This summer, Camdyn Johnson spent her days in the halls of a museum under renovation, measuring 500-year-old fishing tools and combing through soil samples for clues about what people in Maine ate 12,000 years ago. The rising University of Southern Maine senior helped rebuild a case in the Maine State Museum's next major archaeology exhibit, one plant, one berry, and one ancient wooden stake at a time.

Camdyn will graduate next spring with a degree in geography-anthropology, a concentration in cultural heritage management, and minors in biology and archaeology. She's also a softball player heading into her last year on USM's team. Somehow, she makes room for it all — and keeps saying yes to more.
 

How a childhood spent digging turned into a degree

Long before Camdyn set foot on USM's campus, her backyard in Bath was already a dig site.

"I used to dig up historic pottery in my yard," she said. "I was always digging holes, always collecting things that were historic, prehistoric, anything. I just have always loved artifacts." 

Becoming an archaeologist wasn't just a passing idea, it was the plan — the whole way through. By the time she graduated from high school, Camdyn knew exactly what she wanted to study, and USM had the perfect set up: a geography-anthropology major and archaeology minor. 

Regardless of her conviction, she still had her doubts.

"Coming to USM, I honestly questioned my choice of degree at first," she said. "Am I going to make money? Am I going to be successful in archaeology?" 

But the scholarships made the risk feel worth taking. 

"I saw that I could go to USM for free and I was like, I might as well jump in and take this risk," she said. "It's always been my dream. Why not chase it?"  READ MORE