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- As anthropologists we see things
that most people don't typically see
because we're people studying people,
and I think that that's the most important
aspect of the field in general.
- We attempt to make the familiar strange
and the strange familiar,
and I feel like anthropology is able to
make sense of humanity
and what makes us human.
- In the United States anthropology is
a four-field discipline, so you have
archeology, biological anthropology,
linguistic anthropology,
and cultural anthropology.
Cultural anthropology is my subfield.
We look at different cultural phenomena
around the world cross-culturally.
So we do cross-cultural analysis of
similarities and differences amongst
cultures around the world.
- I found anthropology and I'd known about
archeology before and
I was always interested
in that and history-type stuff,
but I was kind of interested
in finding the history
and not just learning about it.
- Archeology has always been a very
sort of shovel and dirt
kind of discipline,
but over the last 10 to
20 years we've really
embraced a lot of the
technological changes
that are taking place.
We're all asking the
same kinds of questions.
We just have different data sets.
So for archeology we're looking into
the deep past and trying to answer
those kinds of questions
from the bits and pieces
of people's daily lives.
- We offer courses in
biological anthropology,
specifically courses in human evolution,
human diversity, forensic anthropology,
and we also offer courses
that bring together
all of these different aspects
and apply them to
real-world problem solving.
The area of medical anthropology is
a great example of ways
in which you can merge
the physical sciences
with the liberal arts
very effectively.
- I study skeletal human
remains derived from
archeological sites, from burial grounds
from cemeteries, and by looking at these
skeletal remains we're able to understand
who these people were and how does that
influence who we are today.
And that's what anthropology
allowed me to do.
- So we don't usually have the lab work
in the cultural and linguistic
anthropology courses.
Our lab is really society, but in many of
the courses I teach in both cultural and
linguistic anthropology,
I encourage students,
or require students to engage in
ethnographic research projects.
Students have an opportunity to interact
with the international
students that are here
on our campus, so we have all sorts of
cultural language exchanges
just in the classroom.
- One of the things that really sets
Auburn anthropology apart
from many other programs
is that we are an undergraduate program,
so we offer unique
opportunities for our students
to go into the field and work
in archeological settings,
but also to work on
hands-on research projects.
- Two summers ago I
went to Shanghai, China
and I studied and interned for about
a month and a half, and I created a
semester-long project
about pollution in China
and then presented it at the Alabama
Academy of Science conference.
- We are a small program and that
has its own strengths.
- We get to know the
students, each one of them
very well, and it's very
likely that a student
will have one instructor
for several courses.
- Our classes are pretty discussion-based
because it's typically
about 12 to 15 students
per class, but I think that whenever
it's smaller like that it allows you
to have a better
relationship with your peers,
with your professor, and it helps you to
really grasp the material better.
- Anthropology students
are gonna leave with
a number os skills and a skillset
that will make them highly adaptable
to any number of fields.
- There are so many reasons why someone
would want to do anthropology.
You can go in and get this general degree
and take it and transfer it to
anything else in the world.
It is the most transferable degree,
in my opinion, that you can get.
