am probably not a complete failure
Jul. 27th, 2011 05:05 pmCautiously looking at grad schools again, since today we had a talk on graduate studies in archaeology at Cambridge. Despite the costs, I'm really liking the idea of doing an MPhil or an MA in the UK. I am not entirely certain of my ability to actually get into Cambridge, but I am feeling cautiously optimistic for some of the other UK universities I've looked at (Durham and Birmingham, so far). If I don't drop the ball this year, I should graduate with two B.A.s, at least a 3.7 GPA and magna cum laude honors (if I can get my GPA up to a 3.8, it would be summa cum laude, but I don't think that's going to happen), as well as a fifty-page honors thesis on Latin and Elizabethan lit. Which is, I believe, reasonably impressive, though I don't have any publications or field experience.
(I did e-mail the department secretary for Classics at Cambridge, BTW, and got bumped to the graduate secretary, but she hasn't e-mailed me back yet.)
At this point I am mainly looking at faculty lists to make sure that there's someone who does Republican Rome and/or military and political Roman history, since right now I'm leaning towards concentrating on the Punic Wars for a dissertation topic, in as much as I've thought about it. (Mostly because I haven't done enough Imperial Rome to know how I feel about it, and after that it's too easy to get bogged down in all the Christianity. Yes, I'm aware the second part of that sentence makes no sense. Also, I really am very fond of the Punic Wars and the Republic.)
In the meantime, classes have finished for my program and I have the next three days more or less free, since I'm not taking the exam. Then we're going to Wessex for four days (I probably won't have internet access), then I'm going back to London to spend the night with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
clanwilliam and gmh and, presumably, meet up with the London fen, and then back to the U.S. I really hope I can get all my things into my bags without going overweight.
Also, I am still kind of frantically racing my![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
narniaexchange fic to the end and hoping I don't have to pull out at the last minute. I think I'll get it done, I think I'll get it done! I know where it's going! It's reasonably self-contained! I have the next three days to write it!
(I did e-mail the department secretary for Classics at Cambridge, BTW, and got bumped to the graduate secretary, but she hasn't e-mailed me back yet.)
At this point I am mainly looking at faculty lists to make sure that there's someone who does Republican Rome and/or military and political Roman history, since right now I'm leaning towards concentrating on the Punic Wars for a dissertation topic, in as much as I've thought about it. (Mostly because I haven't done enough Imperial Rome to know how I feel about it, and after that it's too easy to get bogged down in all the Christianity. Yes, I'm aware the second part of that sentence makes no sense. Also, I really am very fond of the Punic Wars and the Republic.)
In the meantime, classes have finished for my program and I have the next three days more or less free, since I'm not taking the exam. Then we're going to Wessex for four days (I probably won't have internet access), then I'm going back to London to spend the night with
clanwilliam and gmh and, presumably, meet up with the London fen, and then back to the U.S. I really hope I can get all my things into my bags without going overweight.Also, I am still kind of frantically racing my
narniaexchange fic to the end and hoping I don't have to pull out at the last minute. I think I'll get it done, I think I'll get it done! I know where it's going! It's reasonably self-contained! I have the next three days to write it!