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Admission Criteria | Degree Requirements | Application | Financial Aid | University Degree Requirements | Degree Plan | Degree Committee | Program Requirements

The application deadline is
January 1st
Please make sure you submit all necessary documents, letters, and transcripts before this date.

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Graduate Admission - Department of Anthropology

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Contact Information

Nautical Archaeology Program
Department of Anthropology
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas 77843-4352
Telephone: 979-845-6399
Fax: 979-845-6399
Email: nautarch@tamu.edu

Academic Advisor
Marco Valadez
Telephone: 979-845-9333
Email: mlvaladez@tamu.edu

Underwater archaeology is a specialization within the larger fields of anthropology and archaeology. While it may be relatively simple to train an anthropologist or an archaeologist to dive, it is far more difficult to train a diver to be an anthropologist or an archaeologist. For this reason, candidates for admission into our program are not judged on their diving records but on their training for scholarly research. The Nautical Archaeology Program is a graduate program and does not grant baccalaureate degrees. A Bachelor's degree in a related field is required for admission into the Master's program; a thesis-option Master's degree is required for the Ph.D. program. Adequate training includes study in archaeology, history, and related fields. Reading proficiency in French, Spanish, or German is required for graduation, but not for admission. In addition, Greek, or Latin is of inestimable value to any aspiring nautical archaeologist studying Old World or Classical Archaeology.

Admission Criteria

Prior to admission into the Nautical Archaeology Program, a student must meet the admission requirements of Texas A&M University and achieve acceptable scores on the Graduate Record Examination. A student whose undergraduate work is not sufficient for graduate work in the program will be expected to correct any deficiencies as suggested by the faculty.

Degree Requirements

Nautical Archaeology is a program within the Department of Anthropology in the College of Liberal Arts. When the requirements outlined in the graduate catalog have been met, the degree of Master of Arts or Doctor of Philosophy (Archaeology) is awarded. A minimum of two full semesters of approved courses and research (30 semester hours) is required for the Master of Arts degree.  A minimum of 64 credit hours beyond the Master's degree is required for the Ph.D. A thesis-option Master's degree is required for admission into the Ph.D. program.  An acceptable thesis or dissertation is required for the M.A. or Ph.D. degree, respectively.  The thesis or dissertation must be the original work of the candidate.

Application

The application deadline is January 1 for admission in the fall semester.  Applications are not accepted for the spring semester. Applications received after January 1 (including GRE scores, transcripts, and letters of recommendation) will not be considered. You may write to request a graduate application form or you can apply online through this link to the Office of Admissions. If you apply on-line it is important that you write a well-constructed, one to two page statement describing your career goals and where you would like to be five years from now. This statement is given careful consideration. Send it to the Nautical Archaeology Program at the address below and request that it be placed with your application when it is sent from the Office of Admissions.  

Financial Aid

Graduate assistantships are not normally awarded to first-year students.  There are a limited number of assistantships for which the student may apply after the first year of study.  It is suggested that the applicant contact the Office of Student Financial Aid at Texas A&M University for information on aid programs available to graduate students.

Academic Common Market -- Students applying to the Nautical Archaeology Program who reside in Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia may qualify for in-state tuition rates through the Academic Common Market.  For additional information see the web site at: http://www.cep.unt.edu/ACM.htm. Consult the local state ACM  web site and representative for details on how to apply.

University Degree Requirements

Texas A&M University (TAMU) requires a minimum of 30 credit hours for the Masters of Arts (M.A.) degree and 64 hours beyond the M.A. for the doctoral (Ph.D.) degree.  A thesis is required as part of the M.A. degree; a preliminary examination, dissertation and final examination are required for the Ph.D. Credits for basic foreign language courses may not be used toward fulfillment of either the M.A. or Ph.D. credit requirements. The university also requires that M.A. students include study in more than one area of specialization, but these areas may be contained within the course offerings of a single department. A broad selection of seafaring seminar courses in the Nautical Archaeology Program will normally satisfy this requirement.

