Katie and Lucy - Archaeology and Anthropology

Name: Katie Shrubb & Lucy Guile

Subject: Archaeology and Anthropology

Year: 2nd

A-levels taken: Katie - History, Psychology and English Literature

Lucy - Biology, Geography and Maths

What does your working week entail?

In our first year we had lectures for four modules –  Archaeology, Biological Anthropology, Social Anthropology and a fourth paper of our choice.  his involved about ten hours of lectures and one to two supervisions each week,  with an essay of roughly 2000 words for each of these. How many hours you need  to spend on these essays really depends on the way you work and how much effort you put in,  but most people tend to spend a lot of time reading.

How easy was the transition from A-level to the first year of your degree?

The workload at first was a bit of a shock to both of us but everyone’s in the same situation and it gets easier after the first couple of essays.  People who have studied A-level biology tend to find the Bioanth a bit easier but all the modules are very introductory and accessible no matter what A-levels you’ve done.

How easily can you fit social activities into your working week?

Not having a lot of timetabled work means you can be quite flexible with when you choose to work; we’ve both found that with a bit of planning ahead there’s plenty of time to go to the bar or out and we’ve both got involved with college and university clubs.

What sort of things did you talk about in your interview?

We both had a subject interview with our director of studies and a general interview with the admissions tutor. The subject one was pretty much geared towards our own interests rather than being asked about the subject in general – this meant that because we were both most interested in social anthropology we talked very little about archaeology or bioanth, though it’s definitely worth being prepared to talk about any part of the course! The main things seemed to be to show your enthusiasm and to have really thought about the course and why you want to do it. In the general interview we were asked what we thought our strengths and weaknesses were and about our non-academic interests.