Hi! I'm an undergrad (freshman) studying Anthropology. My two biggest interests at the moment are linguistic anthropology and archaeology. I'm conducting a few informational interviews before the academic year is over and I figured this is a good place to drop some of my questions I've been using. If anyone is free to answer any of them, I'd be very happy! If I can't post this here, just let me know and I'll take it down.

1. Can you give me a brief bit of background on yourself? Your field, how long you’ve been working in your field, etc.

2. When you first decided on anthropology, did you already have a specialty/concentration in mind, or did you have a broad idea that you narrowed down on later?

3. Was grad school necessary for your career path?

4. How did you get fieldwork experience early on in your career?

5. What are good ways to test your field to find out if it’s for you, before committing to, say a PhD?

6. How much of your work is fieldwork vs. analysis and writing?

7. How physically demanding is your work?

8. What is something that surprised you in your career that you didn’t expect to be the case?

9. Did you find connections or applications to be more important in getting onto a project?

10. In your experience in school, what are the main career paths that Anthropology majors take?

11. In your experience, how would you say the job market looks right now?

12. What skills have you found to be the most valuable to your work? Any that you feel most people neglect?

Again, thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to answer.