The Worst College Major or A Life-style Choice

A recent article on Forbes Magazine's website is entitled "The 10 Worst College Majors". In the article Forbes found that the number 1 worst college major, from a career point of view, is anthropology and archaeology. Forbes reports

Unemployment rate for *recent grads: 10.5%
Median earnings for recent grads: $28,000

Unemployment rate for *experienced grads: 6.2%
Median earnings for experienced grads: $47,000

*Recent college graduates are ages 22 to 26, and experienced workers are ages 30 to 54

The question is often asked, "What can the profession do to demonstrate the relevance of Anthropology in today's marketplace?" This is a persistent question about a chronic problem facing the discipline and profession. Why is that so? Could it be that we are asking the wrong question or maybe starting from the wrong perspective?

The answer seems to me to be that the profession must become more open minded about what its product is and how it can be used. Who and what is an anthropologist? And we need to be realistic about what anthropology can and can not do. And then, we must address the basic question: Who and where are our customers/clients?

We need to start by realizing that anthropology offers a service product and that services require a Push marketing Strategy. That is, the profession must start first by identifying the market rather than focusing solely its product. Part of that process would be to stop asking questions such as "What can we do to demonstrate the relevance of Anthropology in today's marketplace?" and instead ask "What can we do to understand the relevance of Anthropology in today's marketplace?" The underlying reality is "Who needs anthropology or archaeology?"

At one time it was an avocation which evolved into an occupation and a career in the academy and in museums. There was a need to train people to fill those spots. Those days are over.

To begin with we should recognize that today, Anthropology has become a life style choice and not just a career choice. If Anthropology is to continue to be a career choice, we need to know as a profession, and at the anthropology departmental level where the real decisions are being made, the answers to the following questions: 1. How does today's service market work? 2. Where are the opportunities to be found for the skills and special knowledge that anthropology offers? 3. Who is our competition and where does our competition lies? And most of all, 4. What competitive advantage do we offer our students and society at each level in the training of students? That is, Is it only at the PhD level, or does this competitive advantage also exist at the BA/BS and MA/MS levels?

Applied anthropology is a very promising and potential area for graduates with an anthropology major. Yet we have not effectively exploited it.

Within anthropology, we talk only about the ideal research/academic career as the legitimate post graduation career path. Today that path is expensive for the individual. It is expensive both in terms of the financial costs of earning a PhD (required for an academic career) and the tremendous loss of potential opportunity and income deferred to carry out the PhD educational program. Yet the rewards are certainly not worth the effort when measured in the traditional standards that Forbes is employing. They may however be very value on a personal level. That is, a poor career choice but a desirable or acceptable life style choice.

For the profession and its organizations, there is a real need to market anthropology as a realistic option for solving the problems facing potential employers and their clients/customers We need to reach out to the non-academic communities, find out what training students require to fit into real areas of professional service, and adapt our curriculum to meet these needs. Here medical and educational anthropology might serve as models for such efforts. Learning the language of these professions and using it, instead of speaking in "academese" and expecting the others to understand us, would also help.

This may sound like a prescription for vocational training and not for serious liberal arts and scientific preparation. I would argue that this is not the case. It is less about changing the curriculum to dumb down the skills and knowledge and more about changing the questions and perspectives in how those skills and knowledge are to be applied in today's world. Anthropology is the only social science with a holistic perspective focused on the human species, its condition, and it role in the world. No other discipline has this, though many are beginning to realize its importance in today's global community.

After more than a half century as an applied anthropologist, it strikes me as unfathomable why the profession still has not made the corporate decision to become proactive in promoting our science and our students in the "real" world. It certainly is not for lack of effort. Over the years many of us, individuals trained in anthropology, have found and create niches for ourselves outside of the academy. Yet, when we have attempted to share our experience with our academic colleagues, we have not been recognized or accepted as 'real" anthropologists.

