If I were to be asked in a job interview about my time doing archaeology in Turkey, I fear I would have so much to say that it would take up the entire interview. The first thing I would want to emphasize is the daily schedule. I wake up at 4:45 every weekday, and we always leave the hotel at 5:30 on the dot. We arrive at the dig house around 6:00 and eat breakfast until 6:30. We then work until 10:00, when we get our daily çay (chai) break, which lasts for half an hour. Afterward, we go back to work until 1:00. We have lunch until 1:45, after which we finally return to the hotel. The St Olaf students will usually work on the official dig notebooks immediately after returning, which generally takes between 15 to 30 minutes. After notebooks, we are typically free to do what we want, with three exceptions: Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. On Mondays, right after dinner, the St Olaf students have a group discussion surrounding the week’s assigned readings, which usually lasts around half an hour. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, everyone has to wash pottery from 3:00 to 5:00. Our weekends are always free, and we usually have an optional field trip offered each week on Saturday.
I would emphasize this schedule in a job interview for a few key reasons. Firstly, I do not believe that most people understand what an archaeological dig looks like, even outside of the actual work. I think that knowing what an average day/week actually looks like helps make everything we are doing here seem more concrete and less like the vague concept of “archaeology.” More importantly, however, the schedule here has quite significantly improved my time management skills. I am, admittedly, somewhat unused to following such a strict schedule. Outside of simply arriving to class on time, almost nothing in my life needs to fall into a consistent timetable, especially since my current job is freelance and my hours are determined by myself alone. This is one of the first times in my life where I really feel the need to watch the clock throughout the day to make sure that I am not missing anything important and that everything is getting done within a reasonable amount of time. Furthermore, at school, I have little issue with skipping a few meals or cutting into my sleeping hours to finish my work, but that simply isn’t realistic here. There is a big difference between going to class for three hours and doing hard manual labor for six hours; you feel the lack of sleep or food far more acutely during the latter, and it poses a more immediate threat to your health and well-being. As a result, I’ve gotten fairly good at actually following a consistent work, meal, and sleep schedule, which will definitely be helpful in the professional world, assuming I can keep it up.
I would also want to tell my future employer about the physical aspect of archaeological work. I am not exactly a stranger to manual labor, as I have previously worked in a barn taking care of horses, but the work we do here is an entirely different beast. I have, in general, gotten a lot more comfortable working with my body, especially in the heat. I have gained a far better understanding of my physical limits and when it is all right to push them. Prior to this, I always had a difficult time distinguishing between feeling tired and feeling genuinely unwell, but I can now confidently say that I’ve learned the difference between the two, which should make any hypothetical physically demanding job not only easier but also safer.
Finally, I would tell my future employer about my social growth in Turkey. I am generally quite an anti-social person, and the threat of socialization tends to be the biggest hurdle for me to overcome when undertaking anything new. If I have a specific goal, like talking about a book in class, I have no problem with it, but casual socialization tends to stress me out more than any mental or physical task. I am generally quite good with the “fake it till you make it” mentality, but it drains me like nothing else. As a result, I usually try to avoid casual socialization, and I am therefore rather unpracticed with it. However, needless to say, I have gotten a lot of practice here. Not a day goes by where I am not socializing with a large group of people, and I’ve actually become quite comfortable with it, even though it still tires me out. I have also gotten used to communicating with people who don’t speak much English. Seeing as I had previously never left the U.S. (besides going to Canada), the language barrier was one of the things I was the most worried about when I decided to come here, as I knew it would make trying to go places even more anxiety-inducing. However, I have since learned that a few words and direct body language can go a long way. Overall, I’ve become a lot more comfortable casually speaking with and being around people, which will undoubtedly help me tremendously in the future, both personally and professionally.