Studying Archaeology Abroad: Insights

I have been approached by my juniors and aspiring archaeologists many a times for guidance in applying for studying archaeology outside of India. I finally decided to blog about it so now I can direct people to this link and let them read in detail about the various possibilities. If you are reading this now, hi! I will try to make this article as insightful as I can. At the end of this article, I have listed a few universities, both in India and abroad to get you started. If any doubts persist after you have read this, feel free to reach out to me.

There are two ways to go about this:

1. You are looking to study abroad and want to settle outside India in the future.

2. You are looking forward to training abroad and coming back to India and plan to pursue your career in the country

For all the people whose preference is the first option, you all have plenty of options to choose from. If you do not plan on pursuing higher studies, I would recommend you complete your Bachelors in Archaeology from any university of your choice and get a job with the commercial archaeology units. Alternately you can also pursue higher studies depending on your preferences. But once you have studied bachelors in a country, I personally don't think it will be difficult to find a job outside academia. 

On the other hand, if you are planning to pursue your career in India in the long run and wish to study abroad for a while then I would suggest that you first complete an Archaeology masters course here. Thereafter you can easily get into a doctoral program or a specialised masters program outside of the country. My logic behind doing a masters education here is getting oneself acquainted with what Indian archaeology has to offer, both content wise and career wise. Once you get an idea of what kind of work you'd be most interested in taking up then you can decide your specialisation as well. 

As for me personally, I did not have the slightest idea of what I wanted to do after I completed my masters in archaeology from Deccan College. My mentor, Dr Kurush Dalal, discussed with me the possibility of doing another masters outside of the country. On introspection, I realised I did require a wider exposure to the methods employed in geoarchaeology. It was then, heeding to his advise, I decided that I should at least apply for a masters abroad. As it turns out, I only ended up applying at the University of Reading for the MSc in Environmental Archaeology. Getting into the program seemed like a remote possibility and was still a very faint attempt at exploring options available. Fortunately, my interview with the then program head went well and I was offered a place in the year-long course. However, there was still one major glitch in this plan - the funding! The university fees were extremely unaffordable and at no cost I could've pursued this without any financial assistance. I asked the university to postpone their offer by a year i.e. in the intake of the year 2016 instead of 2015. They happily agreed to do so. 

I applied for the Commonwealth Scholarship as my first availability. To my surprise (and shock/amusement) there was no separate category for applying in archaeology! I was disheartened to know that a subject as essential as Archaeology was left out and considered unworthy of scholarly treatment. So I emailed the authorities and asked them for a solution and I was asked to apply under "History". I was shortlisted for the interview but did not make it to the final list. I almost gave up on the plan but shortly after, I was awarded a bursary from the University of Reading for the best application. That motivated me to search for other options. I also shared my concerns with the program head and it was him who introduced me to the Felix Scholarship. 

I would suggest that you first ponder upon the two ways to consider this. Once you've made up your mind about which way to head, then you can easily organise the whole process into clear step by step approach. Make a list of potential universities, make separate columns for their application deadlines, scholarships available to study at the institution, so on and so forth. It is a tiring process but a rather easy one if you've planned it well. And the important thing to remember is not to worry too much about making it through, always have a back up plan. Life doesn't end at a failed application. There will always, always be another opportunity!

As for me, it happened so, I was selected among the five candidates from India for the Felix Scholarship program 2016-17. There was no looking back after that. I successfully completed my masters' and returned to India. The exposure I got from staying abroad for a year has contributed immensely in my personal and professional development. I would recommend everyone reading this to get some experience in studying in a different state from your hometown. It will help you in ways you will only realise much later in life! And with this, I sign off. Do reach out to me on my email or social media to ask any further questions about studying abroad. 

As promised earlier, here are a few university suggestions to get you started on some research - 

Universities in India:

The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Gujarat

https://www.msubaroda.ac.in/

Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, Maharashtra

https://www.dcpune.ac.in/

Banaras Hindu University

https://www.bhu.ac.in/

University of Kerala

https://www.keralauniversity.ac.in/

Mysore University

https://uni-mysore.ac.in/english-version/ancient-history-and-archaeology

Universities outside India:

Durham University, United Kingdom

https://www.dur.ac.uk/

The University of Exeter, United Kingdom

https://www.exeter.ac.uk/

University of Reading, United Kingdom

http://www.reading.ac.uk/

Harvard University, United States

https://www.harvard.edu/

University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, United States

https://umich.edu/

University of Calgary, Canada

http://www.ucalgary.ca/

University of Copenhagen, Denmark

https://www.ku.dk/english/

Uppasala University, Sweden

https://www.uu.se/en

La Trobe University, Australia

https://www.latrobe.edu.au/

Note: None of the above listed universities are arranged in the order of their ranking, it just a general list to give an idea of the wide range of options available to choose from. 

Best wishes

Bhakti G