Anthropology is the comprehensive study of human development, culture, and change in sociocultural systems, past and present.

Take any Anthropology course that interests you.  Browse the [email protected] website. Talk to a current major.

A lot of interesting things!  Check out Careers in Anthropology.

One Anthropology course or permission from the department.  If you haven't taken an ANT course but you think Anthropology might be a good fit, make an appointment to speak with the Director of Undergraduate Studies, who will help you determine whether Anthropology would make a good academic home for you even though you haven't taken an ANT course yet. See the Declaring Anthropology page for contact information.

Departmental courses must be taken for a letter grade.

Exceptionally, courses taken in Spring 2020 with P/D/F grading will be automatically countable towards departmental requirements. See details here. See also the 2020-2021 FAQs.

For courses taken in other semesters with P/D/F-optional grading, the University allows students to request a retroactive change from P/D/F to letter grading, since students might not know their ultimate department of concentration for a period after they have taken a course that could become a departmental course.  Consult your residential college for instructions on how to request such retroactive action. 

Every Anthropology major takes a total of 9 departmental courses, regardless of the student's chosen track.  See the Tracks webpage for more information.  In any track, two of the courses may be cognates.

Anthropology majors may choose a track to help them plan their academic work in the department in a legibly focused way.  The tracks are Sociocultural Anthropology (the default track); Medical Anthropology; and Law, Politics and Economics. We call these SCA, MedAnth, and LPE for short.

Normally, every ANT major takes ANT 300 and ANT 301 during junior year, unless studying abroad. At graduation, the transcript degree for all concentrators will be A.B. in Anthropology. (Students who successfully complete the curriculum of their chosen track will receive a departmental attestation on Class Day and may note their concentration on their resumés.)

Except for the two common courses ANT 300 and ANT 301, the mix of nine departmental courses will be different for students in different tracks. See Compare Tracks for differences in coursework.  The senior thesis for each major is written on a topic that is related to the student's track, broadly defined.  Junior independent work may be track related or not, since students aren't required to declare a track until the beginning of junior spring, and the Anthropology JP is a year-long literature review that begins in the fall term.

As mentioned in the answer to the above question about differences among the tracks, students must declare their tracks by the first day of classes of the spring term in junior year.  However, students will be asked to declare their track on the first day of Wintersession, if they haven't already done so by then. 

Students may choose their track any time before the track declaration deadline, including during sophomore concentration declaration.  See the track selection form on the Tracks webpage.

It is advisable to declare a track as soon as one has made the decision.  Since TigerHub's degree progress tracking assumes the SCA track to be the default track, a student who waits to declare their non-SCA track will not see their departmental courses reflected properly in TigerHub until they make their declaration and the department has updated their student record.

/required-training-beginning-ethnographic-fieldworkEvery ANT major writes one JP, due at the end of the spring term. See Junior Independent Work. In the junior year, students will have access to sample JPs written by past Anthropology majors who have given permission to share their proposals and final papers with current majors.

YES!  The department encourages study abroad!  Normally ANT 300 is taken during junior fall and ANT 301 is taken during junior spring.  Students who plan to study abroad during junior year should review information on required training before beginning ethnographic fieldwork and then consult the Director of Undergraduate Studies as early as possible.

See Senior Thesis Research. The senior thesis must be related to the student's track, broadly defined, using a methodological and theoretical approach appropriate to anthropology and approved by a student's senior thesis adviser.

A course may be approved as a cognate for a student in one track but not for students in another track or even another student in the same track.  Cognates are individualized according to each student's independent work in addition to the chosen track.  The DUS makes the approval determination. However, although cognates are approved for students individually, non-ANT courses offered in a particular semester may be preapproved as cognate-eligible for one or more tracks. See pre-approved electives.