I’m an anthropology student (with, apparently, a lot of potential) and I’m going to be graduating soon. I’m also engaged and will be getting married at around the same time. I’m very interested in SUNY Binghamton and while I haven’t applied yet, I think I have a very good chance of getting in. However, there are some issues in my personal life that might affect the whole grad school thing. My fiance, who graduated in 2005 with an English BA, has a full-time job here in RI. It pays okay, but it’s not super-important… but having a full-time job IS. My going to grad school will probably mean that I won’t be able to work full time, so it will be necessary that he does. Also, I can’t drive, so I need him to chauffeur me around. A long-distance relationship is not an option for us, nor would be commuting or living in NYC or some other big city (because I’d need to rely on him or public transportation to get to school/research facilities), so we would hypothetically be relocating to upstate NY. I’m going to bet that the available jobs in the area are already full of SUNY students and grads. What do I do??
- Apply for graduate school already. Hypothetical situations are hard to plan for.
- Have your fiance contact head hunters and universities in upstate NY to discuss employment opportunities in the fall.
- Learn to drive.
5 cents please.
Unless there’s some reason you can’t drive, then yes, learn to drive.
I got married and went to grad school, and my husband found a job near my school and supported me through it. It can be done. We probably had it easier, since my husband is a computer guy and my school was in Silicon Valley at the height of the dot-com boom. And I can drive, and we lived next to a bus stop that put him right at his worksite. But I have to say that it was wonderful to be married and doing grad school; there was someone to do the dishes when I was writing my thesis, I didn’t have to work full-time and go to school at the same time, it was great.
My advice is: start applying to programs. Find realistic alternatives besides your dream school. Start looking at the job market in those areas. All this assumes, of course, that your future husband is on board with this plan. If not, start talking.
I just saw in your posting history that you have a medical reason for not being able to drive. That does make things a little trickier (I have to admit I too assumed at first you were just choosing not to learn to drive, since I do know someone like that).
Why wouldn’t NYC work, considering that public transportation there is pretty decent (from what I hear at least!)? I think it would be preferable to focus on cities like NYC, San Fran, etc. with decent public transportation so your ability to do your studies isn’t at the mercy of your future husband’s work schedule (since I doubt his boss would be happy if he had to keep taking tiem off to drive you to school). There’s also always the unfortunate but realistic possibility that you two might end up breaking up before you finish your studies and it would be a big problem if that interfered with being able to complete your studies.
Good luck.
Have you even considered waiting through grad school to get married?
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Don’t go to grad school for anthropology.
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The Southern Tier and Western NY’s economy is in the toilet. Don’t expect to get a job too easily with just a BA in English.
I took “I can’t drive” to mean “I can’t drive because I don’t have a driver’s license.” If there’s a medical reason, then I second the suggestion to find a college with decent public transportation. Or to find an apartment within walking distance of your school. Even at grad school, the most time I ever spent on campus was 5 hours a day. Having to rely on someone else to drive you around would be a major drag for both of you.
Aren’t there some very nice graduate schools in the Providence-Boston area? Yes, yes there are! Don’t believe what they say in “Spinal Tap”. Boston is a big College town. And commuting from Providence to Boston by train or bus is something people do all the time.
Absolutely correct! Public transportation in Bingo isn’t anything to write home about either.
I also vote for getting into a program first and then planning around it. Some school provide on or near campus housing for grad students. Some also can help spouses find work. Heck, what resourses are available might help you decide between programs.
- Apply and get in.
- Find housing within walking distance or on the busline.
- Make sure you know what you’re in for and make sure your fiance is on board.
- Find your fiance a job.
We got married at the beginning of my second year of graduate school. Now that I’m on internship, he is in the first year of his graduate school adventure. If you have any specific questions about how we’ve kept our sanity (or at least have pretended to keep our sanity 
) let me know.
Ugh, good luck. I’m not sure why you feel long distance isn’t an option. Sometimes it is the only option. If you can’t drive, what did you do to get around before you met him? Is there a reason you can’t go back to doing that?
