What majors aren't useless?

April 5, 2006 7:07 AM

I recently switched my major from international relations to anthropology because I'm sick of politics and don't want to deal with it anymore, let alone for a career. But wtf can I do with anthropology? I want a job that allows me to travel the world, but becoming a journal-writing academic sounds like the worst thing ever.

Anthropology seems like the major with the most interesting major requirements right now, but it seems like it'd be about as useful as a geography major in the real world. What sorts of jobs/internships (I'm in DC) could I get with this? What other majors should I look in to?

posted by borkingchikapa to education (16 answers total)

I forgot to add that, at the moment, work and school don't leave much time for passions or hobbies to work off of. I enjoy drawing, playing guitar and writing (but only if it's something I'm really interested in), but I'm not exceptionally good at any of those.
posted by borkingchikapa at 7:11 AM on April 5, 2006

IR and anthro are both liberal arts degrees. As such, either of them opens doors to starter-level corporate jobs of almost any description.

You are unlikely to find employment where you make direct use of your IR coursework, or your anthro coursework, or your literature coursework. But you are likely to find many, many jobs where you use the information-processing and communications skills that you developed in the course of your IR/anthro/literature/psych/history degree.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:11 AM on April 5, 2006

I got my BA in Anthropology, and am considering going for the Master's, too. I also got sick of the idea of being a lifelong academic - I like it out here in the world!

The most important thing I got from Anthro, is that it completely changed how I view the world. You get a kind of double-vision; for the rest of your life you're going to see why people do things - you'll understand the unconcious meanings behind rituals, both everyday and specialized. Anthro really, really helped me to understand people, and understand why people are the way they are. (I also specialized in socio-cultural anthropology, with concentrations in gender, GLBT studies, ritual and religion, so ymmv to some extent.)

More practically - I'm currently working at an NGO as desktop help/qa. In the past, since getting my degree, I've been a secretary at a non-profit and a waitress. A lot of that was me trying to 'find myself', but you get the idea - you can do a lot with this degree. Are you interested in research? Conservation? Museum studies? You said you wanted to work internationally; I'm also interested in that and have looked up a couple NGOs and non-profits in the countries I want to work in. Anthropology will teach you immensely valuable research methods, analysis, and, most importantly in my eyes, to understand the cultures you're working with, and be able to target whatever you want to accomplish to their cultural mores.

I've chosen to concentrate on non-profit work, but my aunt, who has a Ph.D. in anthro has been running her own marketing firm for 10+ years now. So there's a lot of variety out there :)

Sorry this is kind've disjointed; if you have more questions or want to talk further, please feel free to e-mail me, address is in my profile.
posted by kalimac at 7:21 AM on April 5, 2006

The eternal anthropology/philosophy student I know (who may be along in a minute) is now working for a construction company. That's not a bad thing, though... it's the kind of field of study where you could end up anywhere. I think he's brushed up against teaching, IT, retail anthropolgy, usability... a whole bunch of stuff, really.
posted by Leon at 7:48 AM on April 5, 2006

A Liberal Arts degree isn't about the job that you might get, it's much broader and more fundamental than that. And more important, I might add. Such a degree is about learning how to learn, how to read, how to think critically, and, to some extent, about how to do research and what kind of standards are important to maintain in such endeavours.

This is useful in almost any context, and I would argue should be a prerquisite for any practical or trade education such as computer science or journalism or law (and is in many cases).
posted by mikel at 8:00 AM on April 5, 2006

It's hard to answer this question without filling up half the page here. Anthropology is such a huge area of study with a ton of subfields and I'm not sure which of them piques your interest most.
I specialized in medical anthropology during undergrad, and while I don't hold a position as a 'medical anthropologist' per se, I do work in health care and use what I've learned on a constant basis. There are a lot of cultural factors that play into health and illness, and I think having a more in depth knowledge of that makes me a lot more competent at my job. I was able to do health care work in Central America as part of my curriculum, and I intend to go back and do more as soon as I finish up my nursing degree.
I guess I'm wondering what pulled you to anthropology in the first place. You said the major requirements looked 'interesting'. Which ones? The latter part of undergrad (depending on the school, I suppose) can give you the opportunity to be pretty specific about what area of anthro you're into. It might be worth it to look into the various subfields a bit more thoroughly and find out what career options are out there for each, as it varies a lot.
posted by makonan at 8:02 AM on April 5, 2006

If you aren't in a technical profession (engineering, art, medicine), your major probably isn't going to end up being a big deal. Building up experience in a field is much more applicable to getting a job.

If you want to travel the world, just major in whatever and then teach english in other countries once you graduate. It won't really set you up for a fat corporate job when you finally return, but it's simple enough and you can country-hop yearly until you get sick of it. here's a couple askme posts about it, but there's a ton more hiding around the site.
posted by soma lkzx at 8:06 AM on April 5, 2006

I did a social anthropology degree for the same reason - it seemed the most interesting thing to study for 4 years, which I think is a good reason.

The most obvious degree-relevant routes after that were entering academia or working for NGOs (several people on my course were actually doing a joint Soc Anth/Development degree). For most people though, as others have said, it was just a general degree same as English/History/Social Science/Politics.

After a few years of messing around I did a post-grad journalism course and became a reporter. I'm only still in touch with 2 other people from my course: one is the operations manager of an adventure travel company (more due to her own experience of travelling a lot, and also running an overseas volunteering programme at Uni than her choice of course) and the other is a food journalist.

