Intellectual Agility

  1. Anthropology students will acquire intellectual (conceptual, informational) tools to appreciate and analyze different worldviews as reflected and manifest in subsistence patterns, modes of exchange, kinship and family organization, political institutions, strategies of socialization and education, religious beliefs, relations of power, material culture, conceptions of identity, and technological expertise of societies  in different areas of the world.
  2. Anthropology students learn to articulate orally and in writing significant trends in the history of Anthropological thought and important issues in contemporary anthropological research.

Practical Agility: Qualitative Research, Professional Writing and Project Management Skills

  1. Anthropology students will be able to identify, describe, and evaluate appropriate methods of data collection and data analysis.  They will learn how to design a qualitative research project proposal, appreciate the impact of cultural research on host individuals and communities and account for the protection of human subjects, conduct qualitative research, and analyze research findings and present their results in portfolios, a written thesis, and public presentations in various venues.
  2. Anthropology students learn how to apply their skills to the world of work after graduation. Anthropology students are expected to learn to communicate about the unique skill sets that they have acquired to employers across the job spectrum in fields as diverse as health care, marketing/business, IT, teaching, museums, cultural resource management, social services, and public policy.  These skills sets combine practical/technical knowledge (e.g., proposal writing, interview, project design) with conceptual knowledge (e.g.,how to predict when and why people of diverse cultural backgrounds will react differently to a particular context, how to approach problem-solving holistically and collaboratively, how to teach, manage, and resolve disputes in a multicultural environment).

Understanding and Negotiating International and Cross-Cultural Difference

  1. Anthropology Majors learn to deploy a holistic and comparative approach to provide a fresh perspective on issues related to topics such as sustainability, human rights, migration/immigration/forced resettlement, educational inequity, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, urban environment and design, health, illness, and medical care.
  2. Anthropology students can learn to teach, mentor, and manage others.  They can learn the fundamentals of curriculum development and lesson planning, testing/grading, teaching writing and study skills, and working in a team of different class cohorts.

More on how Anthropology Department Learning Goals work in our course offerings (pdf).