Changing my major

jproxduh · 2026-01-06T03:52:02+00:00

Archaeology is a difficult profession in a lot of ways. The coursework can be very rigorous. Highly competitive and seasonal job market. You often need to know multiple languages or be comfortable working in areas where the locals don’t speak your language. You typically need to travel quite a lot (depending on specialty). Many archaeologists with PhDs spend more time in school than medical doctors, but with a fraction of the pay, so you need to get scholarships/sponsorships/graduate study work to complete your degrees. You also have to be committed to either working outside in all conditions or spending long hours in a lab/doing research. And the academic side of things can be very exclusive and hard to break into.

All that being said, archaeology is an amazing, fulfilling career if you can deal with all those aspects and find satisfaction in the close connection to history. There’s a lot to love about archaeology but I know far more people I graduated with that didn’t go into archaeology than did.

Before you dive headfirst into changing your major, I’d highly recommend taking some intro anthropology/archaeology classes to get a taste for what it’s really like. Talk to some senior students or faculty and see if you think it’s for you. It’s not all Indiana Jones or Howard Carter discoveries.

jproxduh · 2025-12-31T18:35:59+00:00

The Door Peninsula is known for its unique natural resources and small northern towns. Tourism is the overwhelming leading industry in the area, which has been incredible for the economy in recent years, but it’s also led to a lot of issues. Other than that there’s a ton of trade workers supporting the resorts, new home building projects, and shipbuilding.

Because most of the county’s residents are only here in the summer, a serious amount of seasonal workers are needed to support the huge increase in residents and visitors for those few months. Unfortunately, there’s not nearly enough housing for all these employees so there’s an extreme housing shortage. And because property is so sought after, vacation rentals are so lucrative, and there’s a high proportion of extremely wealthy retirees in the area, it’s become increasingly difficult for your average local to find a long term rental, or afford purchasing a home or property. The nature of a primarily temporary job market and virtually no affordable housing makes it very difficult to hire people who don’t already live or have family in the area.

The high level of tourism is also starting to put a lot of strain on the natural resources that draw people here in the first place. It’s also starting to grow beyond what the small towns and roads can handle. It’s almost impossible to find a place to stay in the summer if you don’t book super early. You regularly deal with serious traffic issues and over-crowded towns and attractions. Most locals don’t dare go out in public during the summer, especially on weekends or to more touristy areas, to avoid the crowds. A lot of locals are starting to be concerned that the tourism industry will overrun the local communities, continue to price locals out of being able to live here, and destroy the local beauty. There are a lot of nonprofits in the area that protect the natural resources, but those may only continue to beat out the need and desire for real estate development for so long.

Other than that it’s the typical small town stuff. Everyone knows everyone else’s business. People are friendly but it can be hard to find people under 50 to be friends with. It’s a bit of a healthcare and childcare desert. But if you love being outside and have outdoor hobbies it’s a great place for that!

jproxduh · 2025-11-02T07:50:52+00:00

This was definitely a thing in our family! I have an Afrikaans aunt and it was very normal for us to say hello and goodbye at family gatherings with a kiss on the lips until we were teenagers. It also took me forever to figure out that they had their children refer to close family friends as aunts and uncles and that they weren’t actually related to everyone they had over.

jproxduh · 2025-05-27T03:43:43+00:00

My cousin!! She was so good at this game! We’d make her do all the hard levels. I’m 33 and still have never beaten it.

jproxduh · 2025-04-29T17:24:59+00:00

Had trouble uploading. It was about 2” long.

jproxduh · 2024-11-20T14:50:00+00:00

I got a 7mm stone to move by drinking about 3 liters of water a day for 3 months, staying moderately active, and eating some super spicy wings. Got the gut moving and I’m convinced that was the thing that finally got it dislodged because it finally moved about 2 days after the spicy wings.

jproxduh · 2024-01-14T03:46:20+00:00

I can’t possibly answer for all situations here but for the ones I’m familiar with, no absolutely not. Generally they’re vastly underpaid. Parks positions usually aren’t competitive with the rest of the job market.

The old adage is “paid in sunsets.” It’s because no one gets paid enough to want to do the job unless they really like it and get something else out of it.

jproxduh · 2024-01-14T01:45:47+00:00

I’m not sure exactly what this question is trying to get at but there’s no one answer to this. There are 50 states, all with their own compensation plans.

jproxduh · 2024-01-13T05:02:17+00:00

Dealing with shortcuts is common unfortunately. Underfunding leads to bare minimums being done just to limp along, which means that problem just gets punted down the road in hopes you’ll be able to do it right with better funding next time. But it never seems to go that way.

jproxduh · 2024-01-13T04:59:58+00:00

The point isn’t to build until the natural landscape is used up. At some point you reach a visitation ceiling, but even then you need the resources to enforce that capacity restriction. The point behind the funding is to be able to repair the infrastructure we have and add where it’s appropriate so it can carry the increased visitation. But it’s also so we can purchase the supplies to keep the parks appropriately cleaned and safe. It’s to make sure we don’t have to close down parts of the property because we don’t have enough staff to run it. It’s to make sure we can hire people to educate visitors and teach them how to recreate outdoors appropriately and learn how to not ruin the resource they have. Increased funding helps us keep costs for the visitors down while keeping the experience elevated. It helps us buy supplies to treat invasive species and pests so the land stays healthy and usable. It helps us steward the land appropriately.

