What careers are out there, besides teaching, for people with an anthropology or linguistics degree?

Question

What careers are out there, besides teaching, for people with an anthropology or linguistics degree?

Answer 1

As someone has said before me, it really has to do with what you study.  As you may or may not know a branch of American anthropology (that is, anthropology taught in the US as opposed to other countries in the world) is linguistic anthropology.  Linguistic Anthropology differs from linguistics proper as it enails the study of culture in the development and use of languages.  Depending on what you want to do jobs in anthropology can entail anything from government work to private sector research to academic positions.  For linguistcs you can do research, academia, and/or language interpreter.  I know from experience that just a BA in anthropology will not produce much in form of employment in your field.  You will need a graduate degree.

Myself I have a master's in anthropology with a concentration in archaeology.  I do work as a researcher and mapper.  It really comes down to your coursework and research in college to dictate your career path.  Good luck!

Answer 2

Anthropology degree:

"Corporations, Nonprofit organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations, and Federal, State and Local Government. Anthropology offers many lucrative applications of anthropological knowledge in a variety of occupational settings, in both the public and private sectors. Non-governmental organizations, such as international health organizations and development banks employ anthropologists to help design and implement a wide variety of programs, worldwide and nationwide. State and local governmental organizations use anthropologists in planning, research and managerial capacities. Many corporations look explicitly for anthropologists, recognizing the utility of their perspective on a corporate team. Contract archaeology has been a growth occupation with state and federal legislative mandates to assess cultural resources affected by government funded projects. Forensic anthropologists, in careers glamorized by Hollywood and popular novels, not only work with police departments to help identify mysterious or unknown remains but work in university and museum settings. A corporate anthropologist working in market research might conduct targeted focus groups to examine consumer preference patterns not readily apparent through statistical or survey methods.

Anthropologists fill the range of career niches occupied by other social scientists in corporations, government, nonprofit corporations, and various trade and business settings. Most jobs filled by anthropologists don't mention the word anthropologist in the job announcement; such positions are broadly defined to attract researchers, evaluators and project managers. Anthropologists' unique training and perspective enable them to compete successfully for these jobs. Whatever anthropologists' titles, their research and analysis skills lead to a wide variety of career options, ranging from the oddly fascinating to the routinely bureaucratic."

http://www.aaanet.org/careersbroch.htm

Linguistics degree:

"Possible careers for linguistics majors that have a close connection to language and linguistics include language teaching, speech pathology/speech and hearing science, language and information technologies (including speech synthesis and recognition, text-content analysis, and machine translation), information and library science, or editing and publishing."

http://careerservices.rutgers.edu/lingui...

Answer 3

With a graduate degree you can also work in a natural history museum since most are also working research musuems. With only a BA in anthropology most non-anthropology careers can be had. Human resources is common.

Answer 4

A lot depends on what you are interested in.  Many companies look for people with a degree in pretty much anything rather than a specific subject for positions that could be staffed by people without a degree and see how the individual does.  If they perform well it typically leads to promotion and a good career.

Other companies only require that you have a degree and don't really care what it is in.  Enterprise Rent-a-Car is a good example.  They hire people with almost any degree for their management program and give them a chance to grow with the company.

Pretty much figure out what you want to do and start applying for jobs that are similar.  Or if you want to work for a specific company send a resume and a general introduction letter about yourself and see what happens.