I am Ashley Johnson.
I'm a third year and my major is anthropology.
So anthropology is the study of humans and
human ancestors.
It's a four sub-field approach.
So we have cultural anthropology, linguistic
anthropology, biological anthropology, and
then we have archeology.
And we kind of use all four, but usually people
specialize in one.
So we use all four to kind of understand humans,
now in modernity, and also human ancestors.
I always argue anthropology is everything.
You can go into a coffee shop and you can
look at how everybody interacts and how everybody's
doing their own thing and that is anthropology.
It's actually cultural anthropology.
There's like a whole study of like coffee
shops.
Or even just, uh, if we sat together in a
living room.
A living room you can study as cultural anthropology.
Like the setting and how, um, just you know
we interact as people and, how, what the setting
has to do with that.
Or you know biological anthropology, you can
study anything form diet to you know, migration,
or human ancestors.
You can study things now in forensics.
Um, you know, like people uh in criminal investigations.
Stuff like that.
And you know language.
Language we use every day.
In everything.
You can study any aspect of language, with
any sort of part of your life.
And that's anthropology.
And then archeology is, you know, you use
material culture, like, every single day in
everything.
And you can also study that.
And reconstruct, you know, an entire person's
life based off of, you know, what they leave behind.
Even in like their garbage, you know?
Even in like their garbage, you know?
And and so that's everything is anthropology.
Cause you know we are human.
And we're studying humans.
(Laughs)
After I started taking anthropology classes,
I just fell in love with anthropology and
the study of people, and how broad it is,
but also how specifically you can study just
one little thing but it means so much.
So, Wayne State's anthropology program has
the best faculty.
We genuinely have one of the most diverse
faculty and also we have one of the smallest
majors at Wayne State.
So, it's very close-knit.
Like you are very comfortable talking to any
professor, especially if you have them.
But even if you don't, you can go up to them,
talk to them.
We have events all the time to kind of integrate,
um, undergraduates, graduates, and the faculty
together.
So that we can, uh, really, you know, um,
use each other as a support system.
And I find that that's really awesome for
being successful.
So, there's Roosevelt Park in Detroit which
is a site that we excavate every two years I believe.
It was really diverse because people
were coming from all over the world to this spot.
So they excavate that and they kind of try
to reconstruct, um, the life there and how
people, uh, kind of tried to adapt to living in
America.
And what kinds of traditional items they held
onto.
The archeology program is a really good connection
to Detroit because of this like urban archeology motive.
We kind of really tried to, um,
highlight
Detroit's history and diversity in how, we
are, you know, we are so diverse today, but
how our foundation for that diversity.
I do undergraduate research with Dr. Julie
Lesnik.
Um, we do research on tooth from Peru she
excavated a while back.
After I graduate, my goal is to go get my
Ph.D. I want to just go straight into my Ph.D.
And then after that I'd like to become a professor
and do research at a university.
Yeah but we actually have a program at Wayne
State called AGRADE.
And so if you do well then you can, um,  participate
in it.
And you get to do as much as half of your
masters in your undergrad.
So I am in that program and I do have enough
room to complete that.
If you're thinking about studying anthropology,
do it (laughs).
Um, if you want something that gives you the
choice of what you want to study, if you want
something that's really broad, but also, you
know, obviously, you have to study humans.
But if you want something that gives you the
opportunity to really develop your own kind
of research and your own thoughts and ideas
about the world around you, I would say anthropology's
a really good fit.
Just because it really, you know, it allows you
the flexibility and also there's, you know,
the tools from each sub-field that kind of
give you the opportunity to really build your
own ideas.