Of course YM-will-probably-V, being US-side.

(took me ages to write this, so on preview, what everyone else said).
posted by penguin pie at 8:10 AM on April 5, 2006

some ideas for anthro where some of your work might even be directly applicable:

advertising copywriter
advertising account planner
focus group moderator
quantatative consumer research project management
journalist
editor
professional blogger (?)
posted by elsar at 8:14 AM on April 5, 2006

I'm an English and music major (I know, stop laughing), so this is really helpful. Thanks for asking this, borkingchikapa.
posted by danb at 8:17 AM on April 5, 2006

Professor of Anthropology here ....

Like others have said, there is huge variety within modern anthropology. There are the traditional (in North America, at least) subfields of Archaeology, Biological Anthropology (osteology, primatology, human evolution, and, these days, human genetic variation), ethnology, and linguistics. This is like having interdisciplinary studies all wrapped up in one handy central place. These days there is also the potential to study medical Anthropology (cross cultural dimensions of health), Visual Anthropology (anthropology of the image), transnationalism, globalisation, you name it.

Now, to actually do research in these areas may require a graduate degree. But here are what some of my recent students (in all subdisciplines) are doing:

- researcher for Aboriginal land claims (BA)
- film-maker (MA) (see his film "Metal" out now) (the film stemmed form his MA thesis)
- professional consulting archaeologists (lots, BA and MA)
- researcher/front line help for urban HIV reduction NGO (BA)
- researcher for school of Nursing, x-cultural healthcare (MA)
- Parks Warden and cultural heritage interpreter (BA)
- professional animal bone identifier (BA)
- teacher at international college (MA)
- urban planner (BA Anth, MA planning)
- archaeologist for the government of the Northwest Territories (MA)
- cultural anthropologist for a huge corporation reporting on how the corporate culture is evolving and business implications of that
- worker/researcher with NGO in Peru, agricultural revitilization and permaculture (BA, MA)
- journalist (BA)


Anyway I need to get runnning here. I may post more later. Consider this though: globalization is all about cross-cultural intersections. It isn't going away. Medecine and epidemiology are increasingly about cross cultural differences in defining "health' or cultural practices that restrict good health (why won't Kenyan's wear condoms? does circumcision promote HIV transmission? why do many Aboriginal people eat a lot of junk food despit knowing they are at increased risk of diabetes? What traditional diets and nutritional practices are cross-culturally relevant?)

Think of the cross cultural challenges being faced right now in in Aceh, in Paris, in Chechenya, on the north slopes of Alaska, in the whaling grounds of the south Pacific. In Iraq. Korea. China. Iran. In Leeds and Brixton and the downtown eastside of Vancouver, in Australian refugee camps, Darfur.

Our enrollments have soared through the roof in the last few years as people increasingly realize that a lot of the world's problems stem from plain not understanding each other. If you take it very seriously, if you excel at your studies, you can study anthropology and even with a BA, you can make a big difference in the world.
posted by Rumple at 8:42 AM on April 5, 2006

I worked with a Phd. in anthropology - after retreating from academia he manged to turn himself into a pretty good media director at an advertising agency. There are worse fates.
posted by theinsectsarewaiting at 10:15 AM on April 5, 2006

you'll understand the unconcious meanings behind rituals, both everyday and specialized.

Actually, won't you simply understand the discipline's explanations for these rituals?
posted by docgonzo at 12:24 PM on April 5, 2006

BAs can go on to work in a variety of fields. I'll spare you the usual "what can I do with a major in....?" lecture.

If you're worried about whether or not you can get an ROI on Anthro, why not choose a double-major, extended minor or minor in something seen as more "job-ready"? Business, comp sci, education, communication, pre-med, bioinformatics, etc.

I really liked the topics covered in Anthro and Soc courses. But I shared your concerns. So I majored in English (it has the potential to overlap with those ideas) because I knew it would give me strong writing skills and I could always become a teacher. I minored in Communication because, to employers, it sounds like I should know something about marketing communication, PR, media relations and the like. In reality, I can explain diffusion of technology, the effects of the stethoscope on doctor-patient relations, the significance of string-tying as a communication device in early Latin AMerican civilizations, and how the fur trade faciliated the spread of knowledge throughout Upper and Lower Canada. When I graduated, I went into high tech marketing. But I could still be a teacher, a writer, a lawyer, etc. I now have an MBA and run a consultancy.
posted by acoutu at 10:26 PM on April 5, 2006

Oh, and I started out with an IR major, and switched to English in first year.
posted by acoutu at 10:26 PM on April 5, 2006

If you did want to go on, anthropology isn't about sitting around and just reading (like history). Anthropologists do travel the world. Anthropolgists I know have lived in India, Mexico, South America, Japan, even in very remote bits of Siberia (hunting for their dinner). You need good language skills, but being an anthropologist is very exciting.

Archeology is better though - more exotic locations, and more funding. Also, you get to work in teams, which is really nice. Basicallly, archeology is an amazing career. (Even as just a grad student). But you have to be willing to be very patient and methodical. (It can be learned.)

(Sorry, I'm a archeology groupie. I like my archives, but sometimes I wish I just got to dig more.)
posted by jb at 6:42 AM on April 7, 2006