Introduction

What do you do with a BA in English?What is my life going to be?Four years of college and plenty of knowledgeHave earned me this useless degree.

The plaintive lament that opens the Tony award-winning Broadway musical Avenue Q could just as easily describe what many people think of the job prospects for those of us with advanced degrees in classical, Near Eastern, or Levantine archaeology and its related fields. Whether housed in art history, anthropology, Near Eastern, biblical studies or classics departments, most students of Mediterranean archaeology realize early on that career opportunities, particularly the traditional academic positions that they, for the most part, have been trained for, are limited. In spite of the odds, many persist in pursuing their dream and passion for archaeology.

The writing has been on the wall for several decades regarding the glut of traditionally trained PhDs on the market—a trend that continues to grow in the twenty-first century. Unfortunately university graduate programs have not adapted to these realities over the past decades and have largely failed to adjust according to society’s needs in the twenty-first century. As Mark Taylor (2011) aptly observes: “Most doctoral programmes conform to a model defined in the Middle Ages.” Too many institutions of higher education remain entrenched in the outdated notion that the main mission of a doctoral degree is to train future academics. This is best expressed by the criteria used to rank graduate programs, which are based on academic job placements, preferably tenure-track positions at top-ranked research universities. Graduate students have been among the first to recognize higher education’s short-comings. They are responding to the challenge by organizing sessions¹ and even entire conferences² dedicated to alternative careers (“alt-ca” or “alt-ac”), highlighting the benefits of a graduate degree and the myriad of career opportunities that utilize PhD skillsets. An important first step in responding to this changing landscape and student concerns would be validating non-academic careers and recognizing their significant contribution to society.³

This broader view of higher education and the need to expand its mission is not simply because there is a paucity of tenured faculty positions that coincides with a generally more restrictive economy. Many of the careers being pursued by archaeologists today stem from an attempt to move beyond traditional site-based archaeological research and specialization in a particular period or region to a more engaged approach that responds to society’s needs. The essays below reflect this trend and address the challenges of the twenty-first century. Contrary to some responses to this crisis, the answer is not to further restrict entrance into graduate programs. Rather, advanced degree programs should be broadened to encompass the greater range of employment opportunities that await future graduates.

As explored in the following essays, the research and writing skills obtained in pursuing archaeology degrees are excellent preparation for a variety of careers, including heritage development and protection, curatorship, education and community outreach, public service, international development, digital humanities, and archaeological entrepreneurial endeavors, among many others. More than ever, a well-grounded background and training in the histories, cultures, and languages of the “Old World” should be considered an asset in the twenty-first century and essential for the preservation of our shared human past while addressing concerns of the present and future.

This Forum, devoted to alternative careers for archaeologists—and many in archaeology—illustrates the variety of occupations for which the training of an advanced degree in archaeology can prepare one. In many respects, career prospects for archaeologists are more diverse—and possibly more rewarding—than ever before as the essays in this Forum will amply illustrate. Their experiences offer a veritable smorgasbord of possibilities, directly or indirectly related to archaeology, and often addressing larger twenty-first-century social, as well as scholarly, goals.

Sabrina Higgins and Megan Daniels’s insightful discussion directly addresses alternative careers (“alt-ac” and “post-ac”) from the perspective of young scholars. Their overview of the key issues, their personal stories, their exploration of the state of the current job market, and...