Why study Social Anthropology?
Many types of employment simply require that a student has an undergraduate degree and, like Arts Faculty graduates in general, people who study Social Anthropology at St Andrews find their way into a wide variety of jobs. In recent years, some have found work in accountancy, information technology, management, the civil service, education or law; others have made careers in the media, in industry, or in the armed forces.
Training in Social Anthropology can offer useful expertise, particularly when people are working together in face-to-face contexts, where social relations are crucial to the good running of an organisation or enterprise. Specialist, trained anthropologists are employed by governments and development agencies who are concerned with problems of developing countries, or with special difficulties experienced in the remoter areas of the industrial world.
The growing interest in medical anthropology, too, provides opportunities for employment, particularly for those wishing to work with drug companies, health authorities and so on; those working in the area of race and ethnic relations also use specialist anthropological skills. Furthermore, museums housing collections which include artifacts and technologies of peoples from other parts of the world require anthropologists as curators and keepers.
Such forms of employment may require that the student has a postgraduate degree in Social Anthropology. These degrees can take the form of specialist training in a particular subject area, such as development or medical anthropology and usually require that a student conduct field research in a society of his or her own choice.
For further information on graduate careers in anthropology and issues of employability please visit our new & expanding Anthropology Careers Wiki.
Study abroad options are available to Honours students in Social Anthropology.