New Semester, New Classes

So I have officially started my final semester at Fordham University. That statement conjures up a mixture of emotions; disbelief, anxiety, and excitement. I have been catching up with a lot of my senior friends and our conversations inevitably turn to that dreaded question: so what are you going to do after graduation?

I of course have my tentative, general plans (work for a year and then apply to grad school for archaeology), but the details are completely up in the air. For instance, what job am I going to get? Where exactly will I live? At this point, I am not sure. I am too busy getting re-acclimated to Fordham and starting my classes.

Speaking of classes, here's what I'm taking:

Ancient Cultures of the Bible: an archaeology course focused in the Ancient Near East, or more specifically, the Levant

Anthropological Fieldwork: a workshop course in which we actually go into the city and conduct anthropological fieldwork

Liberation Theology: One of the required senior seminar classes

Independent Study- Human Osteology: I'm single-handedly going to organize the anthropology department's human bone collection (which is something of a mess right now) and try to transform it into a proper teaching collection. This will all take place under the supervision of my professor. A lot of independent research is involved.

So yes, my classes sound bizarre, but that's the name of the game for anthro students. Whenever I try to explain my classes to my friends, I always get one of three possible reactions.

Reaction One: You're taking a class in what? Weird. What are you going to do with that?

Reaction Two: That sounds interesting, much better than Econ or something.

Reaction Three: Archaeology? Man, I LOVE Dinosaurs!

I tend to get the third reaction more often then I would care to admit. Sometimes I don't even try to explain the difference between paleontology and archaeology (dinosaurs vs. human cultural materials); I'll just tell them my favorite dinosaur is the T-Rex. Which inevitably leads to a Jurassic Park conversation.

Anyway, I'm sure my classes will be cool, and I will fill you all in on what I'm learning. Now it's time for me to go eat dinner with my roommates. Until next time...