Here at CNU, we don’t actually have an Anthropology major. However, we have a department and a concentration, with a bunch of Sociology/Anthropology courses you can take as well as some awesome professors in the Anthro department that are more than willing to spend the day discussing culture and primates and the like with you. If you’re an Anthro major, or thinking about becoming one, here are some of the things that you’ll find yourself nodding your head in agreement to.
1. Comparing human ancestors
Let’s face it: there’s so many of them and their skulls are fascinating.
2. One word: Culture
If anthropology could be defined in one word, it’d be culture. And even then, culture is a complex system that Anthro majors can spend hours discussing with you about. But really, culture is the driving force behind everything we do.
3. Fighting the Patriarchy
Gender norms and roles are a thing people.
4. Two words: Jane. Goodall.
This lady was responsible for a lot within the Anthropology world. She most definitely made chimpanzee conservation – which are our closest non-human relatives besides bonobos – cool. Also, she just looks like such a nice person.
5. Reading more than an English Major
When everyone else is out having run, you have to read a ba-jilion chaptions in an ethnography on various controversial topics, like race and health and gender and everything else in the world.
6. Being told your major is easy
Excuse me. Do you have to read 40 pages a night and then determine whether or not the author’s interpretations of various interviews, observations, and overall assumptions are acceptable? Do you have to sit and wonder why a bunch of old white men thought it was okay to tell others that indigenous people are the root of all evil and need to be civilized? No? Didn’t think so. *Also note that I’m not saying other majors aren’t equally as hard. Just don’t hate on me, and I won’t hate on you.*
7. Hating that old white men in the 18 – 1900s thought they were supreme
But seriously. *sighs*
8. Two more words: Franz. Boas.
The textbooks know him as the Father of American Anthropology, but I think they all really mean “The Guy with the Cool Moustache”
9. Wondering what the heck you’re actually going to do with your life after college…
I mean, obviously, go to grad school. And then possibly a PhD. And then maybe you’ll decide. Or you’ll just… continue reading about [insert random culture here] and pretend like everything’s okay.
10. And never wanting change your major if it was the last thing you did
Because Anthro is love, and life, and happiness, and all the good things in the world.