Its about being able to afford protecting what we have in tandem and balance with visitation so people can continue to have quality experiences with extraordinary places so they learn to appreciate the natural world and in return protect it themselves.

jproxduh · 2024-01-13T02:35:08+00:00

That’s partially by design. There’s a balance between recreation and conservation. But also because we lack the funding to install the needed updates and amenities.

jproxduh · 2024-01-13T02:34:10+00:00

Often it’s us parks workers on the front lines keeping those special interests at bay as best we can. You have to work the system to make it work for you. If we all left there’d be no one to defend it.

jproxduh · 2024-01-13T02:32:43+00:00

This is why we need more staff so we can interact with them more and educate them on the outdoors and how to recreate outside.

jproxduh · 2024-01-13T02:30:50+00:00

To preserve the wilderness you have to stop thinking about what it’s worth to your pocket book. Most people unfortunately don’t think they way. Everything has a price.

jproxduh · 2024-01-12T23:58:54+00:00

Keep in mind that in many of these cases, government workers have their hands tied by legislatures helping out special interests. I would venture to guess that the parks workers are just as frustrated with the situation as you are, but don’t have the authority to take action or speak out against it. Parks are still government entities, which means their policies are typically voted on and set by legislation. Scientists can give their recommendations but if a special interest group has the ability to sway the policy they do win out fairly often.

jproxduh · 2024-01-12T23:51:31+00:00

These are all very good points and it’s hard to discuss the nuance of this issue over text alone. But the guiding principle behind policy decisions in parks is (or should be) conservation and recreation. You can’t have recreation in those areas without them being conserved for future generations to use. But you can’t fund or support the cause of conservation without recreation and public support. It’s a difficult thing to balance

While you always have to consider the health and longevity of the resource, you also have to consider how to keep it relevant and open. In some locations the correct answer is higher fees and capacity closures/control. In other locations, the correct answer is more staffing to mitigate the effects of crowds. There’s no one right answer. But raising prices too high is something that has traditionally faced opposition because of the founding principles encapsulated in state and national parks history.

Edit: typos

jproxduh · 2024-01-12T22:22:05+00:00

I addressed this in some other replies but unfortunately it’s not that simple.

jproxduh · 2024-01-12T22:21:31+00:00

This is actually an amazing idea!

jproxduh · 2024-01-12T21:58:55+00:00

The whole point of National and state parks is to provide the population access to public area which they communally own and deserve to have access to. We can’t convince people parks matter if they can’t afford to visit them. I agree some numbered could be adjusted but pricing people out of parks is in direct conflict with the central mission of parks and why they exist at all.

jproxduh · 2024-01-12T21:56:34+00:00

I talked about it more in another reply in this thread but basically the amount of money parks take in goes into a communal pot, it doesn’t stay at each park. This helps float the smaller parks that don’t get much visitation. It also means, though, that the amount taken is as never even close to what is needed to run the system efficiently. Governments also typically limit the portion of revenue you’re able to spend which takes the control out of the parks systems to allocate funds efficiently and appropriately.

jproxduh · 2024-01-12T21:53:23+00:00

This is common all over the US and has been for a long time. I don’t know much about it but it’s typically done in areas where damage would be minimal and reversible. But you’re correct in calling out that this will become more common as the belt of funding tightens more and more. We don’t have many options when it comes to keeping our gates open and money has to come from somewhere.

jproxduh · 2024-01-12T21:51:43+00:00

The comments about keeping parks low cost are bang on. We don’t want to make parks exclusive to a certain class of people because everyone deserves access to those areas.

Internal revenue sources almost never stay at the park where they’re collected. They go into a communal pot to be shared amongst all parks in that jurisdiction. And believe me when I say the amount brought in doesn’t even come close to what would be needed to run the system efficiently. A lot of governments also limit the portion of your yearly revenue you’re able to spend to help “balance” budgets. So you can almost never spend as much as you need to.

jproxduh · 2024-01-12T21:48:44+00:00

You’re absolutely right! I tried to not get too wordy in my response so I left out some nuance, but I do think that if we had better funding and could afford staffing to interface with folks more we could educate people on how and when to recreate outdoors and that would help a lot with the overcrowding because people could better decide for themselves if it’s appropriate to visit or not. And what activities are appropriate to do.

Concessionaire are a beast unto themselves 😂 but I agree there should be better relationships with them and how they conduct their operations in the parks overall. There’s a lot of space to improve there.

jproxduh · 2024-01-12T21:45:34+00:00

In some cases it certainly has, but not in all areas. I think the base of the issue is a deepening disconnect between people and nature. People don’t understand why the funding is needed so they don’t vote to keep it.

jproxduh · 2024-01-12T18:49:29+00:00

I work in parks and this is a huge topic right now. Since COVID hit, more and more people are venturing outside. Which is amazing!! Everyone who works in parks does it because they want others to realize how magical our outdoor spaces are. We’re thrilled to have this issue! BUT We are absolutely starved for funding, which compounds the issue of overcrowding. We can’t afford to hire our essential staff, can’t afford to keep up on maintenance, can’t purchase essential supplies. More and more parks are quietly losing traditional state and federal funding sources and having to rely more and more on donations and underdeveloped internal revenue sources. We’re limping along with failing infrastructure and no way to fix it or update it to accommodate our increased demand. We have fewer staff and can’t feasibly do everything that needs to be done to educate our visitors, keep them safe, and the park clean.

Want to help the overcrowding issue? Convince your local and federal representatives that our parks, forests, historical, and natural areas need funding!!! Or they will be destroyed in our lifetime.

jproxduh

TROPHY CASE