Expert: John J. Shea - 4/2/2010

Question
Dear Mr.Shea,

I am a junior in high school and I'm considering majoring in archaeology. My first question: is there a difference between archaeologists who study ancient civilizations [Egyptians, Mayans, etc.] and those who study classical civilizations [Romans, etc.]? Also, while I've been looking for the right college, many of the schools I want to go to have information on anthropology, not archaeology. How do I know if the colleges have what I'm looking for specifically? What schools have very good archaeology programs and possible on-site training programs?
Thank you so much for the help.

Sincerely,
Cori

Answer
Dear Cori
Most of the differences in training between Classical Archaes (Greece/Rome) and studies of other civilization (Egypt, Sumer, China) take place in Graduate School.
At the undergrad level, it really doesn't matter too much where you go, provided it is a good school and that you do well.  This last point is crucial, because
students often sabotage their chances for scholarships/fellowships to grad school by racking up a bunch of "Cs" in "gut" courses early on.  
Grad school is only worth going to if you can get someone else to pay for you to go.
Also, be aware that your interests my shift over time.  I started out wanting to do European Iron Age, ended up in African and SW Asian Paleolithic.
In America, archaeology is historically a subfield of anthropology, but at many schools archaeology is spread out over a variety of fields -anthropology, classics, "area studies" (African Studies, Near Eastern Studies, Asian Studies
, Classics, History, Philosophy,American Studies etc.)   For undergrad, just make sure the school has a few practicing (i.e., actively grant-getting and publishing) archaeologists.  
Google them (both regular Google nd Google Scholar) to see what they do.  Google scholar is best because it only searches peer-reviewed academic
journals.  If you find one or more such profs. at a particular school, make an appointment to see them during a campus visit.  If they are less than enthusiastic
about meeting with a prospective undergraduate who has sought them out, then write them off.  This is a litmus test for how they will treat you as a student.
If you are one of those rare students who has known they want to be an archaeologist since as far back as they can remember, you might have a look at
those few schools with Archaeology departments.  Fair warning, though, these schools are very expensive -Brown, Bryn Mawr, Boston Univ., UCLA.
Most of the "Ivies" have strong archaeology programs (Harvard, Penn, Brown, NYU, Columbia, Yale), but don't neglect to look at the big public research universities, such as
UC Berkely, Penn State, U of Arizona, Arizona State, Michigan, Minnesota, SUNY Stony Brook (my institution), SUNY Binghampton.
If you do not yet have a passport, get one before you go to college.

Key courses (no matter where you end up).
Intro courses in Cultural, Physical anthropology and archaeology. Do these freshman year.
An archaeology field school.  Do this between Freshman and Sophomore years, so you find out early on if archaeology is all you thing it it.  For field school info,
go to www.archaeological.org and root around for "fieldwork".
Classes in at least one scholarly foreign language (French, German, etc.) and one non-European "field" language (Arabic, Swahili, etc.) or an ancient language (Greek, Latin).
Intro to Geology -you're going to be digging, right?
A few classes in History, Classics, Art History.
In either sophomore or junior year, see if you can get involved in a research project with a faculty member -an "internship"-you will learn a lot more about
archaeology by participating in research than you will by just sitting in class taking notes.
In Junior year, do a semester abroad in the more exotic a place the better.  As an anthropologist-archaeologist, you need to get used to managing "culture shock".
Lastly, get/stay in good physical shape, because if you want to be a field archaeologist, you are going to want to be able to do work in difficult places.  
That's where all the cool as-yet-undiscovered stuff is.  As Indiana Jones said in that last movie "If you want to be an archaeologist, you have to get out of the library!"
Good luck and best wishes for your success.
If you care to , drop me a note and let me know where you decide to go.
If you decide to visit Stony Brook , make an appointment to meet with me and/or with my colleagues in anthropology.  I don't study Greece/Rome, or
Egypt, but we have good people who do.
Sincerely,
John Shea
Anthropology, Stony Brook University.