<p>I've been advising you to start carefully from the beginning, so I'm hesitant to ignore my own advice. However I do want to pass on some info about grad school you (and many others) may not know.</p>
<p>To be considered a professional archeologist (or a professional economist, historian, etc) takes a PhD in the field. You may be concerned with how you could possibly pay for all those extra years of schooling.</p>
<p>What most people don't know is that grad school is free!! Not only that, you actually get paid for attending! It may sound too good to be true, but it's not. Students in PhD programs are funded by a combination of the university and their supervising professor who gets grants and in turn pays his grad students. Many students also get outside grants.</p>
<p>At the better colleges more of the money is given in terms of scholarships/grants and less in terms of work-study. For work study, thats what the TAs (teaching assistants) and RA's (research assistants) due to work their way thru school. Bottom line, though, is in PhD programs you are actually paid to go to school! Granted you're not living high on the hog, but enough to survive and medical coverage is usually included. See, for example, <a href="http://www.yale.edu/graduateschool/financial/standard.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.yale.edu/graduateschool/financial/standard.html</a> for an overview of financial aid for grad students at Yale.</p>
<p>If you were accepted into the Yale Sociology PhD program, for example, a Yale web page at <a href="http://tinyurl.com/ale95%5B/url%5D">http://tinyurl.com/ale95</a> says "All accepted students are fully funded for five years. In the first four years they receive full tuition and a living stipend and in the fifth or sixth year students are eligible for the dissertation write-up fellowship. In the third and fourth years students are required to serve as teaching fellows to receive their stipend. In 2005-2006 the annual stipend is $18,000. "</p>
<p>I'm just posting this so that you don't rule out grad school because you assume you could never afford it. However let's not put the cart before the horse! As was wisely pointed out, you should get some experience in archaeology ASAP to see if it's what you really enjoy. And I always recommend college students, no matter what their career field, explore it with internships, day-on-the-job, etc. before graduating .</p>