Yeah, yeah, we've all heard it before, anthro is fun but what will you do with it?
A lot, it turns out. But let's clear up some misconceptions first.
Some anthropology students go on to become anthropologists and archaeologists. There are graduates of this department who are professors at major universities in the US and abroad and there are many who do field archaeology. However, my guess is that taken all together these account for well under 5% of our graduates. Most graduates of anthropology programs, worldwide, do not go on to become anthropologists. BTW, this is true of ALL other programs as well. Most psychology majors don't become psychologists and most biology majors don't become biologists. Conversely, if you really want to become a psychologist, an undergraduate degree in psychology is not necessarily needed (in fact my undergrad degree is in pyschology! I can't really remember, but I may have had only 2 anthro classes before grad school). About a third of law school graduates don't get jobs that require a law degree. In general, the relationship between your college major (and sometimes even your graduate degree) and what you're going to be doing 10 years after graduation is pretty loose.
Getting a job with an anthropology degree is usually a matter of understanding how to package and promote the many skills you get as a student of anthropology. Sometimes that can be daunting, but fortunately there is help. If you major in anthropology here at Texas State, you'll take a required course on career development that specifically teaches you how to do this. If you want to get a jump start, you can look at The Anthropology Career Readiness Network for some ideas about job searches with an anthropology degree.
However, it's also true that increasingly, employers do put anthropology in job advertisements. Here's a partial list of jobs that came up when I typed "anthropology" and nothing else into a job search at a couple major job search websites (Indeed, Monster, ZipRecruiter) in January 2025:
There are, of course, numerous jobs listed for professors, archaeologists, and museum workers but here are some of the others: Foreign Affairs Specialist, Criminal Intelligence Analyst, UX Researcher, Political Military Specialist, Intelligence Specialist, Global Sustainability Manager, User Researcher, Research Analyst - Gaming & Technology Insights, Cultural Analyst, Sr. Experience Researcher, Business Analyst, Cultural Resource Specialist, Qualitative Research Associate, Market Researcher, Archivist, Family Advocate, Senior Psych Tech, Case Manager, Pretrial Services Officer, Outreach Coordinator and Tribal Liaison, Consulting Associate, Library Director, Park Ranger, Technical Writer, AI Strategist, Senior Copywriter.
This is just the list of jobs that happen to come up that actually mention the word "anthropology" in the job description. There are many, many other possibilities that don't specifically use the word "anthropology" but are open to people with anthropology degrees.
In the years I've been here I've seen our students go on to an extraordinary variety of occupations. In addition to professors, field archaeologists, and museum administrators, there are lawyers, business executives, entrepreneurs, medical examiners, K-12 teachers, artists, musicians, military officers, consultants, various social service providers, small business owners, medical doctors, crime scene investigators, UX researchers, public health experts... Our alums even include a commercial pilot, culinary director at a bakery in Australia, 1st Mate on a superyacht, and a fencing coach!
This isn't quite the same thing, but I searched LinkedIn for students in my upper division small seminar class from 2015 and 2016. I found a bit fewer than half of them. This is what they are doing now: Head theater director for a school system, elementary educator, lawyer, PR and outreach coordinator for a university, Grad student in geology, legal operations analyst at a large tech firm, customer service worker, carrier sales rep for a logistics firm, county level behavioral health coordinator, fencing coach, VP at a major investment bank, operations coordinator at a major city school district, account executive at a large corporation, UX designer at a large corporation, Post-Doc fellow at a major university, international sales rep for a major corporation, law clerk for a state supreme court justice, financial planner, and small business owner.