27th June 2011, 04:08 PM
Marcus Brody Wrote:At least in the current system, an archaeology degree is not seen as so specialised as to be applicable to only one sector......
This would not necessarily be the case were an archaeology degree to be more tightly vocational.
We are making assumptions here but in that same spirit we could make the assumption that a more specialised degree would have no affect on getting a job somewhere else.
I say this because what does a degree give you now that specialised degree could not? Writing? Reading? Thinking? Current degrees are over-hyped to make it seem that because they are bland you could use it anywhere but really they are giving no more skills then what you got in grade school. GIS works in hundreds of other fields. Report writing works in thousands of other fields.
I would put forth that right now a specialized degree can give all the same transferable skills that current degrees give ... no, actually a ton more. Puth forth a skill that would be taught in a specialized course and for 95% of them I could show you how they are applicable to multiple other areas.
At the same time let me put this forth- how does knowing the history of the neolithic help you in other careers?
So if a specialized course happened only people interested in a career would take part- not a bad think. We also don't know how many people would actually be put off by such a course. Anyways, it would help the 30% of the students who are looking for archaeology as a career and not hurt the other 70%. (I know we keep saying 95% but that is not true its closer 70-80% lots try archaeology but can't survive on the life of a shovelbum. Its a lot higher then 5% who want to be archaeologists. Even if they want to be academics - GIS, writing, creating a budget, knowing the laws where you dig, knowing how to dig, etc. are all skills they can use. A specialized course would not hurt those looking to be an academic.