Undergraduate Program
The Department of Anthropology offers a B.A. in Anthropology. Our Anthropology program focuses on archaeology, biological anthropology, socio-cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. We offer a major and two minors in anthropology. Any member of the Anthropology department will be glad to talk to you about the field and our class offerings. If you are unsure of who to talk to, contact our Director of Undergraduate Studies.
Coursework takes place in classrooms, in laboratories, and in the field. The discipline is broad and the work we conduct is varied. Laboratory work could mean anything from comparing skeletons to cataloging artifacts in a database. Anthropology field work could mean scraping back layers of dirt at an archaeological dig or observing consumers at a café.
The goal of our undergraduate curriculum is threefold:
- Provide a general background in four subfields of anthropology (linguistics has its own program).
- Allow for specialization in a specific area of interest.
- Provide opportunities to engage in original research.
Your training in our Anthropology program ultimately prepares you for the multicultural and global world we inhabit. Your coursework will give you an understanding of human social diversity and you will learn to exercise a critical perspective in everyday life. You will also learn to conduct research: to ask good questions, find and organize information, and analyze data. Lastly, you will develop valuable writing skills and learn to write analytically and argumentatively.
Anthropologists work in a variety of jobs, most of which involve analyzing human behavior in some way or another. Anthropological training can inform a variety of careers such as law, business, economics, cultural management, education, and museum work.
Anthropology course work can also complement many other disciplines and we have many courses without prerequisites. Non-majors are welcome to take courses that support their interests. We have a long standing tradition of exchanging ideas and influences with History, Sociology, and Biology.
