Anthropology Paths to Success

What Type of Jobs are Available?

The Department of Anthropology and Geography faculty and staff often get questions from students about what types of jobs are available for anthropologists and geographers. “Everything” is the simple and honest answer. Anthropologists study many different aspects of the human experience and geographers study places and the role that humans play in the environment. All jobs are related to the human experience in place, space, and time. Because there is a natural tie between our disciplines, our students benefit greatly from the diverse faculty and coursework. The challenge for most students is specifying their interests in order to determine what type of career they want. To make this process easier for our students, we have developed optional “Paths to Success” for each of our areas of focus. We encourage students to look at these suggestions, but also encourage them to be creative and make their education work for them to achieve the career and life that they want to live.

Recommendations for all students:

  • Start to think about your potential careers early in college.
  • While taking your intro anthropology and geography courses, write down the topics that interest you most.
  • Take note of the skills you learn in each course. Add them to your resume and think about how you may articulate this toolkit in an interview. (e.g. Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, ArcGIS, statistical analysis, qualitative methodology, public speaking, writing, critical thinking)
  • Ask your professors questions about the types of careers available for the topics that interest you.
  • Visit the career center each semester to format and update your resume, practice writing cover letters, learn how to take advantage of our alumni network on LinkedIn, and learn about job search engines.

General Anthropology

After declaring anthropology as your major and if you want to experience and integrate all of our anthropological subfields, you may pursue a general anthropology degree. This allows you to keep your education broad and your career options open. We suggest taking advantage of the following experiential opportunities available to our students: