What are you going to do with a degree in anthropology?

Question

My family keeps asking this. I love anthropology. I like the complexity of it and love learning about why people are the way they are. I'm really in to evolutionary psychology and linguistics. I always figured I'd just feel it out but my family keeps asking what my job is going to be. I know it sounds funny but I know it's maybe not the more employable thing that I could do and I don't really know what to tell them.

Answer 1

I'm doing a double major in anthro and Arabic. Truthfully, I'll probably lean more toward Arabic, but I plan on using my understanding of the importance of language in a culture to write and maybe to contribute to endangered language research.

Answer 2

I did cultural Anthro and also got a business degree.  I am in sales now, but have done a lot of buyer behavior studies from a cultural aspect.  How do different cultures consume?  Its is very cool and a lot of money in it.

Answer 3

"Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life"

You could teach. Work on research projects for universities.

I spent 21 years of my life making a good living and being miserable. I am now working part time and putting myself through school to become a history teacher.

I am enduring the pain of sacrifice now, and when I start working I will be making less than I did...but guess what, I will die happy! At 42, thats what life had taught me. If your young, then the world is yours. Take every opportunity while you don't have kids or big bills and pursue your dream.

Answer 4

I was an anthropology major. What it gave me was, a broader understanding of the world. When I was a college-age I had a great deal of questions about the world, my place, and the people in it. My father suggested taking a basic Cultural anthropology course (I was A simple english major at the time. ) I changed my major as soon as I could.

For me it had answers to the world and life that no other major could offer me. There was a priest in my class as well. One day I asked him why he was taking an anthropology Course, and he told how the Diocesese required him to speak several languages and have understandings of cultures beyond day to day contact. He already had a degree in Civil engineering.  He said he hoped to go on to a reputable masters program in athropolgy.

I don't know where he is today but I imagine him helping build wells, raods and basic infrastructures in impoverished countries.  

So, I guess a bigger question is what Can't you do with a degree in anathropology? If you get a business degree you can go all over the world. Your family probabaly imagines you on a dig somewhere in some obscure location of the globe making peanuts, or relegated to a teaching position at a remote university. Anthropology isnt a destination it is an adventure.

Answer 5

Add a psychology degree to this, and you can dominate the world, grasshopper, politics and advertising, sales, all these will fall at your tiny little feet, and bless you for your insight into the human condition of consumption, and greed.

Do not look at the finger, when it points, but beyond, to what it reveals......

If only you could understand Zen, then you would know, that what they seek to know, is the sound of one hand clapping, be at peace, all will be revealed in time.....

A brave man once asked of me, questions that are deep, he asked what it is, to be, or not to be, I replied "O why, O why,  ask me ?".............

Answer 6

Study ancient societies

Answer 7

i have a degree in anthropology and i am a librarian.

Answer 8

You can do just about anything with an anthropology degree.  Here is a site that might be helpful too.

http://www.utexas.edu/student/careercent...

Right now, I am not working; but I am still using my degree a lot with my daughter's Girl Scout Troop.  It is a very diverse troop, and my degree has given me the added skills for dealing with the different cultures as well as being able to give the girls a bigger understanding of the world around them.