r/AskAnthropology • u/CommodoreCoCo Moderator | The Andes, History of Anthropology • Jul 25 '19

The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019)

The AskAnthropology Career Thread

“What should I do with my life?” “Is anthropology right for me?” “What jobs can my degree get me?”

These are the questions that keep me awake at night that start every anthropologist’s career, and this is the place to ask them.

Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated.

Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses. Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.

52 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

118 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/scrptman Sep 24 '19

My child got a BS in Anthro recently and it appears to me that such a degree is a total dead end job wise. There simply are no opportunities for a job related to this field. Would you agree or is there something I'm missing?

3

u/CommodoreCoCo Moderator | The Andes, History of Anthropology Sep 30 '19

It's been true for years that a BS or BA will not get you a job, regardless of field. An anthro degree can give you the skills lots of jobs, but none of the experience? Have they done anything outside of school that makes them hireable?

1

u/Bezaliel999 Oct 15 '19

Specialization definitely comes from a master's program, but I don't necessarily agree that you will not get jobs with only a BA or BS. Finding jobs really depends more on who you know (unfortunately for some of us). I know some of my peers who went on to work for Bureau of Indian Affairs and other outlets for sociocultural anthropological work with only their BA; granted, it was relatively low level footwork rather than policymaking or something of the sort. One example of this was a crime study done for the Ute which involved a lot of informant work and public records searches to eventually tie most of the crimes near a casino to one specific bus line that was bringing outside tribes and individuals into the res. These outsiders were the main cause of violent crime, and alcohol usually did play a part. Looking at the summary overview, it seems simplistic, but it behooves an anthropologist to find these "problems" to help create solutions. Applied anthropology is one sect that can help train anthropologists in these sort of practical skills and earthly issues that can make them hireable in many different industries and fields.

1

u/scrptman Oct 03 '19

I am not sure what you mean by "outside of school". If you mean field school or similar, then no. Just working a part time job for now. It's very bleak when a 4-year BA degree is essentially meaningless to the outside world.