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Educate me on... Anthropology!
Sentry
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, back in my undergrad I took an Anthropology course on cultures. It was hands down the best course I took during my undergrad. I mean, it was fantastic. It made me want to be an anthropology major, that's how good it was.
Unfortunately, it was the last class I took, as I graduated that semester.
Ever since then, I've kind of regretted not pursing it. I am now at an interesting place where I can actually pursue a degree in Anthropology, followed perhaps by a Masters or PhD, from a University that is actually pretty well respected in the field. I would jump right into the PhD, but since I need to make up deficiencies anyway, I can pretty painlessly just get a BA while I'm at it.
Oh, and it would all be free. Except that it would also be a lot of work, which I'm not unwilling to do, I just don't know if I should.
So, my question now becomes... should I pursue this? I'm not incredibly familiar with the career options open to an Anthropologist, especially one interested in Archeology or Bioarchiology. I don't want another useless degree, but man, I can't stop thinking about it.
TLDR: Should I go back to school for Anthropology? And also, "It belongs in a museum!"
Unfortunately, it was the last class I took, as I graduated that semester.
Ever since then, I've kind of regretted not pursing it. I am now at an interesting place where I can actually pursue a degree in Anthropology, followed perhaps by a Masters or PhD, from a University that is actually pretty well respected in the field. I would jump right into the PhD, but since I need to make up deficiencies anyway, I can pretty painlessly just get a BA while I'm at it.
Oh, and it would all be free. Except that it would also be a lot of work, which I'm not unwilling to do, I just don't know if I should.
So, my question now becomes... should I pursue this? I'm not incredibly familiar with the career options open to an Anthropologist, especially one interested in Archeology or Bioarchiology. I don't want another useless degree, but man, I can't stop thinking about it.
TLDR: Should I go back to school for Anthropology? And also, "It belongs in a museum!"
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When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
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Is that... good?
It can be really interesting, but you can get as much entertainment by reading books and watching documentaries.
I'm not doing anything productive really. I got degrees in Political Science and Criminal Justice, I'm not using either of them right now. I work as a college administrator, but the job is just a 40k a year go nowhere thing.
No. A comparison to Business Major means "vanilla as all get out and without any particular applications". Anthropology is kind of a hard degree to apply. You need to carve out a niche for yourself.
I had an Anthropology professor, for example, who advises politicians inter-religious relations in Malaysia I think it was. Something like that.
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But, since you are more interested in Archaeology(<the spelling most anthropologists prefer) you could dig holes all around the country for a Cultural Resource Management or Cultural Heritage Management firm. Basically there are rules set in place for building things. A highway, for example, if they think it might go through a historical site, must have a certain number of test digs done. If there is a known site that would be destroyed, then the archaeologists get a certain amount of time to dig that site before construction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_resources_management
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Heritage_Management
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_archaeology
http://www.shovelbums.org/
That or you could work for a university. Don't expect a museum job though. Probably ain't gonna happen.
Don't expect to make bank either. If you do archaeology you are probably not going to make more than, and probably less than, 15 bucks an hour for a very long time. Though when you are on field jobs you get a Per Diem allowance that will cover room and food at a motel.
but they're listening to every word I say
See, all that actually sounds pretty great.
Can you work in rain, along with writing on a paper notebook in the rain?
but they're listening to every word I say
I've never tried, however I can write on emo poetry while weeping, which I think is similar. And honestly, Archaeology is only of tangential interest. The only course I've taken was a cultural anthropology course and it was really what set this whole thing off. The school I'm going to though is apparently on the cutting edge of bio archaeology, so I figured that would be worth looking into.
Archaeology has obvious and direct career possibilities, whereas cultural anthropology requires more creativity in the job market (unless you're going into museum work or a professorship, of course). However, if you're creative, there are so very many types of work in which it's a huge advantage to be skilled at navigating different cultures. It's a valuable skill in both the public and private sector, but it's all about how you sell yourself and your academic experience.
I know how you feel about being sold on anthropology after one course; that's how I felt as well after taking an anthro course. My original plan was to major in International Relations, but I was unsatisfied with political science in general and found my real home in anthropology. I was just lucky to do so at the end of my freshman year instead of my senior year.