The Degree Plan

Every student must prepare and file a degree plan that lists the courses expected to be taken.  For M.A. students, the university requires the degree plan before the end of the second semester. If it is not filed and accepted by that time, the student will be blocked from registering for the third semester.  Ph.D. students must file degree plans by the end of the fifth semester, according to university regulations.

Students may take as many courses as they want, but not every course need be filed on the degree plan. We advise students to resist the temptation to load up the degree plan with every course that they think sounds interesting and would like to take.  It is better to list only the minimum number of courses (30 credit hours) required by the university or by the degree committee.  Three semesters into the nautical program, it may be necessary to make changes in the course of study. The courses that were once desired but are no longer desired must be removed by petition to the Office of Graduate Studies, which is an irksome process.  Students should remember that being awarded a degree and obtaining an education are not the same thing.

Students who are currently pursuing a Master's degree and who intend to apply to the doctoral program should remember that any courses listed on the M.A. degree plan cannot be applied toward the Ph.D. (This is another reason not to list much more than 30 hours of credit on the plan.)  However, courses taken while pursuing the M.A. but not listed on the M.A. degree plan may be applied toward the Ph.D. if at some point the student decides to forego getting a Master's first and instead petitions for admittance directly into the Ph.D. program.  The student should be aware that once admitted, a Ph.D. degree plan will have to filed.  This will supersede the old M.A. degree plan. Any courses listed on the M.A. degree plan, in this case, may also be applied toward the Ph.D.

The Degree Committee

It is the student's responsibility to select an advisory committee to assist with the development of a course of study and in the completion of the thesis or dissertation. Once a degree committee has been formed they will direct the student's study program and may modify the requirements as stated above. TAMU has certain requirements concerning the composition of the committee:

• A Master's committee is made up of three faculty members from TAMU; a Ph.D. committee is made up of four TAMU faculty selected by the student. The student may include on the committee outside readers from other institutions, but these will be in addition to the three or four members from TAMU.
  
• The chairman of the committee should be the best qualified faculty member to supervise the student's graduate research and must be from the student's major department, although a co-chairman from another department is permitted in some cases.
  
• One member of the committee must be from a different department.

The student may elect to change the composition of the committee after it is formed and after the degree plan has been filed.  This may be done through petition to the Office of Graduate Studies.  Professors may also elect not to serve on a committee or to resign from a committee.  The entire committee may not resign en masse.

Students should be looking for the committee that can best help them to pursue their chosen careers and fields of study.  Ideally, the chairman should be the professor whose expertise and research connections can best contribute to the timely completion of research and writing.  Unfortunately, the structure of the curriculum does not give the student much opportunity to experience the teaching of more than a couple of the faculty before the degree plan must be filed.  Students should not simply go to the professors they already know but must make the effort to get to know all of the faculty as early as possible. The faculty are eager to be involved in the mentoring process but cannot help unless they are familiar with the student's interests.

 

Program Requirements for the Master's Degree

The Nautical Archaeology Program has established requirements for graduation, but it should always be kept in mind that the ultimate authority in this area is the student's degree committee.  The committee can choose to waive requirements and substitute or add courses to the degree plan if they think it is in the best interests of the student.  The student should work with the committee to develop the degree plan. Some innovative courses of study have been proposed by students and accepted by faculty in the past.  Please remember that only you know what you want and you should feel free to express what areas of research interest you most.

Each student must complete a thesis or dissertation, based upon independent research. Effective Fall 2004, thesis and dissertations have to be submitted in electronic format. The Nautical Archaeology Program accepts only the followin g formats: The American Journal of Archaeology style guide, The American Neptune style guide, The Society for Historical Archaeology or the Society for American Archaeology style guide. The student also has to demonstrate a reading knowledge of a foreign language acceptable to the student's degree committee.  In most cases, this language will be Spanish, French or German. The student's degree committee will approve the language and the means by which the requirement is fulfilled. In general, the language requirement may be fulfilled by having a B average in a two year undergraduate language program; by receiving at least a B in a graduate-level reading course in the chosen language (either at Texas A&M or another university); or by passing a written examination administered by the Department of Modern Languages or a member of the Nautical Archaeology Program faculty.  Students may contact Dr. Filipe Castro to arrange examinations in French, Spanish and Portuguese. Otherwise, students should contact Dr. Richard Curry of the Department of Modern Languages.  If testing in the appropriate language is not available from the Department of Modern Languages, the student must contact their degree committee to discuss other arrangements.

