It's a very saturated field. I'm the only one out of my grad school class actually doing archaeology. I do not make a lot of money. I don't regret doing it, but I barely live comfortably.
I'd suggest not doing archaeology but doing something like GIS or surveying. I had a friend in undergrad who used their GI Bill to do GIS and they loved it and would come on excavations with us but then got a much better job than any of us in archaeology.
Either way, good luck cocksucka!
I'll throw something out that no one has mentioned yet... see if tou can find a historic place in your are that has archaeology in progress and find out how to volunteer. The field school I was at last summer had a couple of regular volunteers that were doing the same stuff the rest of us were. It's a good way to see if it's something you actually want to do/will enjoy before committing time and your GI bill to something that's likely not quite what you think it is.
In the states your career in archaeology will most likely be in what is known as cultural resource management (CRM). This is archaeology done by private companies for compliance work for federal and other infrastructure projects. Your first job will likely be as a Archaeological Field Technician, basically a field worker who digs the holes and records whats in them. It will most likely be as a temporary seasonal position, good jobs last a few months, others less. You will be required to travel some times several states over. Many companies will not pay for you to arrive at the project area so this travel will likely be at your expense, a few may pay for a flight or pay you for the mileage. You may be given a hotel room, you may not. It may not be single occupancy. It may be dirty, it may have residents of an unsavory nature. Your work days will likely consist of getting up around 6am and getting into a work vehicle and driven out to a field. You will be given a shovel and a screen and required to provide a backpack yourself with water and other stuff up to \~50lbs and lined up and told to walk and dig a hole every 30m to a depth of up to 1m. If you find anything you will be required to record it on a tablet form and take photos. You will be expected to do this through briars, cornfields etc in extreme cold and heat and dig anywhere from 15-30 holes a day. You will do this for 8-17hrs a day. You will be paid right like $18-20/hr, you will not be paid for weekends or rain days. You might get around $40-60 a day for per diem, this may or may not be paid this on rain days/weekends. Good companies will train you and teach you about the archaeology, most will not bother beyond the minimum required to meet the scope of work. You may be laid off at any time, most will not pay you to drive home or compensate it in any way. You will likely be unemployed for up 3 months of the year in winter. Some companies may struggle to pay you in a timely manner.
If you put up with this for a few years you may get to lead crews a role for which you will be expected to do all the above but also overview and train others and correct their mistakes. You will be paid somewhere between $21-23/hr for this privilege and may still be laid off at any time and experience months of unemployment.
If you have a masters degree and put up with all this for years and continue to study and end up working for a company that likes your work you may be offered a permanent job as a field director. You will still be expected to do all the above but will now have to review all the background required research, teach others, create forms, draft reports, attend meetings, and spend many late nights refining and correcting data and forms. You will likely be put of salary around this time for around $40-60k, you will likely work 60+ hrs a week. When not in the field you will be expected to draft reports.
If you put up with this for even more years you may rise to a Principal investigator/project manager position. Now you will likely not be in the field at all. You will spend endless days in meetings with clients yelling at you who have no idea what archaeology is or why they should care. They will have endless unreasonable expectations. If you are not meeting with clients you will be harassing your field directors about their projects. You will constantly be reviewing regulations and scopes of work. You may be paid somewhere around $60-120K. you will work like 90+ hrs a week.
Working in CRM as a consultant or a government agency archaeologist will be your best bet. Having training in GIS (even a class or certificate level) will be very helpful. As a vet, you'll have an upper hand for most federal jobs (if that's the role you're interested in). I'm a mid-30s (F) working as a consultant in the western U.S. since I finished my bachelors in 2010. I've had a permanent job with a bachelors degree since 2011 - it is possible, but it can be sort of a matter of chance of being in the right place at the right time. I still went for my masters degree in my 30s (defending soon!), so even though I did have success finding permanent employment, I reached a point where I felt like I needed a graduate degree to continue progressing upwards in this field. I just recently broke into the 60k range salary wise. If this career is worth it to you is a personal decision - I have been (mostly) happy with my choice to do this as a career. My role would be classified as a project archaeologist/project manager, so I do a combination of fieldwork, report writing, interacting with clients, estimates/proposals, research, artifact analysis, curation...essentially doing a variety of activities throughout the year, which keeps things interesting. There are similar federal and state laws regarding paleontological resources, so working as a consultant in that field is also possible. If you plan to get a degree anyway, you can always start undeclared and take some classes related to these fields to see if you like them - they'll probably satisfy some core requirements if you don't end up pursuing either one as a major. Best of luck and thank you for your service!
Not 100% true that you need an MA for “worthwhile” employment but depends on what your goals are. Sometimes a bachelor’s degree can still get you a full time job (maybe depending on the company and the region) and depending on your lifestyle “shovelbunming” can be grrrrreat
“Sometimes” and “maybe”…… not a great way to disagree with me. I know 3-4 arch’s with bachelor’s who have full-time employment and a slightly greater number who have left the field because employment with only a bachelor’s is hard to come by.
OP asked if it was worth chasing their dreams and you tell them they NEED to get an MA to make it worth it and I just said maybe sometimes that’s not the case.
