26th June 2011, 12:26 PM
Marcus Brody Wrote:But it's not their job to prepare students for a life in commercial archaeology.Hmm, yes and no. You make some good points about the nature of an archaeology degree and how it would change if it were more vocational. My personal opinion is that there is a balance to be struck there. The universities are doing their students a disservice by not including more vocational training, but that does not mean that they should solely focus on it. I shall be interested to see how the attitude of the students changes when the fees go up. It is bad enough at the moment with many students believing that they are buying a degree rather than thinking that they should be earning it. I dread to think how much worse it is likely to get when the fees go up. I suspect that there will be many more complaints about how the degrees are not preparing them for earning lots of money in the 'real' world and that they will expect more exam-focused tutoring rather than learning the broader skills set that is meant to be part of a university education.
'Reality,' sa molesworth 2, 'is so unspeakably sordid it make me shudder.'