<p>According to a source close to me, you can do absolutely nothing with an anthropology degree until you have a PhD and can teach at a university.</p>
<p>As the parent of a rising junior, I have feelings of great conflict over how to lead through this process because my child has passions that don’t necessarily translate to $$$$. Thankfully we have a new professor in the family with a mountain of student debt for a degree of questionable monetary value. This person is a great “reality checker” for my child. Yes, consider your interests and follow your heart but see if you can tweak it a bit to make it marketable.</p>
<p>I may be wrong but isn’t anthropology the study of humans? Human Anthropology sounds like Quantitative Mathematics. What school named their major Human Anthropology?</p>
<p>Agree with romani that that is flat out wrong. Just google, for heaven’s sake. See the variety of opps. Don’t take one newly minted PhD’s thoughts as gospel, especially not one who allowed “a mountain of debts.” What your relative proves is only that he/she has learned that an anthro PhD is not a magic key and debt should be taken on only with serious consideration.</p>
<p>The context of the recent conversations has been about weighing the value of an undergraduate degree in consideration of earning potential and debt load. </p>
<p>***This was not advice from a newly minted PhD. In recent years, university hiring freezes and delayed retirements have left plenty of PhDs looking to work in academia doing research for a pittance.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but I’m still not sure what you’re trying to say. Yes, it’s hard to be an anthropology professor but the vast majority of anthro majors don’t go on to be profs or do work in academia.</p>
<p>I have a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology, and a Master’s in Applied Medical Anthropology. I make around $100k/year as a Medical Economics Analyst (granted not a job I got originally in this economy, I’ve been doing this work for some time). Point being that most anthropology majors don’t work as “anthropologists”, any more than most history majors work as historians. Anthropology teaches an approach to problem-solving, root-cause analysis, etc. that is invaluable in many lines of work. I recommend taking some stat classes as well.</p>