4th November 2010, 09:38 PM
My experience of university training digs (and talking to colleagues who've had much more recent experience of them) is that the students end up with experience of (a) how things were done in more genteel times (like research excavations in the 1960s and 70s), and, in contrast, detailed knowledge of e.g. state of the art survey and geophysics equipment the likes of which they will never, ever, lay hands on again...ie they don't seem to have any useful and relevent skills like trying to micro-excavate a villa with a 45 tonne machine in 2 days cos the curator has f****d-up again - oh, and knowing how to use a tape-measure in an intelligent manner (ok, I was at the same meeting as Jack). If Universities want their graduates to have a job after they get their certificate framed and up on the wall maybe they should try teaching them something useful, the ball's in their court....