Program Reviews

The Buncuklu field school is a perfect combination of good training and a fun, interactive experience in archaeology. Especially if this is your first field-school, I couldn't recommend it highly enough. You will find people will varying degrees of experience and knowledge, and you will all work together and form some unforgettable friendships through it. The dig directors also go far out of their way to provide you with chances to get to know archaeology, their research, the life of an archaeologist as well as Turkish culture.

I was a great experience for me. I learnt various tools on an archaeological dig and how to process the materials led by professional and passionate archaeologist. The view on the hill is beautiful and it was great to chat with the student from ULiverpool. The teachers and site assistants were all very knowledgeable people with great amount experience of archaeology. They all love to share their stories and help the students to build their career in archaeology. You can also learn the process of archaeology and heritage-communication. The open day was brilliant, a lot of people came, locals and those from academia. The public has shown great interest to the project and wanted to learn about the site. I felt what I was doing was important in the sense to contribute to people's understanding of their homeland.

Learning about museum practices and Egyptian material culture in the Museo Egizio was an incredible experience. Being able to talk with museum staff and ask them questions about their work, experiences, and curatorial or conservation choices was unlike any other experience I had had before. The field school staff (Dr. Barnard, and 2 TA's, Vera and Rachel) were supportive, very knowledgable, approachable and extremely helpful. I learned so much over the course of the field school. The program includes lectures given by field school staff and museum staff (including the director of the Museo Egizio!) and field trips to museums and cultural and archaeological sites in Italy. We even got to take a field trip to one of the museum's outside conservationist's workshop! Being in the field school gives you unprecedented access to the material, collections and staff of the Museo Egizio. And Turin is an incredible city to live in for 5 weeks. On the weekends, there is time to travel across Italy because it is well connected on the high speed train (my peers I went to places like Florence, Venice, and the lakes district on the weekends). We worked with 3,000 year old pottery sherds and textiles fragments and got to learn how to do ceramic and textile analysis from experts at the museum! We got to tour the museum collections with museum conservators and learn about all aspects of the museum. The exposure to museum practices was incomparable and the overall experience was unequal to any other experience I had in museums prior.

Firstly, Sondor program is very unique compared to other field schools. From my past experience with other field schools, is you go out to the site, learn the methods of archaeology, do all the research for graduates, and post-graduates, because undergraduates are not allowed to ask or answer their own individual questions. Crazy right! We are meant to think, and ask logical and rational questions as scientist, and develop our own research design. This all starts with context and being in the field. Well, in the Sondor program Dr. Kurin, helped her students develop a research design mix with field experience. That's right. Not only she teaches us about the slices of pie that makes archaeology diverse and practical, she teaches us how to bake that whole delicious pie. Archaeology is about understanding the context of materials at the site until making their way into the lab. Students get a rare chance to recover human remains of the Chanka, and do further analyses on those remains when coming back into the lab. This program helped and encourage me to ask my own questions like "what was the estimated stature of the Chanka population?" and followed by my own individual research on the weekends to try to answer this curious question I had, and now I am presenting my data at the 2018 SAA in Washington D.C. This program not only supports, but encourage students to become the next scholar in Anthropology.

The IFR Field School at Yangguanzhai was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Not only did I gain valuable knowledge and experience through the extensive fieldwork, I was also able to explore Xi'an and see all of the amazing sites the city and surrounding countryside have to offer such as the Old City Wall, the Bell and Drum Towers, the Great Mosque, Huashan, the Great Wild Goose Pagoda, the the Tomb of the First Emperor, the Terracotta Soldiers, and much more! Additionally, the excavation itself was incredibly informative and the faculty and staff were impeccable. Through these outings and interactions, I made a number of lifelong friends and gave my CV a nice boost as well!

I selected the IFR program with UCLA in Ethiopia because I am interested in studying archaeology in grad school and this was the only field school with a timing that worked with my job. I came into this experience with the hope that I would be able to gain some clarity about whether or not grad school is right for me.

