My name is Devan Glensor. I'm in the
Department of Anthropology,
um, and I'm a second-year Master's
student with forensic anthropology. My
experience with the field school in
Poland was, it was a three-week program
in Drawsko so a really small village and
the backstory was that this field school
started in about 2001. A farmer had
basically discovered a whole cemetery of
individuals, and we wanted to make sure
that we move those to a safer spot. He
needed the land for his crops, and we
wanted to protect those skeletons, so
gradually this field school has been
employing students to get the experience
to really learn how to do archaeology
and properly in a real-life setting. So
we learned everything from trawling the
field and understanding soil patterns to
mapping it out properly under actual
archaeologists that work in Poland to
collecting, cataloging, preserving. And I
think what was nice about the field
schools, we weren't working with
archaeologists from another country
coming into Poland. We were working with
Polish archaeologists, and it was their
ancestors, and it was their community and
I think that that was really great. I
would say networking is probably the
number one thing you can do as a
graduate student. I know that's a really
scary word for people coming into, maybe,
out of undergrad that haven't
worked in kind of that community where
you're meeting new people especially at
conferences. But the more you kind of get
outside of your cohort and start to
interact with anthropologists within
your field is so incredibly helpful,  and
utilizing your faculty to help you with
that, so finding those connections. You
have to kind of think about graduate
school is that kind of first step of
your career, and this isn't just school
anymore. This is your job, and so how do
you help yourself and your cohort get
ahead in that career. And so building
that CV again
is the most important thing so I
guess the second piece of advice I would
say is don't just think about classes.
And I think a lot of us get in that
tunnel-visioned idea of coming into as a
grad studen,s just getting our classes
and getting our Master's, but you kind of
miss the point. The point is really
building that CV, and so those
internships, those scholarships, any of
those volunteer experiences, yes, they
take time, and a lot of times you're
working for free but in the end it will
make you so much more appealing to a
Ph.D. program or to a job site.
