Jeffrey Kahn: I think Kelly. You had mentioned, someone asked a question about media. We have people work on media. We have folks who work on
Jeffrey Kahn: Medicine migration law or fair
Jeffrey Kahn: I don't know if I said religion already
Jeffrey Kahn: Space. So geographies urban landscapes. We have urban anthropologist, kind of in my head, walking down the hallway.
Jeffrey Kahn: political ecology and folks who work in Latin America, India, Africa, the Caribbean, the United States.
Jeffrey Kahn: Europe. So there's a Morocco and Mexico. There's a, there's a wide range of geographic focus fo sigh and topical folks as well. So it's, it's a pretty diverse department.
Jeffrey Kahn: Subject specialization.
Caroline Herrod: I just wanted to add the size of
Caroline Herrod: The department as far as students. There's about 200 to 250 students, depending on the given time that we run the numbers. And I actually think that that's a really great size for our department we
Caroline Herrod: Have a lot of opportunity. We're big enough to have an answer club and to have all these labs and all these other things going on.
Caroline Herrod: But it's not so big that you get lost. I've talked to a lot of other students who are transferring from other majors and they feel like they
Caroline Herrod: They get a little lost in some of these bigger departments and so I feel like the size of the anthropology Anthropology Department is actually really a great
Caroline Herrod: Great thing for students who are involved in it because they can really connect, they know all the other students in the department they know all the faculty and have those opportunities. So I just wanted to address the size from that perspective as well as the faculty. SIGHS
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Yeah, and going off on that perspective, I think a lot of people told me that if I choose a UC my classes are going to be really big. I won't get to talk to my
Sofia Veronica Rhea: Professors that often. And that really ended up not being the case in this department. I found my class sizes.
Sofia Veronica Rhea: To be pretty comparable to what I had my community college in my more focused anthropology classes. So it was really great because you still have the opportunity to connect with students and faculty members.
Christyann Darwent: And there's there's also some the size of the tour where there's also kind of some some hidden folks here. There we have a few lectures that are kind of around as well. The person that just handed me my Starbucks is the other doctor, darling.
Christyann Darwent: And he teaches a variety of classes here and also takes in a number of interns to work with him. He does geographic information system so mapping as well as stone tools and and worked in the works in the Arctic and Sarah has worked with him.
Sara Jhanjar: Thanks. I'll sneak
Sara Jhanjar: Had to borrow it.
Christyann Darwent: I'm sorry. Hi.
Sara Jhanjar: The other, the other thing I want to jump off of Dr Khan's point to is in the socio cultural department with all the different courses that go on, you know, don't feel pressure to pick one topic because there is so many topics that Dr. Khan mentioned
Sara Jhanjar: I personally found it really valuable to just kind of explore the different topics that associate culture department offered because while they are separated
Sara Jhanjar: Into kind of sections like media for law, like those broad sections. We also have super interesting courses that are just kind of like
Sara Jhanjar: one offs, almost. It seems like Dr Khan's course on ocean worlds has been something that I've personally wish I could have taken
Sara Jhanjar: Because I'm the one who types, their reviews. At the end of the quarter for the courses, when they do paper. So always hear people like say oh so great. Amazing. And I'm like, wow, I wish I had
Sara Jhanjar: The time in my schedule like cut it out of fifth year but be sure to like explore courses, even if they're outside of your major interest because like I said earlier, it just gives you a better well rounded
Sara Jhanjar: Kind of aspect of anthropology and some people were asking earlier in the comments about career options.
Sara Jhanjar: When people are choosing people for their team. They want people who are well rounded so it can it hurt to have some more, you know, outside of your main focus insight, so that you can also kind of
Sara Jhanjar: Yeah, basically, I'm trying to say you can be more well rounded and that's something that our major allows you to do even if you choose to not go outside of our major topics. So that's all I want to say.
Kelli Sholer: And speaking to that point. There were some questions.
Kelli Sholer: That were answered, but just to kind of generally enter it here about doing a minor possibly doing a double major obviously means the fusing example she has double majored and she is a transfer student. So that is possible.
Kelli Sholer: With careful planning, but definitely it is possible to transfer student to at least do a minor. It's not required.
Kelli Sholer: But is a good way to get the additional units, you need to graduate. Because just fulfilling the actual curriculum as a transfer student, even if you're I guess he is completely
Kelli Sholer: Done and all your cheese through that are done, you will still need additional units to graduate and you'll learn more about this during the orientation module. It's but it can't hurt.
Kelli Sholer: If you have some time in quarantine life after spring semester finals are done, you know, to just explore on the UC Davis.
Kelli Sholer: Website, just Google the miners and there's many different miners. We have students minor and everything from
Kelli Sholer: Geology to there's a public health minor education. There's an oceanography minor like there's a minor for so many different interests, human rights, a bunch of different things. So
Kelli Sholer: Anyway, it's a good way to like they're saying, Be well rounded explore different interests and
Kelli Sholer: To get those extra units you move to graduate. You don't have to do a minor. So we have some students who have so many interests. They don't want to
Kelli Sholer: You know, do one particular manner and they want to take a women's studies class in a religious studies class and an art class and you know they get their different units that way to graduate. But if you have an
Kelli Sholer: Interest in would like to put that towards a minor. It's definitely possible as a transfer student to minor and potentially double major.
Kelli Sholer: Yeah, I kind of want to speak to that.
Sara Jhanjar: too because I saw in the comments, someone
Sara Jhanjar: Was asking if there's a particular minor. That was good for the career. They want to go to like this person interested in dentistry, so
Kelli Sholer: It might
Sara Jhanjar: Be actually better to not lock yourself down with a minor like Kelly was saying, because often miners have hidden prerequisites that you might have not completed at your
Sara Jhanjar: Cc So if your goal is to transfer
Sara Jhanjar: As a transfers to get out in two years, it might actually add time if you were to pursue a minor that had a lot of hidden prerequisites.
Sara Jhanjar: That you didn't complete at CC. So, you know, keep those things in mind because if you are looking for a particular minor solve all your problems.
Sara Jhanjar: It might not, there might not be a complete package for your particular case. So it might be more valuable for you to just take your time and explore classes that really interest you.
Sara Jhanjar: And also mattered to your grad schools, rather than locking yourself down with a minor that could add unwarranted stress and maybe time to your UC Davis experience.
Kelli Sholer: Yes, that is a definite good point about prerequisite for minor classes. So that's good to be aware of.
Kelli Sholer: All right. Well, it looks like we are at our time that time flew by with everyone's questions. So thank you so much for engaging and Yastrzemski all different kinds of questions.
Kelli Sholer: We are definitely free Carolyn and myself the email if you have questions, as you're trying to make your decision by June 1 about coming. We definitely hope we see you in some way or another, and fall, whether it's virtually or maybe hopefully in person will have to see.
Kelli Sholer: And yeah, for those of you that and upcoming we will definitely see you for appointments starting after June 8
Kelli Sholer: As part of the ID advising orientation process. So thanks again everyone, for, for joining and asking your questions today.
Kelli Sholer: And we hope you become at us and join the department and get to experience everything from talked about here today.
Kelli Sholer: So, most importantly, stay safe stay healthy.
Kelli Sholer: And have a good rest of your weekend.