My expectations were met and exceeded. I was not just a "field school student" but treated as part of the team. Every day I was able to work and interact and learn from experts. The program was set up so that I was able to spend time with the survey team, with specialists in zooarchaeology, lithics, and ceramics. I was able to ask advice from professionals and current graduate students. I was able to spend more time working with the survey team because that was my area of interest.

Beyond all of that, I had a fantastic time in an incredible part of the world. Ethiopia is a magical place and I was beyond lucky to be able to spend six weeks there with UCLA. Thank you IFR for facilitating this important experience.

The Peru-Sondor bioarch. field school combined all the more technical aspects (additional osteology practice, handling and cleaning bone, etc.) with the more intangible but no less important cultural aspects of both a site and the community around it. The immersion is really amazing, both from additional lectures and having the freedom to visit places like Lake Pacucha on the weekends. Sondor itself is beautiful, and the field school is worth it just to look up from a trench to see the surrounding valleys and peaks.

The Peru-Sondor program is the best travel experience I’ve ever had. I needed to get a fieldwork credit for my degree, and I picked this one because it was focused in an area that I wanted to learn more about and it was the best price. Lucky for me, a decision that seemed so random ended up being the best possible choice. The location is breathtaking, the people are incredibly kind and welcoming, and the program itself was better than the website described. The program was split into two portions, a fieldwork section and a lab section. The fieldwork section was a crash course in field-based archaeology that was good for beginners and professionals. The lab section consisted of lectures, an ethnography project, and the option for independent projects. Dr. Kurin worked with all of the students on any questions they had and facilitated a number of independent research projects with the majority of us. We had free time on the weekends to visit other cities and sites if we so chose. I’m still in contact with nearly everyone I met while out there. I left the program with a renewed love of archaeology and I recommend the program to anyone with any interest in visiting Peru and its history.

The IFR field school at Yangguanzhai gave me the opportunity to see where archaeological data comes from, and to participate in the process of critical-thinking that leads to discovering our shared history. In addition to giving lectures, our instructors patiently taught us proper field techniques, from taking elevations every day to making technical drawings of features. The field school helped me understand that, beyond its excitement and adventure, archaeology really is a slow, methodical process of exploration. And it's fascinating! I loved how YGZ brought the Chinese Neolithic Era to life. The field school also included field trips to many museums, archaeological sites (other than the one we excavated), and guest lectures; all of this helped to contextualize our fieldwork.

The program also taught me the importance of using a clear and consistent scientific method. We were told to always describe before we interpret. Although this rule may seem obvious, I don't think I fully understood the importance of this concept before YGZ, when a hasty interpretation could have serious consequences to future research.

As a student of the Chinese language, the field school also presented a great opportunity for cultural immersion and language practice. I loved working with a team of international students and professors--it really showed me how archaeologists collaborate across international borders.

YGZ has been indispensable to me when considering a career in archaeology and cultural heritage. It exposed me to the variety of disciplines within archaeology, especially geoarchaeology, ceramics, paleoethnobotany, and bioarchaeology. Now that I'm in my fourth year of undergraduate study, I'm applying for post-graduate programs. My experiences in YGZ have helped a great deal in discerning what I may do in the future.

As an archaeology student, the IFR field school at Stobi was a great experience for me because it gave me an opportunity to learn field skills, such as excavation and lab techniques, photogrammetry and surveying, field drawing, and proper documentation in a hands-on way. It was very gratifying to see the progress we had made in our field site over the four weeks that we worked there. It was definitely tough work! But the researchers and staff at Stobi are extremely knowledgeable, eager to help you, and fun. In addition to the research and skills aspect of the program, there are opportunities to explore Macedonia—a country I had never visited before—and to learn about both the region's ancient and modern history. If you're ready to work hard, sweat a lot, and learn a lot, this is a great program. I am very grateful I had the chance to participate in it both for the knowledge I gained but also for the relationships I made with my fellow students and the Stobi staff.