Semi-retired at 54, I love to study and want very much to earn the master's degree in Anthropology at the University of ____. This is the only program to which I am applying for several reasons, most of all because I very much admire the strength of the faculty in my areas of greatest interests, Paleo-Indian, and hunter-gatherer studies. The location of the university is also ideal. I feel called to spend large parts of the balance of my lifetime where the Great Planes meet the Rocky Mountains, studying the traces left in the ground around me of civilizations cultures that lived long ago.
I have spent the last 10 years (off and on) in South America and have married the love of my life in Colombia. She wants to go to the USA and spend time there as well and I have agreed, telling her a lot about Colorado and Wyoming, the part of the country that I think of as home. We speak entirely Spanish, which I learned on my own, and I am now helping her to improve her English in preparation for this shift. While my interest in Anthropology has historically been motivated principally by my studies of Indigenous peoples in the context of North America, I suspect that what I hope to learn at the University of ____ will inspire me to put my new skills to work, increasingly, in the context of South as well as North America. My wife enjoys comparing me to Indiana Jones and I smile.
My principal interests lie in the areas of Paleo-Indian and hunter-gatherer studies, as well as the use of Geographic Information Sciences for archeological purposes or in cultural resource management. I have very much enjoyed a lifelong passion for all thing related to or having to do with Indigenous peoples, what is left today, and left behind from the past. I have studied a variety of cultures indigenous to North America, but my favorite to which I have always returned in time has been the Paleo-Indians. I have spent the last decade in South America, Peru, and Colombia. Enjoying a high and dry climate, I have most enjoyed visiting numerous ancient cultural sites. Currently, I am planning a visit to the Serranía de la Lindosa to see rock paintings that are 12,000 +/- years old. It is about a 14-hour drive from our home.
Raised on a ranch in Texas, I love the land. I have studied mounds and earthworks, maps, artifacts, since the age of twelve. I spent 20 years teaching in the Texas Prison System, Microsoft Office, and Web Development, including the two years that I spent as a principal. I also taught for four years in the Dallas school system, accounting, and Business Law. As a result of a fortuitous mixture of fortune and hard work, I no longer need to find a job, and I will put my MA in Anthropology to effective use independently from financial considerations. I am pleased that I am free to volunteer my time, or to accept a position with low pay, that I would find fulfilling.
I have a home in Fort Collins, CO, about an hour away, and I was recently awarded 12 hours of Spanish at UW through credit by examination. I also did well on my GREs. I hope to learn a great deal in your MA Program about Cultural Recourse Management. I have already completed Intro. to Archaeology, Intro. to Cultural Anthropology, and Intro. to Biological Anthropology. Soon, I will be completing Linguistic Anthropology. It would be a special honor for me to study under Drs K____, ____, and ____, whose areas of research interests I find especially attractive and want to learn as much as I can.
I worked for about six months in CRM (contract archaeology) in the early 90’s. But, at the time I was a single parent, and a aspired to be a responsible one, and thus choose to go into education in the belief that it would provide for a more secure future for my child. Even though I was an accounting major, I had such an interest in archaeology that I would request contract archaeology reports through the "interlibrary loan" program, which was before the web in the late '80s, from other universities, often SMU because they did a lot of work in Texas. I never requested anything related to accounting. Now, it is time for me to recover something particularly important that was lost – or postponed – at that time, long ago. A dream lost shall become a dream recovered.
Thank you for considering my application to Anthropology at the University of ____.
MA Anthropology Statement of Purpose Example
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