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You're a major, NOW what? Careers in BioAnthroHere are two brochures sponsored by the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, plus some UCSD-specific comments. I have added a few links to make them interactive, but otherwise the brochures are as printed by the AAPA. |
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A Career in Biological Anthropology | This AAPA brochure written mainly for high-school or 1st-year students, pretty basic but a good introduction to the field, and talks a bit about academic careers. |
Non-Academic Careers in Physical Anthropology | This AAPA brochure is intended for folks who have more background in BioAnthro (most people use "biological anthro" and "physical anthro" interchangeably, though the former implies more emphasis on developmental/physiological focus, the later on bones and measurement). |
UCSD-specific career comments | Some free opinions from Jim Moore, worth every cent! ;-) |
UCSD majors' survey | Switch over to the main Anthro page for some actual survey data on what our majors have gone on to do. |
For those of you who still cling to print, a couple of (hopefully) useful books:
Ryan, A. S. (2002). A guide to careers in physical anthropology. Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey.
and
Camenson, B. (2000). Great Jobs for Anthropology Majors. Chicago: VGM Career Horizons.
While it's thin on specifics, you might be interested in an article one of our grad students received from her parents. It's dated 2/21/99, Gannett News Service, but the actual newspaper isn't given. Exerpts:
The article also mentions e.g. anthropologists observing women shaving their legs, to advise on razor design. Hey, it's a living! Apparently there is one undergrad degree in anthro for every 26 in business, and 1 anthro PhD for every 235 MBAs; I'm interpolating here, but let's assume an anthro degree is worth 5% of a business degree to a business. At that rate, an anthro major would have a slight edge over a business major, and the average PhD would win over the average MBA every time!
It mentions a Motorola corporate lawyer who got an anthro degree before law school, and cites Ken Erickson of the Center for Ethnographic Research as one of the authorities on the area. Advising corporations "takes trained observation, which is what anthropologists are trained to do."