This week we took a closer look at the Archaeology and Anthropology majors at UNCG through the perspective of Kayleigh Stapel, a student who is exceedingly disciplined in her studies in these majors.
Kayleigh Stapel began as a freshman at UNC Asheville because of the liberalism, the mountains, and the small school size. She left Asheville because she believed it was too liberal and not disciplined enough for her and later enrolled as a sophomore at the Citadel in South Carolina. There she received her desired discipline as she pursued her goal of being an airman officer in the air force. She headed straight to UNCG when she realized she no longer wanted to do biochem and be an officer, but wanted to officially pursue a career in Archaeology because she enjoys the thrill of discovery and the desire to learn more about other cultures.
Stapel greatly enjoys UNCG’s program for anthropology and archaeology as well as the professors great care and attention to detail. The only aspect she wishes to be different is the class size, which makes for a stronger bond between students and the professor to build that understanding. Stapel went from having her campus capacity being 200 to being 20,000. Regardless of the class size, she says that for the price of tuition and the amount of students she is getting a fairly decent education.
Stapel is currently taking 21 credit hours this semester and is also involved in UNCG’s archeological and anthropological society. Where students are involved in traveling to learn more as well as spreading the knowledge of archaeology with the help of communal events.
This past summer Stapel participated in the summer study abroad trip to Mochlos, Greece for a 10-week long archaeological project with one of her professors leading the study season. Students worked with ancient Minoan pottery, where their task was to sort based on the fabric makeup (if the pottery was made of gypsum, mica or phyllite), discern which region the piece derived from (because of the constant trading for example), and finally conserve the pottery that dates all the way back to 3500 BC to 2100 BC. In all of this, Stapel and other students in the program learned about the different regions, the culture of the Minoans and all that inhabited the land before and after, and were able to easily identify different types of rocks, learn about Greek culture, travel to palaces and infamous sites, and much more.
Through this program Stapel and other students were able to be more intune with their talents and narrow their interests in archaeology.
Learn more about the anthropology and archaeology programs at UNCG by visiting the Graham building on campus.