Further, there seems to be a cultural bias within anthropology toward the prestige of the PhD academic career, which combines with a prejudice against those anthropology students who have not sought and/or not obtained the PhD degree and employment in the academy. The latter are treated as being somehow incomplete. Maybe it is because the latter lack of traditional ritual of the "vision quest" or field experience which is part of the PhD rite of passage. Maybe it is that such preparation is considered the critical distinction between an Anthropologist and other students who happened to major in anthropology. Maybe this is why they are considered incomplete and therefore unqualified be be called "anthropologist."

It is true, especially in today's higher education economy, that undergraduates contribute significantly to the financing of departmental operations at all levels. Right now 90+% of those who take anthropology courses support the department and thereby enabling the 10 % who want go on for a PhD, to be taught and supported. For most of those undergraduates, anthropology is a life style choice and never a career one.

Unlike the 1960s and early 1970s, today's supply of PhDs far exceeds the demand. Of those who earn their PhD, only an estimated 10% will find a full time position upon completing their degree in the traditional academic or museum departments. Given these odds, is there really any question why Forbes comes up with its conclusion? We face a supple and demand problem.

Unless the profession is prepared to actively create demand and promote the discipline and its product in the wider community, "anthropology," as an academic discipline, will remain more of a live style choice than a career choice for most undergraduate and graduate students it recruits at the university level.

Re-branding Anthropology Part 2 -- Heart, Mind, and Pocket Book

The basic guidelines for American anthropology were laid down by Franz Boas and taught to his students and passed down as the American anthropological culture. These traditions are a powerful force within the discipline and its organization and create a set of contradictions that have plagued the profession for three quarters of a century. The conflict can be summarized as in four words: Heart, Mind and Pocket Book.

Anthropology is founded on two basic principles – its subject is the human species; and how the species adapts to the physical and cultural environmental challenges it faces. The question is how do anthropologists apply these principles in their role as a member of the human species, as a scientific and humanistic disciple, and as individuals with basic needs and self interests? That is, where do the anthropologist’s heart, mind, and pocket book interests lie?

Where is the anthropologist’s heart when it comes to his/her subjects and to his/her role in developing the discipline? Where is the anthropologist’s mind when it comes to his/her subjects and to his/her role in developing the discipline? And, where is the anthropologist’s pocket book when it comes to his/her subjects and to his/her role in developing the discipline?  Three simple questions!

These questions, however, are not so easy to answer without admitting the basic contradictions that exist in the profession between the “emic” and “etic” perspective toward the behavior of the practitioners of anthropology whether they are academicians or social engineers.

The Anthropological Heart

In our “hearts”, I think and my experience suggests, most of us are philosophical liberal in our view of humankind. It would be hard not to be when a fundamental axiom of our discipline is based on the “psychic unity of humanity.” If we begin with the belief that we are all of the same species and that collectively we share a common biological heritage, then it is not a difficult step to a second basic axiom, “cultural relativity.”

The axiom of cultural relativity leads us to the conclusion that human behavior is “cultural behavior,” and arises from a common biological and mental base in response to diverse environmental challenges.  This does not discount minor variations between individuals or groups. But it does focus our attention on the behavior as the response to, rather than the motive for, cultural actions. Thus, when it comes to a “judgment” about the actions of others, we have a built-in bias to side with “the other”. This is where our hearts are, to suspend our judgment and seek to understand differences. 

The anthropological heart reveals itself in the causes we advocate for or oppose. It is revealed in the century of debate over professional ethics and our obligations to our subjects, the use of the data we collect, and the long running battle with University IRB and government sponsors over “informed consent,” just to mention a few. It can be summed up as an ethic that favors a role as the protector and interpreter of “our” people, i.e. the subjects of our research. For better or worse, it is the origin of our humanistic impulse.

The Anthropological Mind

In our “minds,” I think and my experience suggests, most of us try to be objective with our subject and subjects regardless of our practice as scholars, researchers, or applied practitioners. We try to operate and conduct ourselves based on another foundational axiom: “the holistic approach”.  To be holistic is to be open to and look for evidence from any quarter that may contribute to our understanding of the collective behavior of the individual within the group, and the group within its environment. The holistic axiom implies that we should adopt a systemic perspective toward the evidence that we collect and use to reach our conclusions.

