If You Love Indiana Jones...

Is Indiana Jones one of your favorite movies? Are you the kind of student who's in love with the past but want to get your hands dirty? Are you thrilled by the idea of discovering some ancient, unknown artifact?

If so, archeology might just be the major (and maybe even the career) for you. Today, we're going to be looking at what an archeology major entails, what it could lead to for your future, and what schools to check out during your college search.

What is Archeology?

We're sorry to burst that bubble we might have just created, but sadly, archeology isn't quite like Indiana Jones. We've asked plenty of archeologists about their day jobs, and none of them mentioned sword-fights, buried treasure, or carrying a whip on their belt. Bummer.

Those movies got a few things right, though, and we can look at what archeologists really do to give you a sense of this course of study. Archeology is "the scientific study of material remains (such as tools, pottery, jewelry, stone walls, and monuments) of past human life and activities." In Indiana Jones, these objects of study would be the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, and the Crystal Skull. In reality, it's rare to find such extraordinary objects (though that does happen!), and the greater part of an archeologist's work is spent collecting and studying smaller, less individually significant artifacts to build up a more holistic understanding of our past. In practice, this could mean shards of pottery, small crafts, scraps of writing, or tattered clothing, all of which contribute to our ability to know and visualize an ancient culture. 

Like Indiana Jones, researching archeologists often have some kind of academic job, whether that's in a university like Indy himself or at a museum, where their expertise can be brought more widely to the public. Field archeologists tend not to spend their entire lives on expeditions, instead working largely as a researcher with the raw material acquired on infrequent digs. Moreover, unlike Jones, archeology professors who want to do research will more than likely spend countless hours applying for grants and permits. Wonder why that isn't in the movie…

Is this as exciting as digging up long lost religious artifacts with the capacity for eternal life? Well, probably not, but for students of a certain mindset, it could be a fascinating and rewarding field. Bureaucratic red-tape excluded…

What Can I Do with an Archeology Degree?

While a degree in archeology might not blow the doors wide open on a million career paths, it does provide you with more options than just teaching and researching. For example the Society for American Archeology notes that the majority of modern archeologists actually work in a field called Cultural Resource Management, or CRM. 

Instead of just researching or teaching young students, archeologists working in CRM actually apply their knowledge to real world problems of historic preservation. Whether it's through entry-level jobs like lab assistant or a much more public-facing job like outreach or museum work, archeologists in this field use their knowledge of history and-importantly-ethics to ensure that our past is preserved and studyable for future generations.

How Can I Become an Archeologist?

There's no set path to become an archeologist, especially because that could mean several different things. Typically, however, archeologists have at least a Bachelor's degree in either anthropology or archeology and acquire some experience in laboratory techniques. On top of this undergraduate education, the Register of Professional Archeologists (or RPA) has some additional professional qualifications: postgraduate study (either a Master's or Doctoral degree) in anthropology, plus some work experience in the field and the lab.

From there, it depends on what you want to do with your career! If you just love researching and teaching, then you should go for the full doctoral degree and try to become a college professor. If you're more interested in museum work, apply to local museums to get started and perhaps study museum sciences while you're in school. If some kind of CRM work is more up your alley, then you should apply to any number of CRM firms and see what role speaks to you the most, whether it's totally behind-the-scenes research or big public outreach campaigns.

We hope we've given you a solid sense of what's possible as an archeologist, and we're sorry to disappoint everyone who thought they would be fleeing from ancient booby traps or meeting immortal knights from medieval Europe, but we're not sorry to everyone who can still imagine themselves in this fascinating, rich, and important field of study.

For all of those people, we want to give a taste of where to study archeology and make those dreams come true. So without further ado, here are some of our favorite places to get your degree in archeology.

The List

Stanford University, Stanford, CA

Stanford University is a world-renowned school on the west coast, so it's not surprising that it would have a great archeology program, which is consistently ranked as one of the best. They ground their program in, in their own words, "[redressing] the colonial foundations of archeology through an enduring commitment to ethics and to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion," and the diverse array of scholarship produced by their faculty shows off these values.

Like many programs we'll see on this list, Stanford has both undergraduate courses as well as a graduate program of study, so whether you're heading to college now and just want to dip your toes into it or you're headed full throttle into professional archeology, they've got you covered.

Yale University, New Haven, CT

Another globally renowned college, Yale takes a lot of pride in its stellar archeology department. Well, archeology "department" might be a touch inaccurate. At Yale, they think of archeology not necessarily as a singular field but as a nexus of several different disciplines. In practice, this means that the program is built of contributions from different departments, spanning everything from religious studies to geology and geophysics. Included in all of this is a commitment to field and museum work, represented by contributions from the Yale University Art Gallery and Peabody Museum of Natural History as well as globetrotting excursions to just about everywhere in the world.

This doesn't mean archeology isn't a major or a degree at Yale. On the contrary, students can select Archeological Studies as their major and follow a rigorous but flexible curriculum. On top of this, they also have plenty of excellent graduate programs, allowing you to continue your archeological education well into a professional career.

Texas A&M University, College Station, TX

We've written about this before, but Texas A&M's nautical archeology program is simply too cool to ignore here. What is nautical archeology, you ask? Same as normal archeology, except instead of digging in the dirt for old tools, you're diving for shipwrecks, making this the perfect option for the Jacques Cousteau-obsessive as well as the Indiana Jones-head.

The only real downside is that nautical archeology at Texas A&M is a graduate program, so it's not exactly for incoming students. That said, all of the professors specializing in this field still work there and undoubtedly influence the course selection in their more accessible and traditional archeology department. If you're into archeology but want to take a more unconventional path, check out Texas A&M.

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

For a public option on this list, we've included the always spectacular University of Michigan, who shines for their interdisciplinary archeological studies program. Much like Yale, the archeology program at the University of Michigan is made up of contributions from a variety of different departments which allows for considerable flexibility and diversity in the course of study. They mix anthropology, Middle East studies, museum studies, classical studies, and Asian Languages and Cultures among a few others, all to equip their students with as many options in the field as possible.

As a consequence of this mixing of disciplines, the list of faculty involved in the program is long and impressive. Members of all the different departments plus experts working in legit museums and the university's "papyrology collection" (go ahead and google that one) all collaborate to create this exceptional program.

How CollegeRover.Com Can Help

Whether you want to become a full-fledged field archeologist or just want to dip your toes into a few classes, CollegeRover.com can help make the whole process a lot simpler. We can simplify the search by letting you compare your top choices on all the metrics that matter most to you, plus a boatload of other fun stuff. Sign up today to make this challenging process way easier.