If you're drawn to this career community, you probably love to learn—about people, places, art forms, and the societies that link them together. Professors, teachers, scholars, researchers; discover one of the many paths for Willamette's curious minds and critical thinkers. The skills required to succeed in these roles enable you to move from one industry to another. So in or out of the classroom, you can share and communicate your scholarship to the wider world.
The following are commonly chosen majors, though any Willamette major can prepare you for a career in this community.
Museums (art or cultural), Archives, Academia/Higher Education, Research Organizations, Non-profit Organizations, K-12 Schools, Peace Corps, International Fellowships
Select a marker on the map to learn about specific internships Willamette students have pursued.
Career Development can support students seeking academic credit for internships. In order to earn internship credit, students must be enrolled in our Internship for Academic credit course.
Individualized career advising helps WU students achieve goals throughout their college careers.
Majors: Archaeology and Environmental Science
Current Role: PhD Candidate in Archaeology, Geoarchaeology & Palaeogeography: Utrecht University (Netherlands)
What Elena Plans to do: Teach at the university level
What Elena Studies: Elena combines archaeology and earth science. Her PhD project is related to the transition from hunting and gathering to crop cultivation in Europe. In the Netherlands where Elena works, 8000-year-old soil lies below meters of sediment deposited by rivers but thanks to extensive data from cores, the country’s palaeogeography has been mapped and we can pinpoint certain landscape features of the right age and conditions suitable for farming. Elena works with an interdisciplinary team from cultural heritage, archaeology, geology, geography, and climate science to better understand how people managed cultivation in wetland environments while also assisting with thesis supervision and classes related to landscape reconstruction and fieldwork.
“Ask and connect. Ask for help, ask questions, ask about opportunities, ask people you know, ask people you don’t know, and if you have nothing to ask, then express interest. Making connections is key. And it’s ok if plans change! Navigating a career isn’t a linear progression and you might discover something is or isn’t for you only after you’ve tried it.”