In academia, spring is a transitional time. Archaeology professors head to the field or take time off. Field schools are well in preparations. Students graduate and start thinking about what they’re going to do after the big day.
In my short time as a PhD student, teaching assistant, and professor, I’ve found that a significant number of students have gone straight from kindergarten to their bachelor’s degree without a single break. Some of those folks also flow straight into a graduate program. School has played a central role in their lives. Their daily and seasonal lives have centered on school. The grades, accolades, comments, and interactions with fellow students and professors have deeply impacted their lives. Given this reality, it’s easy to see why they would want to stay in college. However, this is not always the best idea.
TRIGGER WARNING: I have to say upfront that this is just my own opinion. It is not the opinion of my employer, which sells college degrees. The following post is based on my experience as a U.S. citizen who racked up 11 years as a student at three different universities (Boise State University, BA [2001]; the University of Idaho, MA [2005]; and the University of Arizona, PhD [2017]). It’s also coming from someone who did CRM full-time from 2004—2014 and has been a tenure track professor at an R1 school since 2017. Those who have been reading this blog know I approach higher education with a lot of pragmatism while not forgetting the altruistic reasons why people become archeologists. Feel free to leave a comment below if you have anything to add to this conversation.
Should you go to Graduate School to become an Archaeologist?
Yes. You basically need a graduate degree to maintain a fruitful career in archaeology. It’s part of the Secretary of Interior’s Standards for Archaeology, a requirement for membership in the Register of Professional Archaeologists, many states and government agencies ask for a grad degree, and most of your colleagues in CRM and academia will have at least a Master’s. A Master’s also demonstrates you have the ability to follow research through from conception to completion, which is an opportunity few undergraduates get. So, I strongly recommend you get a graduate degree if you want to stay in archaeology for more than a few years.
Why should you go to Graduate School to become an Archaeologist?
While a Master’s is strongly recommended for archaeologists, don’t feel like you need to have a PhD to have an awesome career in archaeology (see this post if you want to get a PhD). It is true that your archaeology career will be more stable and have more opportunity if you get a Master’s degree. Before you start applying to programs, you need to ask yourself why do you want to go to graduate school to become an archaeologist? You need to have a compelling reason for going to grad school long BEFORE you start applying.
I’ve only been a professor for six years now but there seems to be three types of reasons students have for going on to graduate school:
1) School is all you know. You’re afraid of not having school in their lives.
2) You know they’ll need a grad degree to have a permanent job as an archaeologist so you’re doing what you must to get the career you want. These are the folks who go on for a Master’s.
3) You think you want to be a professor. This is the primary reason why students want to get a PhD. I wrote a whole blog post on that alone.
I have some standard responses for each of these reasons.
Reason #1: I’ve been a student all my life. I can fully understand why someone who is smart and has been in school since they were three years old would want to stay in school. It’s all you’ve known. Your life has revolved around the seasons of school: assignments, hypothetical projects, grades, and all the stuff that comes along with student life. Leaving this behind and going into the open ocean is scary. Students tell me this all the time.
My recommendation is: Go get a job. Start a business or several businesses. Sail the Seven Seas. Explore strange new worlds. Seek out new civilizations. Boldy go where you’ve never gone before. This is a big and beautiful world. Experience life without the personal gratification of grades. Be an adult.
Go find out what kind of person you are. See what jobs you like and what you don’t like. Figure out what you’re good at (besides school). See what sorts of jobs you’d like to have. Job hop. Grind. Silent quit. Do some ‘bed rotting.’ Travel. Don’t travel. Find people who have the jobs you’d like to have and figure out how they got them. Go get a job in archaeology as an archaeological technician. See if you like CRM. Once you’ve done that for a few years, reach out to me again and ask me for more advice. Look me up if you decide to go on for a grad degree so you can keep doing archaeology.
Reason #2: You want to become a professional archaeologist. Coming to this conclusion is a momentous occasion. Hopefully, you’ve been doing archaeology for a few years and realize it’s what you want to do for at least the next 10 years. You want to meet the SOI standards and find a permanent job. Here’s what I recommend:
- Go to an accredited anthropology department with a terminal MA program.
- Get in-state tuition or a tuition waiver (if you can).
- Have data before you apply or know they’ll accept you to work on an existing project.
- Get funding.
- Try not to take on any student loan debt.
- Network with employers as much as possible.
- GET OUT as fast as possible!
