My Masters So Far

I am now 6 months into my Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology Masters at Cranfield University – that’s officially over halfway through and with the bulk of my modules behind me. Honestly, I feel like it’s been about 6 weeks, and I’m far from ready to say goodbye to Masters life. Regardless, I thought I’d mark the occasion by attempting to put into words my experience so far, and share any tips that may help your transition to postgrad study become a little bit easier.

Having applied to a Masters course during a global pandemic, I knew that my experience wouldn’t be the same as previous year groups, but I did hope that the worst of things would be past by the time I started in October 2020. At first, it felt like things were going to going back to normal quite quickly, and that the rest of my course after Christmas would be smooth sailing. I now know how wrong I was.

My cohort have had to work through cancellation after cancellation of practical sessions and entire modules, we’ve had to work countless 9-5 days on Zoom and Microsoft Teams, and we’re only just getting to experience a more “normal” Cranfield experience, with three modules left to run.

However, the University staff have generally supported us throughout and, as it stands, we will be getting all of our practical teaching later in the year. I do think we’ve all made the most of what we’ve had, and each hour of in person teaching or laboratory time that we get is consequently worth so much more. I will never, ever take having lectures in a lecture theatre for-granted again. A 9am in an actual teaching room you say? Yes please!

You wouldn’t catch me saying that pre-pandemic.

The social side of things this year has been very different too. I’ve spent more time on Zoom calls to friends than I have socialising with them in person – I know I’m certainly not alone in this. I have still managed to meet people and make some amazing friends, because Cranfield has a common room for Forensics students where we can do some socially distanced work and catch up with each other, and we have had a few weeks of in-person teaching. However, we’ve only had one actual trip out together all year, before harsher restrictions were introduced back in October. I can’t lie: having only seen other people whilst sporadically in university, it has been hard not to feel lonely at times. Hopefully moving forward, as the restrictions ease in England, we can start to spend more time together and make up for the lack of in-person social life we’ve experienced so far.

My Masters doesn’t actually end until late August when I hand in my Individual Project. The Individual Project makes up 40% of our overall grade and consists of a long-term research project and 20,000 word dissertation. For the past couple of months I’ve been reading for my Literature Review whilst completing module assignments, which has been a lot of work. However, for the first time all year, I now have 2 whole months without an assignment deadline (we’ll forget about the two practical exams for a second) so I’m excited to properly get into my research.

Whilst I may not have a deadline, I do have 3 more modules to complete. These are all in person (yay) and are back to back in May. I have a Court Room Skills week first, where we ultimately prepare to present an expert witness report to a mock court, and then undergo cross examination. The court will be made up of tutors, classmates and outside professionals: nervous is an understatement.

The following week I have my Practical Archaeological Excavation module. This module is residential. We camp for a week elsewhere in the south of England and excavate a new Roman archaeological site during the daytimes. As an archaeology graduate, this is a module that I’ve been looking forward to all year. This is another completely practical module with full days of excavation all week, though not residential; it was meant to be in March but due to Covid-19 restrictions it was moved to the end of May. I can’t say I’m disappointed about this because it should be much better weather – touch wood. Finally, in June, we have some postponed practical Forensic Anthropology sessions from January. This involves a full week of laboratory and bone handling sessions.

And then all my Masters teaching is over.

Moving forward I’m hoping to do more archaeological work and complete a graduate traineeship in archaeological excavation. I would also love to take a break from education/work to travel, as I haven’t had the chance yet - going straight from 14 years of school to 3 years of university and then a year of full-time work hasn’t really left me with a whole lot of free time. In an ideal world, I’d merge Archaeology and travel – in an even more ideal world I’d also incorporate Forensics. But honestly with Covid-19 still lurking, I really don’t know what’s going to happen. I do potentially have a few things lined up for immediately after finishing my Masters but I don’t want to jinx them by sharing what they are, sorry!

A PhD is also definitely something I’ve considered, not for a few years because you can’t exactly walk into a funded Archaeology PhD; they’re few and far between. However, research is something I love to do and one day, once I’ve earned the funds/come up with a good enough research proposal to win me funding, I’ll be able to complete one. Maybe I’ll be coming back as your FindAPhD Ambassador in a few years . . . Who knows?

1. Join a group or social media page for your cohort. I joined a Facebook group for incoming Cranfield students back in March 2020, and subsequently a messenger group for those doing my course. It honestly made the transition so much easier because I could at least virtually get to know some course mates in advance.
2. Keep checking pages like FindAMasters for potential funding opportunities. These, and new ones may appear even after you’ve applied to a course. I’m currently on a full scholarship at Cranfield, and this scholarship was only introduced several months after I got my place. If I hadn’t kept checking funding sites, I may never have found out about it.
3. Make sure you’ve got your files in order – this one might seem obvious, but it’s so easy to come into a new course at full pelt, forgetting to take a step back and actually organise yourself and your thoughts. So have a system in place before you start. Whether that’s an ongoing Microsoft Notebook, or several leaver arch files for different things like finances, modules and miscellaneous documents, have something ready so that you aren’t overwhelmed after a few weeks.
4. Don’t come into a Masters thinking it’s going to be easier than Undergraduate. *Spoiler alert* it isn’t! I came from an Undergraduate degree where I was having to hand in 1-3 essays per week alongside revision and long-term research projects. Honestly I thought that Masters study would be infinitely easier than this, because there aren’t as many deadlines. I was wrong. The content at Masters level is generally of a more advanced level, and expectations of writing capability are higher. Equally, if your modules are set out anything like mine with 9-5 days most days, your time is limited. This isn’t to say you should be scared of a Masters, or that you can’t do it. You can! I’m just saying don’t go into one expecting an easy ride.
5. Take every opportunity you can. A Masters is as much about making connections to industry and academia, as it is about learning specialist knowledge. If a conference or talk is recommended to you, go. If a tutor asks you to present your work, present it. I know things like this – aka adulting – are incredibly nerve-wracking, and often you feel like you aren’t good enough yet to take part, but tutors and professionals wouldn’t ask you if they weren’t sure you were capable.

And that’s all from me, folks. I hope you have the best summer (though I don’t know where you’re reading this from, but currently in the UK it’s snowing) and good luck to everyone with exams still to come! You’ve got this!

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