Graduate School #1: The Search, Acceptance, and Impostor Syndrome

     One of the most challenging things for me was finding a graduate program in the Classics. Due to my limited resources and because I currently hold a full-time permanent job in a museum, I was not able to move out of the state for a two-year program. I didn't want to risk not finding another job in my field or trying to figure out where I was going to live once I had completed the program (Folklore Fiancé and I are currently staying with their family). Since I had attended my first Master of Arts program online, I figured that attending a Classics/Classical Studies degree online would be doable as well.

     There was just one issue - I had never heard of any university offer Classics or Classical-related (e.g., Ancient History) graduate degrees online. Sure, some for-profit universities had programs, but I wanted to go to a not-for-profit and well-respected university if I was going to spend all that money for a second degree. There were some schools I considered in the United Kingdom, but I wanted to try and find a school in the United States if I could because international tuition can be brutal. The amount of research I put in to find a degree program that fit my criteria may make some peoples' head spin; one method was opening the Wikipedia lists of universities and colleges in each individual state. Another was going through the list from the Department of Education.

     It was quite time-consuming.

     However, once I had found a few options, I began to e-mail a lot of the department heads and other professors who were in the department. Most of the schools had a graduate program in History, with only a few offerings for ancient courses. All of those programs were general Master of Arts degrees. The University of Georgia offers a Post-Baccalaureate in Classical Languages, so that was one of my options as well, but I was aiming for a full Master's program, so this became my backup plan. I reasoned that if I did not get accepted to any programs, I could enroll in the Post-Bacc to keep up with my field and the next round of applications might go better.

     The discovery of the program at Villanova University felt like a sign from the gods - this was the only non-profit university I found that offered Classical Studies as a distance program. Some of the courses are taught solely online, but others are a mix of in-person students and online students. This sounded like a well-fitted program since the History programs had perhaps two or three courses focusing on ancient historical subject matter, Villanova moved to the top of my list.

     The e-mails I exchanged with Dr. DeNardis about the program made me even more eager to attend the school. I decided that I would apply to both Villanova and the University of Georgia for the Post-Bacc program. I spent the better half of two months going back and forth with two friends who were helping me with my Statement of Purpose for Villanova. Of course, if you follow me here or on any other platform, you know that I've gotten into Villanova. However, there are some interesting in-betweens I haven't elaborated on yet. During my exchange with Dr. DeNardis, I asked if the online students were eligible for the Tuition Scholarship, and she said yes, and I just had to attach a writing sample, so I did (my particular paper was an interdisciplinary paper on Percy Jackson, more on that later).
     Once I had gotten accepted into Villanova, I canceled my application for the University of Georgia Post-Bacc and refocused my energy on the current program I was in and continued to prepare for the archaeological field school I would be attending in the summer. Due to the number of people who applied to the program, I did not receive the Tuition Scholarship. I had other options, which I decided to tackle later (but would have rather not had to resort to loans again). The rest of the semester flew by, and I received my first Master of Arts degree in May. Then, Folklore Fiancé and I had to move during the beginning of the summer, and we got rather busy.
     One fateful day, I was checking my e-mail and saw that during the second round, I had been offered the Tuition Scholarship! I was ecstatic! However, I had missed the e-mail by a week or so, and it was past the deadline that she indicated I should respond. I freaked out, I e-mailed her back, indicated that, yes, please, I would be absolutely ecstatic to receive the scholarship. The next day, I called her office and repeated my plea. Another call and e-mail later, I found that I had still received the scholarship. It was one of the best feelings, knowing I would be able to afford my degree. It was one of the issues I knew I would face if I didn't get the scholarship since Master of Arts degrees aren't usually funded, so I was lucky.
     Before I knew it, I was about to have my first class.
     And I had a violent panic attack about it.
     The longer I was in class, the more I panicked right before my class time started. The people in my courses knew a lot. A lot of them are already Latin teachers and have been for some time; this made me feel like I was really out of my element. (Even though I know there is a lot more of Latin to explore, and the Roman empire was quite a long period of time, I do know more about Greek history and literature than I do for Roman...) My classmates are quite intelligent, which makes sense, but I felt extremely odd being in class with them. I felt like I couldn't contribute anything. I felt like I didn't know enough.
     I felt like an impostor.
     It had been quite a while since the last time I felt impostor syndrome. Apparently, there are different types of "impostors," and according to the way I am, I'm something called "The Expert." Once I started opening up about it, though, a lot of my friends (especially one who is in Scotland for her Paleontology Ph.D.!) were reassuring. So, remember, if you're a student at any level and feel like you don't deserve what you've been given (me, with my Tuition Scholarship when I heard my classmates in discussion) or that you feel like you should know more:

• You're a student for a reason, you're not supposed to know everything yet! Just study hard and do your best.
• You deserve your scholarship/funding/internship - you were given it for a reason. Keep up the good work!