The holistic axiom leads to another basic axiom: Human behavior is bimodal. That is, all human behavior consists of a balance between the individual’s emotional and/or physical (emic) response to an event or context and what we observe to be the group’s interpretation and meaning (etic) attached to the event or context.  This “emic”/”etic” perspective leads directly to our unique methodological response -- participant/observer. 

This methodological bias toward both an experiencing of the affect of the phenomena we study and the detached observation of its effect on the subject is most pronounced in the central organizational structure in our discipline – cultural anthropology.  Participant - observation is extended to the other sub-disciplines of anthropology through the role we give to culture as the “contextualizing” element in interpreting in recording events and structuring their context. This is where our professional mind is, understanding human behavior in context. It is the origin of our scientific impulse, for better or worse.

A corollary to “emic”/”etic” on an individual level is the “status”/”role” at supra-organic or societal level. This implies a structural-function approach to human behavior in a social context where status limits the legitimate range of individual behavior within the group and the role describes the individual’s performance in that status as it relates to the group.
  

The Anthropological Pocket Book

As anthropologists, we are first human beings. We live our lives as individual human beings. Much of our life is oriented around the practical problems of living, i.e. pocket book issues. While the early founders of modern anthropology were amateurs, that is, individuals who pursued their anthropological interests as an avocation, most anthropologists today pursue their anthropological interests as a vocation. They make their living doing something called, “anthropology.” 

In 1879, John Wesley Powell, in his address as the first President of the Washington Society of Anthropology and as Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology, called for a more scientific and professional approach to anthropological research. When Boas was hired to teach and head a new department of anthropology, in 1889, at Clark University, he brought with him an idea of how the professional anthropologist were to make his/her living. Boas set the standard for dealing with the pocket book issues when he proposed that the professional anthropologist pursue a tradition of employment in a research setting associated with a museum or university. Powell’s focus was on the government as the employer of anthropological researchers; Boas focused on the private university and museum as the vocational home for the research anthropologist.

Early on, the objective of a career as a professional anthropologist has been defined as basic research with an emphasis on non-literate, small scale socio-cultural systems as the subject of study. Teaching, lecturing and writing would be part of the job description following the tradition of other sciences and scholarly careers. While this career model was supposed to protect the scientist/scholar from outside influence by providing an environment that is based on the sacred principles of “academic freedom” and “freedom of scientific inquiry,” it has produced a mind-set filled with cognitive dissonance that echos through the profession and discipline today.

Anthropologists, as employees of the academy, government, non-profit sector, corporation, are staff personnel. They are hired to perform a specific set of tasks for the organization that has hired them. We are essentially bureaucrats. Despite were our heart and mind are, we consciously and unconsciously, are conservative and risk avoidant in the way we build our careers. In an earlier day, when going into the field to do our field work leading to our PhD, we might have been seen as risk takers, and even considered ourselves to be risk takers. But this has always been a risk based on the belief that some benefactor, sponsor, or employer would be there to pay the bills. 

Foundation and government grants have, as Patterson has pointed out, had as much influence on the development of anthropology in general, and in the USA in particular, as the professional development of the discipline. While today we still rebel against certain claims of control over anthropological research made by the granting sources, and we protest the use of anthropologists in such activities as human terrain analysis, basically we are bureaucrats and happy to collect our paychecks from our employers.

The overproduction of graduates at all levels is critical to ongoing sustainability of anthropology departments in museums and universities. But employing these graduates is a real problem facing the profession organizationally and philosophically. Applied anthropology, defined as the application of anthropological and other social science principles to the solution of practical problems faced by human institutions, is the solution to the employment issue in one sense and a threat to it in another. 

Re-branding Anthropology

Re-branding anthropology means identifying anthropology as a practical discipline, instead of the egghead eccentric hunter of rock and bones, the comic Indiana Jones, or the overly rationale and emotionally distant  forensic anthropologist. Anthropology, as a practical discipline, can lead students to become more critical in their thinking and their approach solving everyday problems. It can help them to adapt these critical thinking skills to whatever career they chose. To re-brand anthropology we must recognize the three dimensions in the life of an anthropologist – heart, mind and pocket book.

