The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as

An Archaeologist
Oh hey, kid--what? Archaeologist? Oh right, that Indiana Jones marathon was on this weekend, wasn't it? Okay--first of all, you'll be confused. If you're in the states, they'll spell your job without the middle "a"--so you've got to decide if you'll spell it British and look pretentious in the U.S., or spell it American, and look ignorant in the U.K.--depends which foundations you're sucking up to for grant money--I'd go with pretentious.

So, the whole "saving the world by stealing the ark from the nazis" thing isn't your standard archaeologist's day's work. Neither is having coed's write messages on their eyelashes to you--though I must admit--that was cool...

Anyway--you'll travel to dusty, out of the way places which are either too damn hot, too cold, or just too dangerous--either filled with every tropical disease known to man, overrun with poisonous insects and reptiles, or simply governed by evil, corrupt military juntas who see archaeologists as useful only as bribe providers. If you end up in a fundamentalist Islamic regime, you'll likely be one of the kidnap victims pleading for your life on video.

But if you avoid that, it's just the mind-numbing drudgery of picking through inch after inch of clay, dust or rock--what's that? an arrowhead? No, it's only another damned rock. At night you'll drink whatever cheap hooch you scrounged at the little supply store 50 miles away. You get a real shower about once a month when you head back for supplies and the occasional drinking binge.

You form short-term relationships with idealistic archaeology students on work terms, only to feel empty and alone when they go back to their ivy league colleges. Of course, there's always more sifting through dust to distract you from the heartbreak.

There's no pension in your pay picture--the grant money is not reliable--and you spend as much time writing grant requests as you do searching for your little arrowheads. After a while, you get tired of living off the good will of foundations and research councils, and you take a spot at a university.

Then of course--people disdain you because you don't work "in the field" much anymore...

You retire a sellout--but at least you have a pension...