     It's taken me a little time, and I'm working on it, but I know I belong there. There's a reason I was accepted into the university. There's a reason why I received the scholarship, even if it was in the second round. I just have to remind myself of my goals and why I'm there. I'm a student. I'm not supposed to know everything yet. This is a chance for me to learn, grow, better myself, and possibly discover new parts of the ancient world that interest me that I didn't get exposed to as an undergrad. Things can only improve from here!

     

Field School: Panagyurishte and Koprivshtitsa

August 5, 2018

     The excursion day was optional, so we didn't have Shane, Elizabeth, or Nico with us today. Shane is a supervisor and a previous student, so he's seen probably all he can see in both of these villages (towns?), Elizabeth wasn't feeling well, and I think Nico was just exhausted because before he came to our dig, he did four weeks at another location in Stobi. Since we were going to two different places, I wasn't sure how much we were going to be traveling by bus, but I was stoked to go regardless.
     The bus was scheduled to come at 8:30 a.m., so I slept in longer than I usually did on dig days. I showered and talked to Folklore Fiancé for a little while. Once I told them that I had to go to get to the bus for the excursion, I went downstairs around 8 a.m. to see if anyone was waiting yet. Apparently, I had been mistaken about breakfast, which was still out, so I grabbed a few more things to eat before we went on our excursions.
     The first stop on our excursions was Panagyurishte. The history complex made up The Panagyurishte Museum of History, which included the Panagyurishte Treasure, other archaeological artifacts, an exhibit dedicated to the liberation of Bulgaria, and a group of houses of important Bulgarians in history that are also important architecturally. We were given audio guides for the Treasure exhibition, which I only used about half of the time because I was too busy taking pictures of all of them so that I would have them to reference later (I also bought a book all about the treasure before leaving, so I still have a lot of the information I would have had from the audio tour, which I forgot all of what I listened to as soon as we moved on).
     The Treasure was awesome, and it was so cool to see the originals rather than imitations; the hall in which they were displayed was hard to photograph with just a mobile phone, so I don't have any good photos of the whole thing. (Next time I'm bringing a better camera!) I wanted to listen to the audio tour, but I feel like I can never take my time when I'm in a group, so I just moved on as soon as most people looked like they were done. The next area had more archaeological artifacts, which I got excited about, especially because a lot of the things I have seen in Bulgaria I haven't seen in other museums before.
     After seeing the rest of the archaeology exhibits and the galleries about the liberation and uprising in Bulgaria in the 19th century, we moved on to looking at the house museums. We were given a tour by the guide, which Angela translated as we went. Most of the houses were ornately decorated and had displays of the guest house areas, and traditional Bulgarian dress and daily life laid out to see. The last thing we saw were the workshops that were behind glass windows in little cubicles - things like shoe cobbling, weaving, blacksmithing, and so on - to give us a sense of the ethnography of Bulgaria.
     We finished in Panagyurishte and got on the bus again to head to Koprivshtitsa. It was a little while away, and none of us had had lunch yet. We all were used to our tea and biscuit break at 10:30 a.m. as well during the dig, so we were more hungry than usual. The bus stopped around 2 p.m. in the village and dropped us off at a restaurant where we were eating Bulgarian food. I sat with Shahruz, Mathilde, Cyrene, Ivan, Jianing, and Siyu. The conversation was good, and lunch took almost an hour, which was fine, but that only gave us a couple of hours of free time to explore. The food wasn't anything special to me, so I was anxious to go see what was around.
     After splitting off into groups, Shahruz, Ivan, Siyu, Mathilde, Cyrene, and I all started in the same direction. We wandered around and took some pictures - I remembered the stuffed animal my boss wanted me to photograph abroad, so I was using him a lot. Eventually, we all split off again, and Cyrene and I ran amok in the souvenir shops. I managed to get souvenirs for everyone that I thought of while I was there, so I had everything covered for that (finally). Cyrene and I kind of went into every souvenir shop to make sure we didn't miss anything good. I still wasn't able to find a spoon for my aunt-in-law, who collects them from abroad, so I got ceramic ones instead of the traditional silver souvenir ones.
     Since we had to meet back at the monument at 5:30 p.m., we decided to wander a little bit more and then checked out the other souvenir shops nearer to where we were supposed to meet and then got some ice cream and water. Cyrene and I were concerned because we didn't see anyone else come back yet. Eventually, we spotted Angela and Petja and knew that people would be there soon. The bus came once we had everyone and we headed back to Villa Terres for the farewell dinner and so the people leaving could get ready.
     The farewell dinner was supposed to be at 8 p.m. according to the itinerary, but apparently, they moved it to 8:30 p.m., but no one told me, so I was sitting there for a while by myself. Ivan sat across from me, Cyrene was next to me on my right, and Mathilde was on my left. I had five glasses of wine because I was sad and didn't want to leave; also, I apparently really like their Sauvignon Blanc, and I'm not usually a fan of wine.
     Those of us who were leaving were given Certificates of Attendance, which outlined how many hours we had participated in the field, and how many hours of lectures we attended. We were also given a Balkan Heritage mug, which I am terrified is going to break on the way home.
     Time to pack.