How important to have knowledge and background in sociology and anthropology?

Question

How important to have knowledge and background in sociology and anthropology?

Answer 1

It depends... do you wish to be a sociologist or anthropologist?  Do you want to teach or do applied work in fields related to those disciplines?  Both are very interesting.

Answer 2

Demography can be beaucoups useful in marketing, insurance.....  d**n, I should have gone somewhere where I could have majored in IT

Of course many of the sociology courses (esp. crime, juvenile delinquency) are useful as support courses in public policy but be careful of the pet theories public policy people have (for example, some research studies suggest that concealed weapons laws are beneficial for inhibiting crime rates, but don't say that in an job interview with ATF)

Answer 3

You can certainly lead a happy, successful, fulfilled life without it.  However, formally studying people and learning how to study people can only be useful in a world that's absolutely filled with people.  Plus, anthropology gives you a greater appreciation for the diversity of cultures, which is nice to have in the world we live in today.

Answer 4

Sociology is kind of useless, unless you're talking about research methodology, which is pretty useful.  If you can take an introductory research methods class, you'll probably appreciate it for a long time to come.

It's good to know some anthropology just to be educated, but you don't necessarily need to take a class to learn that stuff.