Studying a university level course not only gives you fantastic prospects and the chance to pursue a topic of interest, but it can also offer you a complete change of career direction.

This is exactly what Pete Missingham did. Originally working in IT within retail and telecommunications settings, Pete began studying BSc (Hons) archaeology at Truro and Penwith College in 2012.

The archaeology degree, offered at the college in partnership with Plymouth University, focuses strongly on practical skills including fieldwork, museum work, media presentation, environmental archaeology and conserving monuments. These skills have proved valuable to Pete since he’s graduated.

“While I was a student, programme leader Caradoc Peters taught us how to process soil samples in the laboratory at Truro College. While I'm currently using a different technique, this background training has proven beneficial for understanding my place in the archaeological evidence train, and the results that my actions have on the quality of the eventual outcome.”

Following his graduation from Truro and Penwith College, Pete progressed to study a masters in archaeology at University of Bristol. During his time at Bristol, he started work at Geoflo, and roles at both Wells and Mendip Museum and Glastonbury Abbey Museum.

His employment at Geoflo involves the processing of archaeological soil samples to retrieve anthropogenic and environmental artefacts. In addition, he is also involved in geophysical surveys. In his roles as an archivist, he has been recently helping a palaeontology PhD student research Pleistocene animal remains in the caves in the Mendip Hills in Somerset, and recording artefacts excavated during last summer’s excavations at Glastonbury Abbey.

Pete said: “I would recommend a university education to anyone and, with Plymouth’s network of colleges, there’s bound to be one near you.”

He added: “Get out there and do as much fieldwork and as varied fieldwork as possible, and keep doing it during your studies. My current job came from a volunteer excavation I was helping with: unknown to me, my future employer was watching the volunteers.”