system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Ways to stay involved outside of school?

Preferably want to hear from humanities people but science people can jump in if they have something to say.

I'm an undergrad senior and I really want to be an Egyptologist. However, based on the fact that I've been rejected from every Ph.d program I applied to but one unlikely program I still need to hear from and how agonizing I'm finding writing my thesis to be, it looks like I'll never get to put this NELC degree to use. So when I'm not at my boring desk job pushing papers or fetching coffee, will there be any way for me to stay involved in academia - besides just reading the lame books meant for people with no academic background or shelling out money I won't have for actual scholarly publications. I want to contribute something to our corpus of knowledge, but it's starting to look like I have nothing to offer.

TL;DR (in metaphor form) If it turns out you aren't cut out for the the ivory tower, can you still visit or are you locked out forever?
gpt
Why Egyptology in particular? Are History, Classics, or Anthropology/Archaeology not of interest to you?

A big part of the game of academia is finding your niche. Few people can decide exactly what they wish to do so early. If you really want to make a contribution, why not study a place and period that has had less attention?