Anthropology Career Opportunities
So now you have a degree in anthropology, what can you do?
There are a wide variety of job opportunities with any number of companies or organizations. You can work for the National Park Service as a Park Ranger, Museum Technician, or Archaeological Technician. You can work for a Coroner or Medical Examiner’s Office as an Autopsy Technician or Death Investigator. Students have gone on to work for Federal, State, and Local governments in a variety of positions including Archaeologist, Census taker, Historian, City Planner, or Museum Coordinator.
Many anthropology graduates continue on in their education attending medical school, pharmacy school, law school, or graduate school in a variety of topics including anthropology, sociology, psychology, and criminal justice.
The field of anthropology is vast, much larger than can be contained in a four-year curriculum. Anthropology students, therefore, can obtain tremendous enhancement to their education by associating broadly with other anthropology students and anthropologists. There are many professional anthropological organizations from the general to the very specific that students can join to learn more and meet peers. Many of these organizations hold annual conferences during which anthropologists and students of anthropology present research papers and socialize with each other more informally. Membership in these organizations often includes a subscription to the peer-reviewed journal of that organization giving students the opportunity to read current research in the field. And, attendance at professional conferences not only enhances one’s education, but enables one to create a network of contacts throughout the discipline.
The faculty at UL Lafayette are active members in a number of organizations, including American Anthropological Association, the Louisiana Archaeological Society, the Society for Applied Anthropology, the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Society for American Arcaheology, and the American Folklore Society, and they actively encourage students to join and attend the annual meetings. Several students have presented posters at regional and national conferences based on research they conducted at UL Lafayette.
There are far too many of these organizations to be comprehensively listed here. But, our faculty have assembled a list of their favorites.
- Louisiana Archaeological Society
- Florida Archaeological Society
- Society of Applied Anthropology
- American Anthropological Association
- American Academy of Forensic Sciences
- American Association of Physical Anthropologists
- Society for American Archaeology
- Society for Historical Archeology