Ohio State students survey career paths for anthropology majors

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Ohio State students survey career paths for anthropology majors

Research shows variety of careers available to degree holders

Last spring, six undergraduate students at The Ohio State University, along with two self-admitted "co-conspirators," explored what holders of anthropology degrees are doing in their careers - and how those jobs relate to the field.

"Mark is always looking for cool opportunities for students," said Cameron Beason, an undergraduate advisor in the Department of Anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences. "He's particularly interested in their career trajectories."

"Mark" is Mark Moritz, a professor in the same department.

"Cameron is my co-conspirator," Moritz said. "Anything that's involved in terms of preparing students for life beyond Ohio State, I reach out to Cameron."

Student recruitment is a focus of Moritz's. A question he's frequently asked is what students can do with undergraduate degrees in anthropology. While some will go on to graduate school and work in academia or traditional anthropology fields, most don't.

Sofia Giraldo Arzolay is familiar with that question. She is a third-year student, double majoring in anthropology and Spanish.

"It's a common thing to hear, 'You can do anything with anthropology,'" she said. "That statement isn't useful. What is 'anything?'"

"There's an anxiety about what they're going to do when they graduate," Moritz said. "Learning about all the options students have, that it'll work out one way or another, I think that helps with the anxiety and makes students feel more prepared."

Giraldo Arzolay and five other students worked with Moritz and Beason, combing through LinkedIn profiles of program alumni, to see what careers their fellow anthropology majors had chosen.

Business, tech, law, medicine, trades - these fields all had anthropology majors working in them, the study found. The team began to refer to these jobs as "careers with anthropology," instead of "careers in anthropology," which is more common.

"It's an inclusive term that validates the careers of all anthropologists," Moritz said, "whether they are typical anthropology careers or not."

A business job may not have a direct connection to anthropology, Moritz said, but the practical skills that students gain from the major are still applicable.

"One of the most important anthropological skills is cultural relativism," he said. "The idea that people come from different cultural backgrounds; keeping that in mind is really important in the workplace."

"Any business interaction," Giraldo Arzolay said, "between a customer and a client, or two co-workers in the same company, it's all people. If you have two people interacting, you can use anthropology somehow."

In addition to seeing what career options were available to them after graduating, the students gained valuable research, writing and presenting experiences.

"This is what testing your own hypothesis feels like," Giraldo Arzolay said. "How do you collect data ethically? How do you analyze the data you collected?

"Interviewing and report writing, too. I interviewed five alumni from the department and made a report from those interviews. I'd never interviewed anyone before. It was fun."

"They have confidence communicating their ideas," Beason said. "From the beginning of this project to the end, I saw a change in their abilities to communicate in a research context, to be able to speak about research and think through the questions that researchers ask."

Moritz, who typically works with graduate students, found the younger team engaged and excited.

"They're eager to learn," he said. "They're still growing as professionals. I enjoyed working with them and being a part of that."

Giraldo Arzolay originally signed up for the study because she plans on going to graduate school and is always seeking new experiences for her resume. After the project, she feels better about her other choices.

"Now I know about human resources because I interviewed a human resources officer," she said. "If I don't go to grad school, what could I do? I was testing my plan B.

"Now I have plans A, B, C, D and E," she said.

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