You are there to get a degree. Not to make friends. Not to take on social justice crusades. Not to support your professor’s research. Not to find a partner or soulmate. Don’t take any of this personal. You are there to get a Master’s degree as fast as possible with as little stress and debt as you can. Look for departments with a track record of getting students out on time, which is four semesters for a 2-year program. Grind you’re a$$ off and get the hell out of there.
(NOTE: I see so many students getting caught up in campus crusades that suck down their time, energy, and emotions. Don’t fall for this. The world is a wonderous but fu¢ked-up place. You don’t need to be paying money to work on solving its problems. You’re there to get a degree, not reform academia. Let the staff and faculty fight from the inside. Lean on your professors to fight and, if they don’t, get them out of there. You are much more useful to society once you’ve graduated than while you’re a student so get out of college and attack from the outside.
Universities don’t really have to listen to students because they can hold your degrees hostage. Plus, they’ve already got your tuition payments. They hold all the cards. Universities are much more afraid of lawsuits brought down by alumnae groups who have the position and resources to force universities into compliance. They’re afraid of donors pulling their money and laundering it through other institutions. They’re also afraid of voters who elect anti-education politicians into office who will cut their monetary umbilical cord. Get out of school and enter Mortal Kombat with academia through legal, political, and financial means from the outside or from the inside as a university employee. Don’t waste time fighting on-campus social justice crusades while you’re going for your Master’s because you’re not there long enough to make a substantial impact without derailing your study plan.
I also strongly recommend against PhD students doing this too.)
While you’re going for your Master’s I suggest you attend every archaeology job fair you can. Meet with as many employers as you can. Join online archaeology social media groups like this one and this one so you have an idea as to what’s going on in the industry and meet with folks who work in archeology. When it comes to school, your only goal is to get what you need to earn your degree and find employment upon graduation. Nothing else matters.
At the end of the day, you just want your Masters diploma in as short a time as possible and with as little debt as possible. Change the world once you’ve got that degree because, as long as you’re enrolled, time is money.
Reason #3: You’re insane and want to try and become a professor. You know you have a 3% chance of getting a tenure track job, but you don’t care. You say, “Never tell me the odds.” Okay, so you know the odds, but you should also know PhDs are very valuable in the wider economy. You know nobody needs a PhD but also that nobody has a PhD and those with a Doctorate can command higher wages, better benefits, and enjoy more career stability. You’re going to try and go tenure track but are willing to take a great, stable job in the real world if you don’t get it. Nice. I’ll help you. See below…
If this is you, read my post “Should you get a PhD to do Archaeology?.”
Do you want to do all of this to become an archaeologist?
At the end of the day, only you can answer that question. Every professional archaeologist in the United States did a lot of things to get to where they’re currently at. There might be a couple folks whose parents owned CRM companies or lucked into a TT position but the majority of us followed this grind. For better or worse, this is the pathway we know and it’s the pathway we replicate. It’s not easy and it doesn’t always pay off for all those who try it but that’s what all of us have done to realize our dream job of becoming an archaeologist.
Academia and CRM pray on the fact that most archaeologists think this is their dream. It’s the main reason why we put up with the $hitty work conditions in archaeology: low pay, no benefits, precarity, intense manual labor sprinkled amidst intense mental labor, the emotional toll of having no place to call home, no rest, and constant instability. Universities and CRM companies know this too, but they have no motivation to really change other than the fact that they’ll run out of suckers dreamers to do this job. The only way you’ll put up with working as a lecturer at multiple community colleges for $24,000/year is because you’ve internalized that being an archaeology professor is your dream job and that you are living your dream. They only way you’d put up with shovelbumming for $17/hr. as a CRM field tech is because you’ve always wanted to be an archaeologist. Our employers know this. They don’t care about changing it because they’re afraid of what that would do to the life they already know. The devil they know is better than the one they don’t.
This is why when students ask me if they should pursue a career in archaeology, I always ask them to envision the life they’d like to live in 5, 10, 20, and 40 years. Where do you want to live? What does your day look like? Where do you wake up? Do you have a family? Do you have a nice car? Acres of land? Pets? Even a houseplant? Be creative and let your mind wander in a good way. Write down what you imagine. Then, ask yourself: “Can I accomplish this goal without getting a PhD?” If the answer is “yes,” don’t get a PhD. Can you accomplish your goals without a Master’s in Anthropology? Yes? Don’t get a Masters in Anthro.
If you can’t envision your life without archaeology, I suggest you go all in and get a graduate degree so you can forge a fruitful career. Let me know what you’ve decided. Write a comment below or send me an email if you have anything else to say.
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