How Do I Become An Anthropologist?

by Willette Francis

Have a great interest in the behavior and culture of human beings? You might just make a great anthropologist. Combine the right education and training with excellent communication skills, research know-how, and intellectual curiosity, and you'll be on your way to a career of discovering and analyzing information about people, ideas, or things. You may have the opportunity to study ancient civilizations and compare it to the way people live today.

How do I become an anthropologist?
Anthropologists, along with other social scientists, have attained master's degree or PhD. Those with master's degrees in applied specialties are employed outside of colleges and universities. Having a PhD would make you suitable for higher-level positions. Those with bachelor's degrees would have a limited amount of employment opportunities, so it is best to have graduate level studies in this field, although a bachelor's degree will give you a chance at entry-level positions in related fields.

Great training in statistics and mathematics is essential for this career. Also, being able to use computers for research is a necessary skill. Other areas where anthropologists must stay up-to-date are upcoming technological advances that may affect their work and how they research.

It's great to get field experience through internships. Internships or volunteer opportunities can be found in local museums, historical societies, government agencies, and non-profit and other numerous organizations. Future anthropologists are able to learn how to excavate, record, and interpret historical sites at archaeological field schools.

Advancement in the field can lead to top-level research or administrative positions at many organizations. This also depends on the quantity and quality of reports the social scientist publishes and their ability to design studies. Other employment opportunities include positions at postsecondary schools and, for those with a PhD, teaching positions at colleges or universities. Master's degree holders can qualify for teaching opportunities at community colleges.

Social scientists should have excellent oral and written communication skills, can creatively seek information, think logically and methodically, have the ability to analyze complicated information, are open minded, have systematic work habits, and maintain the ability to persevere.

What will I learn studying anthropology in school?
A graduate degree in anthropology can be acquired through a college or university and the program will explore the evolutionary, environmental, and cultural changes that had an effect on the human species. A focus on human origins, health and disease, and current regional strengths are highlights in the program. Coursework may include international migration, technology and society, economic anthropology, environmental issues in the U.S., Andean anthropology, archaeology of Europe, sustainable urban dynamics, scholarly inquiry/anthropology, economic archaeology, economic anthropology, museums and communities, principles in human genetics, proposal writing, readings in complexity, archaeological & geological FM, paleopathology, introduction to applied math, and social science.

Through hands-on learning, students gain laboratory and field research in diverse cultures, diseases and medicine, finding ancient human fossils, and human environmental interactions, while also exploring topics about humans past and present, unearthing buried and/or lost cities including villages and hunter-gatherer camps, and understand the development of languages.