What do YOU mean by "employment as an anthropologist?"

What do YOU mean by "employment as an anthropologist?" This is an important question that we are discussing in the Career Anthropologist group in LinkedIn.

Before you commit your time and resources to pursuing additional training at the MA or PhD level,and definitely before you go rushing off with your newly minted MA or PhD, ask yourself this question, "What do YOU mean by being employed as an anthropologist?"

So many students trained in anthropology, especially at the graduate level, assume or desire that to be an anthropologist, is to be labelled by others as an anthropologists. The reality, however, when they enter the job market is often quite different.

If you want to be recognized and labelled as an "anthropologist", then the only place to look is the university, the museum, and some government jobs where there is an official job title and description for an anthropologist. If you want a career as an "anthropologist." This is route you will have to travel.

Others, I include myself in this, are trained in anthropology and have adopted a self definition as an anthropologist which is independent of any job description or need to be recognized by coworkers, clients, or employers as "an anthropologist." For us, to be an anthropologist is a way of looking and responding to world that is based on the "anthropological ethos" or to borrow from C Wright Miles, "The anthropological imagination."

Many non-traditional, career anthropologists have found the business sector to be both interesting and promising. This is where the opportunity is for someone trained as an anthropologist has real potential. However, it will require additional training (formal or self study) in the language and culture of business. The most important is some basic accounting and finance language and skills. This is really learning the culture of those with whom you will be working.

One needs to be aware of the status structure in the industry one enters. In the business world, the MBA and similar Masters level degrees are considered to be the professional degree. In the more technical staff positions, a PhD may be required in order to have the appropriate status within the organization. For example, to become the CEO of a company a BA and/or MA degree,the right experience and connection are what count. But to be head of the Research Department, a PhD may be an absolute requirement.

As for the jobs side of it, it depends on what your "anthropological" interests are which can help you to establish your "expertise. This includes your interests and experience in the particular cultures and societies. What might be called your area studies. Another skill set is your linguistic skills. These can be another selling point. Also the specific problem area you find most interesting and where you can demonstrate your competency.

Some examples of job areas are: Marketing which draws upon cross cultural communication skills; Management which draws draws upon people and organizational skills; Staff positions which draw upon technical skills such as applied research, teaching (training), etc.; or Consulting which draws upon training, teaching, mentoring skills in a specific domain of human activity where you can claim expertise.

So the questions are: Do you want to be defined by others as an anthropologist, or do you define yourself as an anthropologist? Who do you want to impress? Where do you think you can make the greatest contribution to anthropology? And, Do you want to show the world why anthropology has made you are the best person for the job you want to do?

It is in your hands and up to you to decide! Good luck!

Applied Ethics -- Professional ethics for the Special Government Employee

Anthropologists have been arguing professional ethics since Boas published his letter to the Nation magazine on December 20, 1919, under the heading "Scientists as Spies,"  Some times this debate has been heated and other times quite ineffective. This is due in part because in their disagreements about what an anthropological ethic should be, they have been and continue to agree that whatever it is, it will be nonenforceable by the profession. But these principles might be enforced elsewhere. Why is that?  Because professional ethics are not absolutes, they are situational and relative. They are ethical systems developed to deal with the specific situations, rights and responsibilities that an individual acquires by virtue of his/her profession or job. This is what is called Applied Ethics.

Applied ethics is the branch of ethics that examines questions of moral right and wrong arising in specific areas of practical concern, as, for example, in medicine or business. So even if the AAA or SfAA or other professional  organization you belong to has an ethics code, you may find that you are covered by another applied ethics code because of a position, even if only temporarily.

During my career I have served as a reviewer of federal grant proposal as such I have been classified as a Special Government Employee and became subject to the specific applied ethics associated with that status.

 If you have the opportunity to serve such a role, check out the following video and learn what the ethical rules are to be a Special Government Employee.