Anthropology Learning Goals

By the time they graduate, all anthropology majors should be able to:

1. explain what each of the four sub-disciplines — biological anthropology, archaeology, cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology — contributes to anthropology’s holistic understanding of what it means to be human;

2. articulate the nature and significance of cultural, social, linguistic, and biological diversity within and between human populations across time and space;

3. describe how fundamental theories and concepts in anthropology — such as evolution, function, structure, network, culture, society, and identity — have developed and are applied across different sub-disciplines;

4. use anthropological methods — such as participant-observation, open-ended interview, lab analysis, and excavation — to conduct hands-on research in an ethical fashion;

5. seek out, evaluate, and work with textual sources in the library and on the internet;

6. demonstrate critical reading, thinking, writing, and speaking skills.