Sheilagh Ogilvie: belief

Transcript context

…Let’s say an 18-year-old, highly intelligent young woman comes to you. She’s moving to England; she might want to be a professor. What advice do you give to her? From America, let’s say. From America. My academic advice would be the advice that . . . My younger sister came to study in England long after I did. After her first year at the Institute of Archaeology in London, she said, “Sheilagh, why didn’t you tell me that the way the British university system works is that you aren’t allowed to make up your own essay questions? You have to focus on the essay question they have set. ” I thought, “Yes, that’s the fundamental piece of wisdom I would pass on from an educational point of view,” which is, answer the essay questions set. But in a more general framework, I would say, and this is actually not just England-specific, but changing cultures. When I was 20, I went to live in Germany. I lived there, actually, for quite a long time while I was doing research for my doctorate. When you initially go to a foreign place, whether it’s Germany — or later, I lived in the Czech Republic for a year — you won’t figure out right away what people in this culture do to feel comfortable and have fun. But you have to have the faith that they do have things that they do, and you need to learn what those things are that they do in this culture to be comfortable with one another and to have a great time. The sooner you learn that, the happier you’ll be fitting into a new culture. I think that would be my general life advice to anyone who is moving to a new country. Find out what people do for fun, and then start doing it. When you were living in Württemberg, what was the biggest puzzle for you?…

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