Hey,
So I’ve still got an year (and a half) before I’ll be going to college, but I’ve been pretty confused for about a couple of weeks about what I would potentially major in. This is going to be a long post, so thanks in advanced if you read it. I’ll be majoring in Computer science or physics for sure, but apart from that(for a second major/minor), I’ve been interested in what I’m about to explain for a couple of years, and being in India, I didn’t get a lot of opportunity or guidance regarding such specific courses that are, well, not related to engineering.
Basically, I want to study about the different peoples, their roots and culture, their origins and so on.I know this doesn’t make much sense,but bear with me. Of course the first names that come to mind are ethnic studies and cultural studies,but both of these majors stress on the relatively very recent history , for example , most of the ethnic studies majors focus on slavery around the world, how it started and how it ended etc. ,So taking the example of African race , rather than study about its slavery , its social impact and its cause etc, I’d like to study about the actual African Race itself, the African tribes, their differences in culture, language and lifestyle, their similarities in culture,language and lifestyle, what led to the Extinction of some of them ,what led to the domination of some , and most importantly, their roots ie where do they trace their origins to etc(similarly for the US, I’d be more interested in studying about the native American/Alaskan tribes than knowing about the civil war and it’s impacts) If you’ve got a couple minutes , you can check this article out to know exactly what I’m talking about (and what I’d like to study)
http://thekashmirian.blogspot.in/2010/04/mystery-of-ten-lost-tribes-kashmir.html?m=1
(Just read a para or so to get the idea)
The closest term I could find for my interests is ‘Cultural anthropology’ , in fact, it is a separate branch of anthropology, but AFAIK definitely not a popular major. So is there a major that might actually cater my interests or I’ll have to look for separate lectures of sorts?