5th September 2012, 06:38 PM
Good question, when I first started in the mid 1990s there were people around who did not have degrees most started on the MSC a handful are still around but many MSC people I knew of went on to do archaeology degrees then came back into the profession. There are also a few like me who have first degrees in non archaeological subjects but did archaeology based MAs. I do not know anyone who has come into the profession since 2000 without an archaeology degree.
However do not forget the real change in the number of people who now take a degree, when many of use started out it was only a very small proportion of the population who undertook degree courses. (This gets us into the question of the dumbing down of degrees). When I did my first degree I could not have taken an archaeology degree even if I wanted to as I did not have the required O Levels (no modern language, Latin, or Classics)
However do not forget the real change in the number of people who now take a degree, when many of use started out it was only a very small proportion of the population who undertook degree courses. (This gets us into the question of the dumbing down of degrees). When I did my first degree I could not have taken an archaeology degree even if I wanted to as I did not have the required O Levels (no modern language, Latin, or Classics)