The following courses are required by the program for the M.A.  

The remaining 12 credit hours should include four of the seminars offered by the program in the history of seafaring.  Six seminars (3 hours each) are currently offered on a regular basis in the following groups:

In addition, the program often offers Special Topics courses (ANTH 689) that address particular subjects.  These are usually seminars of the same format as the regular seminars.  Some Special Topics courses offered in the past have included Advanced Ship Reconstruction, Portuguese Seafaring, and Bronze Age Trade.  An ANTH 689 course may also be a course designed for permanent inclusion in curriculum, but it must be offered in 689 format for at least two semesters before it can receive a permanent course number.  All of the graduate seminars in the program started this way.  Normally, these Special Topics courses may be included on the degree plan in addition to or in place of the six regular seminars listed above - check with your degree committee. 

Problems courses (ANTH 685) are independent study courses in which the student develops a research project in consultation with a particular professor and pursues that project throughout the semester.  The student is expected to produce a paper or other tangible result, and is expected to consult regularly with the professor. A Master's degree plan may include up to 12 hours of ANTH 685, 689, and undergraduate courses.  Only undergraduate courses of 300 level and above may be included on a graduate degree plan. Once the degree committee is formed, they may approve or require a program of study that differs from that described above. 

As of April 2002, all students are required to include ANTH 602 or an equivalent course on their degree plans. If the student has previously taken a class equivalent to ANTH 602 (e.g., as an undergraduate), then they are required to take ANTH 604. Each student must take either ANTH 602 or ANTH 604 at Texas A&M University.

Admission to Doctoral Degree Program

Students may be admitted to the Nautical Archaeology Program with either a Bachelor's degree or a Master's degree. However, all students, including those who have previously earned a Master's degree, are initially admitted to the program as MA students. There is an established procedure that must be followed to petition for admission into the Nautical Archaeology PhD program. Essentially, students must demonstrate to their thesis committees their ability to produce high quality written research. A thesis-option Master's degree will fulfill this requirement. Approval is much more difficult to obtain for students seeking to bypass the Master's degree. In this case, the student must present a substantial body of research to his/her committee for approval, in order to demonstrate capacity for dissertation-level academic research.

In order to be admitted into the Nautical Archaeology PhD program, the following requirements must be fulfilled:
1. The student must formally establish a graduate degree committee.
2. The student must hold a thesis-option Master's degree or demonstrate to the degree committee his/her capacity for academic research (as described above).
3. The student must develop a dissertation topic and have it approved by their committee. It is recommended that the student prepare a formal dissertation proposal to fulfill this requirement.
4. If the degree committee accepts the student's proposal, the chair of the committee will then present the proposal to the Nautical Archaeology Program faculty, who will vote on whether or not to accept the student into the PhD program.

Program Requirements for the Doctoral Degree

In addition to the university requirements, the Nautical Archaeology Program requires (1) a reading knowledge of two foreign languages acceptable to the student's committee, and (2) normally a maximum of 22 research hours (ANTH 691) on the degree plan.  The specific requirements for the Ph.D. are much less rigidly defined, as the course of study is individually tailored to the student's needs, and the degree plan is developed in close consultation with the degree committee. With the approval of the student's degree committee, one of the two foreign language requirements may be substituted with a class in archaeological statistics, GIS, or an approved computer drafting or graphics couse. However, neither the foreign language classes or any class taken as a substitute can be counted toward the required credits for the degree plan. The requirements for submitting the dissertation are the same as the thesis submission requirements.

For more information on course requirements and degree plan procedures, please contact the graduate advisor (currently Dr. C. Wayne Smith).

 

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Last updated: Friday, 30-Oct-2009 14:22:50 Central Daylight Time