why can't I just find some work?

[P Prentice]

Ok so you just qualified as a BSc with Honors .... fantastic ... wonderful .... congrats .... now comes the next stage ... what next .... work or masters?

So having spent most of last night and the last few hours debating the issue, I'd like to have a good old rant and get a few things off my chest if I may be so bold.

Let look at the masters firstly:

Your bank account is proberly a little bruised, battered and worse for wear after spending the last few years going through the gates of hell and back numerous times .. if its anything like mine that Lord help you lol. I've spent the last four years living in my overdraft, watching my student loan disappear into books, printing, computer stuff and other student things - and believe it or not there wasn't a lot of booze in that mix as ... shock horror ... I don't drink that much and another shocker while we're on that front ... I hate beer and lager!

Then as you look to a masters you suddenly find that oh .... that sweet, sweet lifeline called a student load kinda doesn't exist in the land of post grads ... oh dear. This could be a problem, but you plow onwards and look at funding options and then find that you might have more luck trying to find the illusive needle in that blasted haystack some farmer refused to move so you could enlarge your trench. Yep I've found over the last few months of searching that funding for post grad archaeology and heritage stuff is like looking for a gold mine in the yorkshire dales ... it doesn't exist ... and if it does someone is keeping that very quiet ... would you kindly step forth good sir or madam and share your wealth with the rest of us.

Now funding issues aside, which course to choose ... this is like asking a kid in a candy store to choose just one treat out of an whole range of goodies and saying you can have one or two year of just that treat and non other.

On a slightly more series note here for just a second ... I really wish more masters course came with the option of doing a year placement to build a portfolio rather than a dissertation. I personally find this more beneficial for building contacts and getting real world knowledge, but most if not all masters course bar just one - thank you Durham Uni there, have that dissertation at the end.

Well I hate to say it but after plodding through the depths of hell to come up with a decent undergrad dissertation does one really want to try that all over again only with more word count??? Especially when an undergrad one seems a lot easier to come up with a subject than the masters one, which in comparison to the undergrad suddenly looks like the devils assault course complete with a hot coal walkway.

So now to move away from the masters issue which from my point at the moment looks like a darn scary place, not to mention how the hell can I choose just one chocolate when so many look so good!!!!

Truthfully and ideally what I'd like to do right now is find some work and let my bank account recover ... but this is even more of a mine field because put simply ... the job market at the moment ... DEAD! What work there is requires more experience than one acquires from an undergrad even with Bradford's lovely placement year in ones belt.

Internships seem hard to come by if there are any at all and even then you have to weigh up the pay with relocation and living costs.

Any field work also seems like a minefield, I'm wanting to get married next year and settle down but with excavations few and scattered wide and far how the heck can someone do that? From the diggers I've spoken to ... thats like Oliver asking for more porridge or something along those lines.

I know I may seem like some bubbling, rambling, silly student who needs to get on with life but I am at this moment totally bewildered and bemused. I suddenly feel like the world is my oyster but haven't a clue what to do next.

Work seems so hard to come by and ever masters I've looked at just doesn't appeal, the dissertation puts me off big time. What I want is some paid work wherein I can develop and grow my skills but what I have at the moment is bewilderment, heart ache and tears.

There you go I have ranted my heart out now and I am sorry if this is old hat or old news but I needed to rant.

i read this twice and my only thoughts are - maybe archaeology isnt for you