Evolutionary Anthropology and other inquiries..

warblersrule
Sun, 28 Mar 2010 17:30:54 +0000

I was wondering if anyone could comment on the evolutionary anthropology major at Duke?

As law_applicant mentioned, it recently changed its name from BAA. For convenience, I’ll refer to it as such.

It’s one of the smaller departments when one looks at Duke as a whole, being dwarfed by econ/poli sci/pub pol, but it is one of the larger science departments. I believe it is second only to biology in size, with chemistry, physics, and EOS trailing behind. BAA 93 is the intro course and enrolls about 90 people, but it is by far the largest. Lower level courses usually have 20-30 students, and most of the seminars have 10 or fewer students.

There are three primary strengths within the department - primate ecology, primate/human anatomy, and primate/human evolution. Courses offered include primate sexuality, human anatomy (with dissection of cadavers!), primate conservation, human evolution, etc.

As with any department, professors range in quality. I had one BAA professor tell me freshman year to come back for research experience in two years (!!), while I had a couple others who very nearly made me change my major to BAA.

The facilities and resources are absolutely superb. BAA is one of the fortunate departments to be housed in the new [French Science Center](http://www.usa.skanska.com/Projects/Display-project/?pid=309). The department has, with the possible exception of Michigan, the largest collection of primate fossils and skeletal remains of any American university, and the two professors working on primate paleontology have been inducted into the National Academy of the Sciences - and yes, they regularly teach undergraduates.

The [url=http://lemur.duke.edu/]primate center/url is, of course, also fantastic. Several courses use this resource extensively, and you’ll learn how to tag and sample primates, monitor behavior, etc. If you volunteer there, which is encouraged, you’ll also learn how to feed and care for them.



Also, how disadvantaged would I be if I were pre med and the only science/math AP’s I took in high school were Bio and Calc AB?

You’d need to take a full year of chemistry and organic chemistry, as well as (I think) physics. While AP credit certainly helps, many come in with AP credit in only one or two of the sciences.