help advice please!

[holly]

I know this isnt really related but I think you are the best people to give me advice. I am hoping to apply for university next year to a joint degree between geography and archaeology. I am incredibly indesisive and have only decided this recently but am fairly sure now this is what I want to do. Consequently I have looked on the website and discovered I have missed all the chances to be a trainee volunteer on a dig. I am worried that without this experience I don't have a good idea of whether a joint archaeology degree will be right for me and that my application will be very weak without this experience. Does anyone have any ideas about anything I should do to help my application and give me a better idea of archaeology?
Thankyou

[ellie163]

I don't think you NEED experience on a dig to get on a degree course. Anything that shows you have an interest can help. Maybe get hold of a text book and have a look through. Also, even if you start on one course it doesn't mean you can't change once you're at university. I can't say how it works at all universities but you can often switch from joint to single honours.
I'm sure other people can be more helpful about how to get a feel for archaeology.

[fee]

You don't say whether you wish to study in Scotland or England. In Scotland you can change the course you are registered for (i.e. joint to singe honours or geography/archaeology to history/archaeology) once you are at university; great if you decide you don't like your degree subject. As far as I know you can do something similar in England so that shouldn't be much of a problem. You can always ask at open days or send an email.

As for experience; I changed to an archaeology degree with no digging experience and a show of hands in my first class showed that about half the people had experience while half didn't. I wouldn't worry about not having the digging stuff; if you have a look through some books like Renfrew and Bahn's "Theories, Methods and Practice" (a standard first year text) you can get a feel for what archaeology is like. You can also get some digging experience next summer (admittedly after you have applied for uni) and see whether you like it. If not, and you've applied for joint honours, then you can always lose archaeology - but remember that archaoeology is not all digging; if you find that digging is not for you, but archaeology is, there's the option of specialising in an area of post-excavation; finds work, osteology, graphics e.g.. There are losts of options.

Apologies if I've rambled on a bit. I hope that helps.

Take care,
Fee

[keiths]

It would probably help your university application to be able to say that you have done some archaeology prior to going to university. It does not necessarily mean digging although that would be helpful, see if there is a local archaeology group in your area, or maybe an evening class. You maybe able to take the AS level archaeology exam locally, or even via an internet course (assuming that you can fit that in with your A2 exams). Even if you can't go digging until summer it may be helpful to say on your application that you intend to do some digging over summer, the main thing is that you show interest, and enthusiasm for the subject.

[Toby]

Holly,

I hope that some of this info has helped.

With archaeology it is a bit different as a career than most. I am very lucky to be in the position that I am at the moment ..... and I don't mean slouched on a sofa listening to music doing e-mails etc... You will find that not many archaeology students go on to become archaeologists, and those that do will often only do it for a short while.

Just this last summer we had a lot of people who came along just before they went to university, so it would not be unusual to get your experience a little bit later.

At university I had a lot of fun, did a lot of new things, visited some good places and generally had a good time. I was lucky in that during the same period of time I also happened to learn a lot about archaeology. Because I took a year out, did a four year long degree and then a masters afterwards I ended up finishing when I was getting towards 25 - There was a report a few years back that suggested if I was not a supervisor by that age I should look for another career!!!

The best advice is to do what you enjoy...

[holly]

thanks!
you've reassured me a bit and given me some ideas
Im hopefully going to look for an evening archaeology class in my area

[msimpson1964]

Im hopefully going to look for an evening archaeology class in my area.

May I ask where your area is Holly? If you're reasonably close to Selby I can recommend a fun and friendly evening class, Thursday nights

Cheers
Mark

[holly]

Unfortunately Im in york and I dont think Id be able to get there thanks for the advice though

[keiths]

Hi Holly,

I go to that class in Selby and could probably give you a lift from York, however it is an A2 class and you need to have the Archaeology AS exam already. Unfortunately most evening classes in York have started already, but I know that there are some starting after Christmas such as York:Romans to Normans run by the centre for Lifelong Learning at the university. There are a number of community Archaeology groups around York who you could contact, check out the community archaeology pages on the general YAT website. I am (admittedly not very efficiently at the moment) trying to set up a group in New Earswick and you are welcome to help with that if you wish, or you may want to join one of the more established groups.