Good plan for and Egyptology degree?

Graduate School
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My goal is to earn a master’s/PhD in Egyptology. My question is what I should study for my undergraduate degree. The plan right now is to have an undergraduate degree in anthropology, with a minor in history, from the University of Memphis Online. I would take all archaeology or Egypt-related classes possible, and supplement the degree with a certified n Egyptology via the University of Manchester. Do you think this is a decent plan to follow? Would this be likely to get me into a graduate Egyptology program, or should I focus on a different area of study instead?

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I’ve moved this to the Grad School forum, since your question is mostly about preparation for a PhD program.

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Doing a semester is Egypt would probably be a benefit.

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@AnuGanon1347 - Welcome to the Forum! Your planned major is fine. I think that anything in the general area you have identified would suffice for a program in Egyptology. The big issue I see is the Online degree. It is not clear to me that that will be a benefit for graduate applications. The certificate from Manchester will certainly help but with an online degree, you will likely find it challenging to get the kind of research experience and personal letters of reference that are needed for selective graduate programs.

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I agree with @xraymancs that what will hold you back from admission to a great PhD program is lack of research. D was in Classics, and while I don’t recall anyone focusing on Egyptology, she and many of her peers were awarded research grants to study overseas in the summers. Many graduate school programs require research and/or field work for acceptance, and without a mentor that can be hard to accomplish, although if you can pay out of pocket you can find digs to apply to through https://www.archaeological.org. Right now they don’t have any offerings in Egypt, perhaps due to the current political climate.

Also, requiring reading proficiency in two ancient and two modern languages is common. For ancient languages Egyptian, Assyrian, maybe Greek or Latin. Modern languages tend to focus on French and German. Much of the published research is in either French or German.

I would recommend searching for graduate programs in Egyptology and seeing what the entrance requirement are. Also, look at the faculty - see what their undergraduate degrees were in and where they came from. That will give you some helpful information.

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