Good points Gnomey and admirable politics too! I agree-the educational and academic merit of an archaeology degree is not in question here. I would like to see a comprehensive approach to education that balances the dictat of academic endeavour with the realistic needs of the industry it targets. We seem to have a bit of a paradox here....field archaeologists by and large are expected to hold appropriate degrees and yet, are seen as `labour` and remunerated and valued as such. In an inflammatory way, one could argue that the old concept where land-owning gentry direct large workforces consisting of uneducated estate labourers really hasn`t gone away. The industry can`t have it both ways-either they want an educated and arguably `professionalised` workforce or they don`t.
I consider myself lucky too-it was hard enough when I started out but new graduates face even more competition for jobs and are being forced to pay even more for that insecurity than we did!
Just to quantify `value/worth` here... the average weekly wage (40 hours) of a labourer these days settles at ?260 which relates to ?6.50 an hour. An archaeologist working as a site assistant can expect ?296.09 a week. That equates to a degree being valued at ninety pence an hour more than a labourer.Before tax.
I`m not getting into a rant about poor pay here, I`m trying not to stray from the original question-is an archaeology degree worth it? Well, one could argue that a degree certainly helps if ambitions for advancement in the industry are held. For example, it`s not unusual for highly competent and professional archaeologists without degrees to be rejected in their applications for supervisory positions. Despite decades of experience and all the well-honed skills accumulated along the way, so in this sense-however unjustifiable and counter-intuitive, a degree does have some value. It is amazing that despite all this, the numbers of young people studying archaeology have continued unabated and I think that it is this-the motivation of newbies and the passion for the subject-that allows for the undervaluing of the workforce on the whole.
I consider myself lucky too-it was hard enough when I started out but new graduates face even more competition for jobs and are being forced to pay even more for that insecurity than we did!
Just to quantify `value/worth` here... the average weekly wage (40 hours) of a labourer these days settles at ?260 which relates to ?6.50 an hour. An archaeologist working as a site assistant can expect ?296.09 a week. That equates to a degree being valued at ninety pence an hour more than a labourer.Before tax.
I`m not getting into a rant about poor pay here, I`m trying not to stray from the original question-is an archaeology degree worth it? Well, one could argue that a degree certainly helps if ambitions for advancement in the industry are held. For example, it`s not unusual for highly competent and professional archaeologists without degrees to be rejected in their applications for supervisory positions. Despite decades of experience and all the well-honed skills accumulated along the way, so in this sense-however unjustifiable and counter-intuitive, a degree does have some value. It is amazing that despite all this, the numbers of young people studying archaeology have continued unabated and I think that it is this-the motivation of newbies and the passion for the subject-that allows for the undervaluing of the workforce on the whole.