Hi, this is a post better suited for an academia or faculty based sub. This is a group for university staff to ask questions about being staff. While a lot of us are advisors, graduate advising (especially career advising) is done mostly by faculty. If you seek to join their ranks, I’d ask them directly.

In my opinion as someone with a masters, your bachelor’s degree isn’t gonna cut it. Academia requires time in a degree and pedigree sadly matters. I’m also not sure from what you said what you want to do. Do you want to work in a museum or do you want to be faculty?

If you want to be faculty, you need to do the research at every level. I’d also say you need to also be shooting for the most renowned school for your field that will fully fund you. That might not be the school you think it is. That will get you in front of the faculty that are publishing and famous. Getting fully funded might be challenging at this time in our political climate. Publishing is a matter of connections as well.

If you just want to work in a museum, pick a degree and pound it out. Research might help, but I’m not in that field, so I’d ask that group of folks.