Senior year is typically a time for contemplating our college experience, from where we started to where we ended up. As senior Anthropology majors, we realized that we both stumbled upon anthropology. Taking Anthropology classes at Centre does not always seem convenient or practical to students, but we want to communicate the ways we have benefitted from our major and how other students could as well.
In order to get a baseline for what Centre students think about Anthropology, we talked to several upperclassmen who have never taken an Anthropology class. One of the common answers to our question “why did you never take an Anthropology class?” was that it felt unfamiliar. Many variables factor into students’ choices about what classes to take. Unfamiliarity, whether with a field, a topic, or even a professor, is an obvious barrier because it means that, as a student, you don’t know what you’re signing up for. The reality that Anthropology as a discipline is only vaguely understood by many students means that, when faced with a wide variety of course offerings, they are unlikely to choose an Anthropology class. Another reason that students gave for not having chosen Anthropology classes was its practicality compared to other classes that satisfied the same general education requirement, such as economics.
However, despite commonly held perceptions, as senior Anthropology majors, we have identified several practical, relevant skills that we have gained through studying Anthropology. One of the foundational concepts in Anthropology is cultural relativism or the idea that no culture is inherently superior. At first glance, this sounds intuitive and easy, but, in practice, it takes continual effort and humility to engage without judgment, especially with practices, beliefs, or perspectives that stand in opposition to one’s own. Anthropological research methods, such as participant observation in new settings, are a valuable practice because they require sustained engagement with environments in which one might normally be quick to judge what’s happening around them. We believe that this translates into a helpful practice of introspection and more empathetic interpersonal skills.
Anthropology also teaches its students to become comfortable with questions which don’t have easy, or sometimes any, answers. It’s not unusual for an Anthropology class to conclude with more unanswered questions than when it began. Learning to sit with the discomfort that can accompany not knowing and to recognize that asking new and better questions is its own form of knowledge are valuable, applicable skills. Inherently, anthropology is a discipline that encourages us to gain confidence in questioning existing social conditions and theories that might be taken for granted as unchanging.
An anthropological lens is best described as a framework through which someone can look at any problem or practice and gain a deeper and more contexualized understanding. This is why we, especially in our senior year, appreciate that what we have learned from our major will give us unique analytical and interpersonal strengths wherever we end up after Centre.