Orientation Week

Welcome back to my blog, everyone! This post will be dedicated to covering the weekends and the week of orientation. I know all of you are eagerly waiting to hear what I've been up to, so sit tight while I take you with me on the long week I've had. It's a long post!

The weekend after I moved into the dorm was uneventful. I went to the beach again, explored the neighborhood around the university, and got situated into my room. Nothing special. My roommates are finally all here, they moved in on different days over the last week. Some may be leaving soon to move into the studio dorms, but for now it's a full house.

Monday was the first day of orientation, where we met everyone in our individual masters program. We met the faculty and staff of the archaeology department at TAU, along with most of our professors teaching us this semester. Some were out of town so we will meet them once classes begin. There are some big names in the department. The head of the department is Oded Lipschitz, a big important scholar in biblical archaeology. Israel Finkelstein and Omer Sergi are also professors of ours, and are very well known in the field. If you ever read articles from biblical archaeology magazines or watch specials on the History Channel, you might recognize their names. After meeting all the available professors we had a little break and snack, accompanied by a toast to a successful year. We met some of the previous students that had already gone through the program and had already graduated or are working on their theses. Then we learned more about actual program, what we were going to be doing and studying, and how the next year (or several years) was going to play out.

I know a lot of people have asked me about the second year of the program, and I finally have some answers for you! The minimum grade to be invited to apply to write a thesis is an 85. Then you apply to different groups in the staff for approval to participate in the second year. While it is not a requirement for receiving the MA that you plan on doing a thesis, it is recommended for those that intend on going further in their studies and encouraged throughout the year. Different staff members will meet with us about our interests and hobbies so that we can find a good theme and topic for the thesis. If we are accepted into the thesis track we do not need to have our thesis topic chosen and written in stone at the beginning. I have also heard that some students continue their work on their thesis past the second year and into a third or fourth year. My plan remains the same, to work hard and do the best I can so that I might be accepted into the thesis track for the coming year.

After all the explanation was done we left the department and went on a tour of campus. We saw many of the important buildings and places that we would need to be successful, including the main library, the exits, and the cafeterias. That closed out the first day of orientation on Monday.

Monday night was the first social event for international students, held at a bar in south-central Tel Aviv. The event was full of students from all the different international programs, and while there was some mingling, it mostly ended up being everyone sticking around their own program colleagues. It was a fun night. We drank, talked, and got to know each other better.

Tuesday was orientation for all the international students together. It started with a placement test for those students who wanted (or were required) to take Hebrew classes, but I was not one of them so I slept in. Then we all met together in a classroom where two of the international student office staff members told us all the rules, regulations, and general information about the international program. It was very long, dry, and boring, made worse by the fact that everything they said was included in the multitude of emails they had sent to us during the previous several days. After a while we split up into groups to do "ice breakers," where we met with people from other programs and talked about different topics that moderators brought up. The ice breaker was way too short, and after like ten minutes it was time for lunch. After lunch we went back into the classroom for an academic writing workshop. I thought the first half of the day was boring, but the writing workshop seemed completely useless.It was almost entirely devoted to talking about plagiarism. I get why that is important, but it didn't have to be a two hour lecture. Anyway, that ended orientation on Tuesday.

Wednesday we had a 4 hour "introductory class" with Omer, one of the professors from the program. The class was an introduction and overview into the different important settings for the entire program, focusing on the geography, terminology, and scope our studies into archaeology and history of the land of the Bible. The class was one of a three-part 'series' of intro classes we will be having these first two weeks. One of the other professors is out of the country and won't be back until the second week, so we are having intro courses during that time slot instead. Even though almost all of the information was review for me, the class was still very entertaining, engaging and exciting. Omer is a very good professor, and I am looking forward to taking more classes with him.

Thursday morning we had a tour of the archaeology department. We saw the different offices, the archaeology library, the displays of the different dig sites, and met some multi-year students that were working in the labs on specific projects. It was very interesting to see all the different sites that the university was involved in, like Megiddo, Ramat Rachel, Tel Azeka, and Timna.

That was the end of orientation week. Friday night I went to the Chabad rabbi's apartment for Shabbat dinner, and had a great time. I met some new friends from the university, made friends with the rabbi, and had great food. Saturday I spent reading. We were assigned a multitude of articles to read for class on Monday, so that took up a lot of time. Sunday, today, the archaeology department held a tour of central Tel Aviv. It was a lot of walking around neighborhoods of Tel Aviv that I was previously familiar with, but I'm sure it was useful for the students that didn't know the city very well or had never been there before. It was a fun walk, and we ate lunch at a good falafel restaurant.

That pretty much covers everything important that's happened over the last week or so. Tomorrow morning I start classes. I have classes Monday through Thursday, so I'm not sure if it's going to be easy, with fewer class days, or very hard, with lots of work to do between classes and on off days. In my next post I'll be sure to update everyone on how classes are going, and how I think the year will progress. Have fun!