I learned about the stele of King Hammurabi in art history today. I also learned in world history that there are tons of cuneiform tablets that we still can't read. How could I learn this language and potentially read this stele and other cuneiform tablets.?
My prof. said that if I were to learn this language there could be a serious employment opportunity simply because we still have so much to learn from this writing system.
Thanks to u/silverappleyard for linking to my post.
I wrote about the numbers of unpublished tablets in Are there any ancient texts that have yet to be translated due to a lack of translators?
Sadly, the large numbers of unpublished tablets do not correspond to good job prospects, and I would recommend going into Assyriology only if you can't see yourself doing anything else. There are exceedingly few positions in Assyriology worldwide, and there has been a recent wave of retirements and new hires in many of the Assyriology programs in the US (i.e. Brown, Cornell, JHU, Chicago, and Michigan), so they won't be hiring again for decades. Career prospects are slightly better in Europe, where a handful of postdocs in Assyriology in Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Finland, etc. are offered each year, but there is considerable competition for these positions.
Assyriology PhDs can find work in history departments teaching world history and ancient history courses, but there are far more history PhDs applying for jobs than there are jobs available. For a grim but realistic look at graduate school and academia, I recommend reading the recent thread Monday Methods: Why You Should Not Get a History PhD (And How to Apply for One Anyway).
As it happens, u/Bentresh answered a similar question recently.