Anthropology?

[Retoxification]

To the OP, I'd be glad to help you but you haven't told us what branch of anthro you're in. I'm sure you know by now that there's physical, cultural, archaeology, and at some schools, linguistics.

Well, at this point it's either archaeology or cultural. Physical is a maybe, but not likely. As for linguistics, its a completely different discipline, in my school at least. Plus i was never one for it anyway.

 

[Jerry Atrick]

Well, at this point it's either archaeology or cultural. Physical is a maybe, but not likely. As for linguistics, its a completely different discipline, in my school at least. Plus i was never one for it anyway.

Cool. Just to give you a taste of what the grad program is like at my school: there are roughly 30 first year grad students and more than half of them are in it for archaeology. The rest are physical, forensic, cultural, and one lone linguistic guy (we have a forensics program that is not offered at the undergrad level at our school). I don't know if it's like this everywhere but I attribute the large number of arch students to the fact that there just may be more jobs for them.

Like somebody already said, you need at least a Master's if you actually want to do something in anthropology as a long-term career. I want to teach cultural anthro at the college level so I plan on going for my PhD after I finish my Master's.

With archaeology on the other hand, you can get by with a Master's and do lots of stuff with it outside of teaching.

I'm not going to tell you what you should study because only you know what's best for you. I'll just say you should take a class in cultural and a class in arch and see which one you like best. Should you choose a career in anthro, which one do you see yourself doing for the rest of your life?

 

[Jerry Atrick]

I was unaware that this tangent was specifically about American universities.


Huh?

I'll let him elaborate, but I'm pretty sure at one point Ebola - an American Sociologist - was doing participant observation for a (Sociological, in America) Thesis.


No I am not. I mentioned above that I think physical (or bio, as we call it here) anthro is a perfectly valid today.



Not sure who's more outdated, as I was actually referring to Nazis in the 30's. I can look up some refs for you if you'd like but for now I'll just link wikipedia. Now if you still want to claim that this is outdated, then all the better, because that was my point precisely - see my first post in this thread. Anthropology has throughout its short life lent itself very well to use as a weapon. It still is used as such.


I don't know about that... the bulk of Sociological theory has very, very little to do with numbers. But of course I am very sure that anthropologists would pounce on all non-quantitative theorists and claim them as theirs.


Well then I don't know what to tell you... your prof sucks? In my four years of Sociology I only had to do one half-credit about statistical methods.


Archaeology is definitely part of Anthropology in Canada, and as I argued above, seems to be the only actual material left of Cultural Anthropology that is uniquely so.

For the record, I have the same dim view of Human Geography... really, Geographers should stick to maps.

I don't have time to go point by point again and it really is going nowhere. I will however address the NY Times article. Anthropology is a discipline, it's a college major. ANY swinging dick that has the money can go to a university, enroll, take our courses, and *gasp* even graduate.

I didn't read the particular article you posted but I read about it somewhere else. I think the program is called Human Terrain Systems or something. Anyways, any "anthropologist" who participates in this program will have absolutely ZERO chance of ever having a career in academia. You won't see professors or people even with PhD's out there in Afghanistan doing this. In fact, the article I read said most of them just have a Bachelor's degree and some of them don't even have a degree in anthropology. As a whole, the discipline is against it not only because it's giving us a bad wrap, but because it's wrong. Colleges can't turn people away based on the job they plan on getting when they finish school.

 

[Retoxification]

probably arch to be honest. im a sophmore 1st semester at the moment, so by i think feb i have to submit my major. To be honest I kind of figured with cultural I'd end up having to get a PhD; since most of the job is either teaching or going and only helping with field work. On the other hand, I've always loved archaeology since I was about 3, and i love to dig. lol, but in all seriousness, after this thread I'd have to say im going arch. Though, I don't think my school has a grab school for arch. Probably have to go to one in the city or something. Who knows.

 

[Jerry Atrick]

probably arch to be honest. im a sophmore 1st semester at the moment, so by i think feb i have to submit my major. To be honest I kind of figured with cultural I'd end up having to get a PhD; since most of the job is either teaching or going and only helping with field work. On the other hand, I've always loved archaeology since I was about 3, and i love to dig. lol, but in all seriousness, after this thread I'd have to say im going arch. Though, I don't think my school has a grab school for arch. Probably have to go to one in the city or something. Who knows.

Sweet! The first thing I would do is talk to your anthro advisor(s) about internships and summer field schools. Doing these as an undergrad will put you in a far better position when it comes to applying and getting accepted into grad schools. The field schools will also give you a taste of what field archaeology is really like. It's one thing to learn about this stuff in a classroom, it's another thing to actually get out there and do it.

I don't know how big your college is. Even if they don't offer an arch field school, a lot of times you can hook up with another program or university and do theirs.

Finally, make friends with your professors. It's not sucking up if you sit in the front of the class and talk to your profs during and after class. Stop by their office hours just to chat and get them to learn your name. This is very important because most grad schools require 3 letters of recommendation from former profs and if they don't know who you are, it's harder to give a good recommendation.

You're only a sophomore so you have plenty of time to do all these things %)

 

[TINK]

My lil sis just graduated with an anthropology degree, and what does she do you ask? Sits on the couch, wishing she had the money to go to grad school. Apparently, she didn't realize until it was too late that if you didn't want to do field work the only decent job you can get is with a masters.

As soon as the economy get better, lets hope she can get something going. I mean what a wate of talent. She had a 4.0, phi kappa phi, and Summa Cum Laude.