Anthropology?

AceRockolla
Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:59:15 +0000

I would research this more by maybe emailing different departments. I am an anthropology major and here are some ideas:

Duke has a renowned primate center where they involve even undergraduates in their research. Check out their program, I think Duke anthro students are the luckiest ones in the nation.

Arizona State is home to Donald Johannssen, the guy that found Lucy. There is major research going down here due to the star power this school attracts, but I’m not totally sure about research opportunities as an undergrad here. The southwest is also a huge focal point of american anthropology, another thing to consider.

Experience in anthropology is all about doing fieldwork, which you can do anywhere during the summer. However, if you want to be close to where the great research is happening, I’d choose a big public university like Indiana or Berkeley.

The only downside with big publics is that undergrad research opportunities might be hard to come by. Private research schools I’m betting offer better opportunities for undergrads (i.e. Duke, Wash U, Notre Dame)

*I would also be pretty careful about straight up saying michigan and chicago are the two best anthropology schools in the nation. How would you even measure that? If it’s by research, which I’m assuming, the best anthro professors usually flock to wherever the resources and good locations are. They move around a lot. But Pac 10 and Big 10 schools in general stay powerhouses because of big government funding; gov funding pretty much runs the field of anthropology.

*Edit: I was mainly talking about Biological Anthropology and Archaeology.

If you’re into linguistics, classical archaeology, or cultural anthropology, that’s a whole new ballgame. Anthro is a really diverse major.