I’m Henry Chapman, I’m a Reader in Archaeology
and Digital Humanities and my areas of expertise
are around digital applications in Archaeology
– practical Archaeology – but also later
prehistory and a lot on wetlands.
The Masters in Archaeology is aimed at…
Well it’s not really aimed at any particular
group because we always have a very diverse
group of students, from various stages in
their career. Some of them are professional
archaeologists, doing it to improve their
career prospects or to change direction, sometimes
they’re people straight out of their degrees
– right across the range of the career profile.
So there’s no typical student, but what
that means is that in any class – we tend
to teach in small groups – in any class,
you’ve got people with different ranges
of life experience, archaeological experience,
people who have grown up in different parts
of the world. This all enriches the fun of
the course; you always have examples coming
from quite unexpected places, but you can
start comparing and contrasting what the core
of the modules are teaching alongside people’s
own experiences.
If you’re going to do a Masters in Birmingham
in Archaeology you’ve got two options – we
call them pathways. One of them is a cultural
pathway and one is a landscape pathway and
the difference between the two is really the
core elements you’re going to choose. Whatever
Masters you do you’re going to do a core
area around research skills and archaeological
theory, methods, interpretation. Beyond that,
if you’re going to do the Cultural pathway,
you’ll be focusing on things like material
culture and funerary archaeology. If you do
the Landscape Archaeology pathway, you’ll
be doing landscape archaeology, but you’ll
also be doing GIS – Geographical Information
Systems, computer modelling of landscapes.
Outside of those – effectively the other
half of your Masters – you can choose whatever
you like. So actually, some people who choose
one of the pathways actually take the core
modules as options for the other part. For
any Masters the idea is just to focus – what
are you going to be expert in?
With the course, there’s a wide range of
topics which span cultural archaeology – what
happened in certain places at certain periods
– all the way through to very practical
classes, whether that’s in laboratories
doing computer work (GIS) or doing fieldwork
survey, geophysics. There’s a real range
of different sorts of topics and you can construct
your Masters degree around what you want to
do. You can pick and choose whether you want
to be more practical, or have a mixture of
the two, or more cultural – and partially,
that will affect the pathway which you choose.
The actual range of things – in some cases
you’ll be doing actual fieldwork, within
say the field survey module, you’ll actually
be out in the field for a week working with
the group of students to achieve a particular
aim. These things are always linked to real,
active research projects as well so it’s
real archaeology.
Outside of that as well there’s always other
opportunities, so there’s the opportunities
within what the strict course provides but
of course you’re joining a larger community
of archaeologists within the University and
that means that there are things like field
projects, excavations going on in the summer.
And although it’s not part of the course
strictly, every single year postgraduate students
always end up on excavation, always end up
joining in, helping out and it’s just being
part of that community.
There is no typical graduate from the Masters
in Archaeology here in Birmingham, partially
because of the actual range of different people
who take the course as well. Some people will
go into the sector, they’ll then become
professional archaeologists or they’ll work
in heritage, or work in museums. Many go on
to do postgraduate study – further postgraduate
study – they’ll go on to do PhDs and work
in the academy later on. So actually, there
is no typical graduate; people choose to do
the Masters for various different reasons
and the same variety is experienced in terms
of what they do with it afterwards.
The course is delivered through a variety
of seminars, small group teaching, some small
lectures, lots of discussion driven by reading,
but also practical exercises or practical
modules; things like the GIS is very practical,
learning skills and working through examples
and case studies every week. Field archaeology
is taught through a bit of that, but also
half of it is taught in the field during field
school. So there’s a real variety in the
way in the way that you will end up encountering
archaeology depending on the modules you choose.
Now of course some students will choose things
which are very cultural and they’ll be much
more in seminar focus; other students might
choose something which is much more practical.
Depending what you choose depends on how those
things will be delivered, and to a certain
extent actually how they are assessed as well
– whether you’re writing conventional
essays, or whether you’re writing reports
or giving presentations. The choice is really
up to the student.
If you’re thinking about doing a Masters,
it’s a big decision. This is the sort of
thing which can transform your career, transform
your life. I think best advice I could give
is - choose a Masters which is going to provide
you with transferable skills, provide you
with choice and one which isn’t going to
close doors for you. You want to have a Masters
which is going to open up as many career opportunities
as you can. So, choosing a programme like
we offer in Birmingham which allows you mix
between cultural archaeology and practical
skills which is firstly going to allow you
to know better, to be better informed about
what you do later, but also provide you with
the skills to do that.
There are two things about teaching this course
which I really like. One of those is the diversity
of the students – whether it’s their life
experience or where they’re from in the
world, there’s always something to learn,
there’s always something exciting and a
parallel you can make between what you’re
teaching and what they know. The other thing
I really like is the choice of dissertation
topics, the variety of topics people want
to study. Again, because it’s an international
course, these can range vastly but there’s
always a grounding within the approaches and
the methods that we use. We certainly don’t
restrict the topics; on the contrary, we encourage
that diversity of ideas.
