
Student Snapshot: Elliot Barr ’23
Meet Elliot Barr ’23, a club-sports player who served a sports-marketing internship in London and studied abroad in Toulouse.
Anthropology
Anthropology is a contemporary social science that bridges both the natural sciences and humanities to examine human diversity in the past and present and the profoundly different ways in which social groups interpret and inhabit an increasingly complex world.
Our program is characterized by an emphasis on fieldwork and is encouraged in student work abroad. We cover anthropology's subfields of cultural anthropology, biological anthropology and archaeology, each characterized by unique approaches, yet all oriented toward understanding and informing contemporary debates about the diversity of human experience in a wide range of societies.
Anthropology at Dickinson teaches students the process of doing anthropological research through fieldwork and laboratory research. Ethnographic fieldwork—observing and interacting intimately with people in a social setting over an extended period of time—is one of anthropology's distinctive contributions to the human sciences. In coursework and our department's ethnographic field schools, students familiarize themselves with fieldwork by conducting local and international projects that they may later develop into senior thesis papers.
Students leave the anthropology program fully prepared for graduate school, for public and nonprofit sector work and for any form of business or professional work that requires critical-thinking skills and understanding of cultural differences.
Jobs
Graduate Schools
“Anthropology at Dickinson teaches students how to be engaged readers, interviewers, and writers with a cross-cultural lens. Being an anthropology major allowed me to build skills in qualitative and quantitative research pratices and complete my own research projects that draw on my interdisciplinary interests and make connections across departments at Dickinson.”
- Courtney Gistaro
Meet Elliot Barr ’23, a club-sports player who served a sports-marketing internship in London and studied abroad in Toulouse.
Learning ancient Greek is challenging and deeply rewarding, says Mandy Porter ’23, a double major in archaeology and classical studies and student-researcher who lives in the Human Cultures House.
Learn more about how an internship at Dickinson's art gallery is helping Emily Angelucci ’24 shape a potential future career in museums and archaeology.
With a double major in German and anthropology and coursework in health studies, Sofia Perrone is gearing up for a career that taps her interests in medical anthropology, global cultures and policy.
Maeve Thistel ’24, an avid runner and anthropology major, has researched food insecurity and dietary diversity and plans a career in nutrition and integrative health.
Meet Lusila De La Rosa ’24, an educational studies and sociology double major who works at Dickinson's Trout Gallery.