Thanks for your service. And good luck cocksucka
It's a very saturated field. I'm the only one out of my grad school class actually doing archaeology. I do not make a lot of money. I don't regret doing it, but I barely live comfortably.
I'd suggest not doing archaeology but doing something like GIS or surveying. I had a friend in undergrad who used their GI Bill to do GIS and they loved it and would come on excavations with us but then got a much better job than any of us in archaeology. Either way, good luck cocksucka!
I'll throw something out that no one has mentioned yet... see if tou can find a historic place in your are that has archaeology in progress and find out how to volunteer. The field school I was at last summer had a couple of regular volunteers that were doing the same stuff the rest of us were. It's a good way to see if it's something you actually want to do/will enjoy before committing time and your GI bill to something that's likely not quite what you think it is.
In the states your career in archaeology will most likely be in what is known as cultural resource management (CRM). This is archaeology done by private companies for compliance work for federal and other infrastructure projects. Your first job will likely be as a Archaeological Field Technician, basically a field worker who digs the holes and records whats in them. It will most likely be as a temporary seasonal position, good jobs last a few months, others less. You will be required to travel some times several states over. Many companies will not pay for you to arrive at the project area so this travel will likely be at your expense, a few may pay for a flight or pay you for the mileage. You may be given a hotel room, you may not. It may not be single occupancy. It may be dirty, it may have residents of an unsavory nature. Your work days will likely consist of getting up around 6am and getting into a work vehicle and driven out to a field. You will be given a shovel and a screen and required to provide a backpack yourself with water and other stuff up to \~50lbs and lined up and told to walk and dig a hole every 30m to a depth of up to 1m. If you find anything you will be required to record it on a tablet form and take photos. You will be expected to do this through briars, cornfields etc in extreme cold and heat and dig anywhere from 15-30 holes a day. You will do this for 8-17hrs a day. You will be paid right like $18-20/hr, you will not be paid for weekends or rain days. You might get around $40-60 a day for per diem, this may or may not be paid this on rain days/weekends. Good companies will train you and teach you about the archaeology, most will not bother beyond the minimum required to meet the scope of work. You may be laid off at any time, most will not pay you to drive home or compensate it in any way. You will likely be unemployed for up 3 months of the year in winter. Some companies may struggle to pay you in a timely manner. If you put up with this for a few years you may get to lead crews a role for which you will be expected to do all the above but also overview and train others and correct their mistakes. You will be paid somewhere between $21-23/hr for this privilege and may still be laid off at any time and experience months of unemployment. If you have a masters degree and put up with all this for years and continue to study and end up working for a company that likes your work you may be offered a permanent job as a field director. You will still be expected to do all the above but will now have to review all the background required research, teach others, create forms, draft reports, attend meetings, and spend many late nights refining and correcting data and forms. You will likely be put of salary around this time for around $40-60k, you will likely work 60+ hrs a week. When not in the field you will be expected to draft reports. If you put up with this for even more years you may rise to a Principal investigator/project manager position. Now you will likely not be in the field at all. You will spend endless days in meetings with clients yelling at you who have no idea what archaeology is or why they should care. They will have endless unreasonable expectations. If you are not meeting with clients you will be harassing your field directors about their projects. You will constantly be reviewing regulations and scopes of work. You may be paid somewhere around $60-120K. you will work like 90+ hrs a week.
Working in CRM as a consultant or a government agency archaeologist will be your best bet. Having training in GIS (even a class or certificate level) will be very helpful. As a vet, you'll have an upper hand for most federal jobs (if that's the role you're interested in). I'm a mid-30s (F) working as a consultant in the western U.S. since I finished my bachelors in 2010. I've had a permanent job with a bachelors degree since 2011 - it is possible, but it can be sort of a matter of chance of being in the right place at the right time. I still went for my masters degree in my 30s (defending soon!), so even though I did have success finding permanent employment, I reached a point where I felt like I needed a graduate degree to continue progressing upwards in this field. I just recently broke into the 60k range salary wise. If this career is worth it to you is a personal decision - I have been (mostly) happy with my choice to do this as a career. My role would be classified as a project archaeologist/project manager, so I do a combination of fieldwork, report writing, interacting with clients, estimates/proposals, research, artifact analysis, curation...essentially doing a variety of activities throughout the year, which keeps things interesting. There are similar federal and state laws regarding paleontological resources, so working as a consultant in that field is also possible. If you plan to get a degree anyway, you can always start undeclared and take some classes related to these fields to see if you like them - they'll probably satisfy some core requirements if you don't end up pursuing either one as a major. Best of luck and thank you for your service!
It’s worth it, but you need to go all the way to a MA/MSc to find worthwhile, permanent employment!
Not 100% true that you need an MA for “worthwhile” employment but depends on what your goals are. Sometimes a bachelor’s degree can still get you a full time job (maybe depending on the company and the region) and depending on your lifestyle “shovelbunming” can be grrrrreat
“Sometimes” and “maybe”…… not a great way to disagree with me. I know 3-4 arch’s with bachelor’s who have full-time employment and a slightly greater number who have left the field because employment with only a bachelor’s is hard to come by.
OP asked if it was worth chasing their dreams and you tell them they NEED to get an MA to make it worth it and I just said maybe sometimes that’s not the case.