Oh, also, a side benefit of an anthropology degree is that you will find Bones to be hilarious (in a good way). Good luck, and feel free to PM me if you want to know anything about my experiences with the discipline. I have a real passion for cultural anthro and love to talk about it.
First of all, you need to understand, to get a job in anthropology or any of it's other subfields (archaeology, physical anthropology, humanoid paleontology, and cultural anthropology itself has several branches and schools of thought) you need to be educated to a master's or beyond to be successful. My focus was largely on archaeology - I have a good deal of experience doing it, have traveled around the world with teachers pursuing it - I couldn't find a job doing it, however. To do anthropology well requires a great deal of training and experience, especially cultural anthropology and archaeology.
Archaeology as a business and not a completely academic venture is largely pretty bad at the moment. Non-academic archaeology is mostly doing cultural resource management - basically if a big company wants to put a giant shopping center in a field, they must make sure that field doesn't have cultural relevance, thus it needs a check by archaeologists to make sure there isn't a pre-historic campsite or an early-american farm underneath that has historical value.
If development slows down, those jobs slow down. And they aren't high-paying in the first place.
Expect, if you want to have a career in this stuff, to go from undergrad to graduate studies as soon as possible.
While I loved studying the stuff and wouldn't take it back for the world, I realized that there's a difference between a field you love learning and a field you love working in. I realized that I don't care enough about finding stone tools and other human debris to make a career of this stuff. As such, I recently enlisted in the US Navy.
tl;dr: Anthropology, and any of it's subfields takes a lot of training and experience to do correctly. Jobs aren't plentiful or high-paying. It's a good side-major, especially for jobs that require good deal of cultural sensitivity. To work in the field, requires a huge deal of initiative - you must love and be fascinated by this shit. You will probably end up being a teacher at some point.
If I were you, I'd seriously consider a career working in college administration. Look at some of the studies done on job satisfaction, and you'll find that people in your field tend to be among the happiest in the US. Anthropology may be interesting, but you're probably not going to make a living at it.
Now that I've left university and am working (in L&D/Training) - I have a real issue with the disingenuous way these subjects are peddled within universities.
Honestly, I wish I knew then what I know now... I'd have called so many academics on their bullshit with regards to career opportunities. Its plain cruel.
I currently work as an advisor for Communications, and I feel like a complete fraud. I don't actively encourage students to be COM majors, in fact, if they have the GPA and an interest, I usually encourage them to change their major. But when students ask what kind of job they can get after graduation, it gets much harder to rationalize what I do.
My thinking was to get a BA in Anthro, then go on to get a PhD. I have no problem working in academia, I just have a problem with what I currently do there.
I hate to dissuade people from pursuing this field because I think it's pretty awesome. But I feel like I should give you a stern warning. Basically, there is incredible competition for jobs at the PhD level. If you don't eat, breathe and sleep anthropology, you're going to have a really hard time getting any kind of teaching position. So, going for the PhD might not be the best long-term plan, given the casual but excited level of interest you seem to have. Basically, as a professor once put it to me, "if you can be happy doing anything besides archaeology, you should probably do that thing. Only get into this field if you know that you'll never be satisfied doing anything else".
That said, there are a lot of more useful paths that you could take to explore your interest. Getting a BA or at least taking some more classes might give you some more insight into what it is about anthropology that interests you. With a terminal MA focused on cultural anthropology you might be able to find some interesting jobs (i.e. combined with your administrative experience); then again, maybe not.
You could also try volunteering on a research project and see if it's really what you want to be doing. Every year we get students in the field who thought that archaeology would be awesome and discover that the actual work is not something they want to do. Then again we also get a few people who get the bug and become diehards. It's a little late in the year to get on projects this summer, but here's the main source for field schools:
http://www.archaeological.org/webinfo.php?page=10016
You could also contact the department at your school and see what kind of opportunities they have.
Feel free to PM me if you have more questions.
If one were to look at going into a harder science, what would the suggestions be? I've always liked Chemistry, but my math skills have never been up to par. However, I think I'm a lot more focused now then I was the first time. Are math and science skills something you can build up later on in life?