They key thing to remember about being an archaeologist in the real world, is that you don't get to take stuff home with you. That pretty much ruins it for me. Also, it's a lot of hard work to actually become an archaeologist. There's years of study. It's not exactly glamorous, you have to spend hours every day in a trench digging up tiny bits of dirt. Your friends don't want to talk to you about your exciting latest trilobite. On the very rare chance that something dangerous does happen, you'll find that contrary to what games would have you believe, ancient civilisations did not leave medical kits lying around for future generations of grave robbers. Archaeologists are nothing like their videogame counterparts. If a real archaeologist was confronted with a tiger, they would die. If they accidentally destroyed ruins, they would be put in prison. Archaeology in gaming is so far removed from it's real world occupation, it's unreal. In the games you're armed with a gun. In real life, you have that tiny little brush thingy to delicately remove dust from broken clay pots. Indiana Jones did this to archaeology. Daniel Jackson did this. Lara Croft did this. Don't be fooled. Think wisely before enrolling in archaeology and just remember: you don't keep the stuff.