Advice on not getting married until you’re through with grad school only makes sense if you will suddenly become more committed to being with him after you’re married. I don’t see why waiting would avoid the essential problem, which is that you want to be together and you have differing priorities.
Believe me, I can relate. Balancing marriage and career ambition is incredibly difficult and frustrating. It is my personal belief that you have to do what you have to do, and so does he. If that means you have to live in other states or countries for a while, so be it. I am incredibly madly in love with my husband but I have plans and so does he, and we both love each other too much to expect the other to give up our life dreams. Right now he is in New Jersey interviewing for grad school and there is a very strong chance we will spend 6 months to 1 year living in different states, and immediately following spend 6 months in different countries. Believe it or not, that is our compromise! That’s just the way it has to be. Fortunately, we just have the sort of relationship where we can do it without feeling the whole world is falling apart. If you’re still feeling like you have to spend every moment of your lives together then it might be best to allow the relationship to age a bit before you go making big plans.
The idea that you could live in NYC and regularly commute to SUNY-Binghamton evinces a charming ignorance of the size of New York. Its a 3 hour drive in good traffic (each way). I think you meant scrap the Bingo plan and look for a school in NYC – now THAT I agree with for the OP’s situation.
Have you considered Brooklyn College? They have an excellent anthropology dept and are conveniently located in a fairly inexpensive Brooklyn neighborhood.
But seriously, if you chose Boston your fiance could keep his job and nobody would have to move. I’ve lived in Providence for 12 years now and there are STILL well-respected colleges and universities I’ve rarely heard of in Boston - and I work in higher ed myself!
Yep, that’s what I meant. I’m sure there are some options for anthro in NYC!
Tough situation, Julie. (May I call you Julie?) I hear you on the long-distance issue. It’s not how I’d be willing to spend the first few years of my marriage either.
If you weren’t going to be married, I’d tell you to apply to your dream school. But you *are * going to be married, so it’s not just about you anymore. You’re a team, for better or worse. (Part of the reason why I didn’t pursue a PhD in history was because I wouldn’t ask my husband to follow me around the country while I pursued a tenure track job.)
What does your fiance do? Make a list of cities that 1) have universities with decent anthro programs and 2) jobs in his field. Apply to schools in those cities and, if possible, visit them with your husband before deciding which to attend.
The sad fact is that most of us can’t have it all–the perfect career, the ideal marriage, the fabulous house in the fabulous city. We all have to compromise somewhere. It’s up to the two of you to decide which compromises you’re willing to make.
Are you planning on a master’s or a Ph.D? A Ph.D program should give you a big enough stipend to live on unless you have some unusual expenses.
As for distance, if you can’t handle a few years of distance, are you sure you can handle marriage? That’s how some of my classmates are looking at it. Sort of as a test or something. I don’t pretend to understand as I’ve never done it, but I imagine it’s tough.
Good luck.
Unfortunately, this is not as true for the social sciences. I had a full graduate assistantship for the first year only and the tuition remission wasn’t even enough to cover all of our tuition (we took 12 hours our first year instead of the typical grad school full load of 9). After that our support from the school greatly diminished and I have horrendous student loans as a result. This is typical in my field and as I’ve heard from others, also typical in other ‘soft’ sciences.
Juliette: Culture Junkie writes:
> I’m very interested in SUNY Binghamton and while I haven’t applied yet, I think I
> have a very good chance of getting in.
When are you planning to go to grad school? It’s February 9th, which is awfully late to start applying to grad schools. Are you planning to wait to start grad school until 2009? Generally one chooses the grad schools one is applying to and finishes the applications in the fall if one is planning on starting grad school the next fall.
In any case, do not apply to just one grad school. If you don’t get in or your fiance can’t find a job in that area, you’re stuck and will have to wait another year. You should be applying to, say, half a dozen grad schools ranging from ones you barely have a chance of getting into to ones that will almost certainly accept you. Your fiance should do some research about how easy it will be to find a job near each of those grad schools.
This almost made me cry. Without reopening old wounds, suffice it to say that it is not something you should take for granted, and funding for the first year does not necessarily mean funding for the second year. Please get a firm commitment to funding, or have a firm plan for how to pay, before committing to a grad program.