nautical anthropology

[LVX]

yes, actually helps a lot. So, their PHD is an anthro degree with directed study? Thanks for clearing that up for me. I I am familiar with INA but I ask how does one get to work their fieldschool and who teaches ROV . Thanks again for your time

No one teaches ROV in the nautical program. That you would have to get somewhere else; just like remote-sensing and GIS. There is an ocean engineering dept for ROV training, underwater habitats, etc... There is a marine geophysics dept where you can learn about remote-sensing equipment and data interpretation and finally there is a GIS dept. You could for example get a Nautical PhD with a specialty in Underwater Mapping (GIS) using deep water remote-sensing equipments (Geophysics) and using an ROV to collect your data. LOL. If you can work it out with your adviser, you field of specialty can be whatever you want. You just have to make a good case for it.

I wrote my thesis on a steamboat wreck in a local Texas creek that dated back to the early 1830s. We put in several hundred dives on this wreck and the data collected (remote-sensing data, GIS data and photography) helped form the basis of my thesis.

As far as volunteering with INA, your best bet is to start looking at the list of projects, figure out who is in charge and then bug the living hell out of them. Be very professional about it though. If you piss anyone off in this field, you could seriously jeopardize any chance at a professional career. It is a small field. Introduce yourself, send them a list of your interests, tell them why you want to go, tell them your qualifications and what you hope to get out of volunteering. Most importantly, tell them why they should take you. What do you have to offer. Can't say it will work every time but we generally had volunteers as part of the team. I really don't know if that has changed or not. If you are interested in going to school there, that might help your chances to volunteer as well. Maybe not LOL. Be prepared to pay your own way and to provide your own equipment. They never have money for volunteers. You might start more locally, in other words seek out projects that are in North America or the Caribbean. You might have a better chance. Also keep in mind the projects that sound the best, will be harder to get on. All the grad students will want to go and will get to first. Just please really think about the projects you want to go on. If your interests is in Ships of Exploration, don't ask to go on a dig to the Mediterranean. That will not look like you are pursuing your interest and expanding your professional knowledge. It will just look like you want to do work on a dig...

Anyway, I volunteered with the Texas State Marine Archaeology dept for a summer (40 hours a week - no pay) just so I could make a connection. But, that is also how I became the Assistant Project Director of the La Salle Shipwreck project so it did pay off.

Anyway, best of luck...

Layne

 

[daniel f aleman]

Florida Tech in seems to have ROV training within their colleges:

Center for Remote Sensing (CRS)

Florida Tech Centers and Institutes

And, down the highway, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in congjuction with FAU and/or RSMAS has several scientic prorams that use ROV extensively.

 

[covediver]

East Carolina grads are getting a lot of jobs, and you're right its actually a history degree the only time this could be a problem is getting into TAM PHD program. Which in itself is just a conservation degree not nautical archaeology.
I worked with Flinders this summer and their Dept Head Mark Staniforth is a great guy , but their school is underfunded and a sattelite school for a bigger Aussie school . I want to say Victoria. They have a master cerificate however that is not the same as our masters , they do have a traditional masters and the bonus it only takes a year and a half . Of which 6 months are just for thesis writing . Really enticing but talkin to several people in the field it seems as though foreign degrees are looked down upon especially in regards to academics positions.
Fieldschool is extremely helpful. Especially so for me as I want to work with the survey equipment. ie sidescan sub bottom and mag.
When you worked for NPS was it through a firm who was contracted by them? Sounds like fun Im helping with the Pcola Bay survey.

I worked for NPS as a temporary employee, although my position was funded by the Navy (don't ask, it get kind of complicated).

I looked into the Flinders program. For me, it would have been an "add on" so the certificate would have been fine. As I have a terminal degree getting another masters would really do nothing for me. Also, it seems the kind of certificate that would be useful where cultural resources may be part of your job, but not the primary responsibility.

I don't know why foreign degrees would be looked down upon as it is usually accreditation of a school and program that matters, foreign or not. I was on a couple of different faculty hiring comittees and did not find that much of a bias. Australia is not the third world and has a few things going for it. If course, compared to the University of California, everything else is second rate.