Anyone studied Ethnography or Demography? And what can you say about it?

Question

Is it as interesting as it sounds? Does it need a lot of memorizing? and did you find a decent job?

Answer 1

When you go to college you don't study Ethnography. Assuming you go to an American university you will be exposed to all four sub-disciplines of Anthropology. Ethnography is only the end product of at least 2 years of participant observation.

Answer 2

Ethnography and demography are totally different things: Ethnography is a type of writing that intends to holistically capture the experience of a particular group of people. Demography is the study of populations, and is generally done statistically.

If you are interested in anthropology and conducting qualitative research, living with other groups of people for long periods of time, and are good with languages, you may enjoy doing ethnographic research. Most ethnographers work in academia, though there are a few private-sector jobs available.

If you like math, staring at a computer screen, analyzing large amounts of survey data, and are a stats whiz, then demography might be for you. There are plenty of jobs available for good demographers, including with the government.

I suggest that before you jump into either one you should do some reading in the library and on the internet, and maybe even call some professionals in both fields and ask them some questions. Either one could be very interesting, depending on your interests. But like I said, they are very different types of research. I wouldn't say that either requires "a lot of memorizing"--there are few professions that do--but rather a lot of learning. Memorizing is stuff that you remember for a quiz and then forget, while learning is gaining a suite of skills that you use for life.