By Victoria Dekle

Have you ever been on a cruise ship and wondered more about the crew living and working on the ship than your Caribbean destination?

Have you ever been to a community festival and observed how people use that opportunity to meet others and to reconnect with friends and family?

Have you ever been on a mission trip and considered why people in other parts of the world have different traditions than you?

Have you ever visited an archaeological mound site and asked why people would build such a large earthen monument – and then leave?

If you’ve ever had these experiences or asked similar questions about the world around you, then anthropology might be a fantastic major for you!

Anthropology is the comparative, holistic study of human culture in all times and places. In this major, students learn about topics ranging from modern globalization to Neanderthals and they have the opportunity to conduct their own independent research and travel to numerous locations around the world.

There are four subdisciplines in the field of anthropology: cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, archaeology and linguistics. You can choose to study all four fields equally, or you may choose to specialize in one or two as you advance through your college career.

One of the most exciting aspects of studying anthropology is the close professional relationships that many students develop with their professors. In a large school like the University of Kentucky, this is a unique and beneficial opportunity.

Just ask Jordan Neumann, a junior anthropology major who is specializing in cultural anthropology.

“The professors in [the Department of] Anthropology work very closely with students,” he said, “in coming up with projects as well as mentoring them throughout their undergraduate studies, providing them with research opportunities.”

This fall semester, Jordan will travel to India where he will begin to learn the Tibetan language from a refugee population in the region. Down the road in graduate school, Jordan would like to use his knowledge of Tibetan and anthropology to tell the refugee’s stories.

“They have a whole bunch of stories that have gone untold,” he explained, “and I think that it could be very interesting to tap into that and share that with the world.”

Anthropology majors also have the opportunity to work on ongoing faculty research projects, especially in the subfield of archaeology. Majors Jacob Welch and Camille Westmont specialize in the subfield of archaeology and they both worked with Professor Scott Hutson on Mayan sties in the Yucatán peninsula.

Joining Hutson’s project in Yucatán in the summer of 2011, Camille was able to conduct her own mini investigations with direct faculty guidance.

“I received a grant from Undergraduate Research to do my own project on wealth and equality and how that is tied to Mayan houses…I got to practice research design and of course [Professor Hutson] was overseeing all of it so I wasn’t totally by myself,” she explained. “It was a great experience.”

Jacob first went to Yucatán in the summer of 2011 with Hutson on the same project with Camille. The next summer in 2012, Jacob worked on a project with one of Hutson’s colleagues in Honduras on another Mayan site.

“I went to Honduras with Cameron McNeil of CUNY-Lehman College,” he said. “I studied small residences on the hillside of a site called Río Amarillo in the Copán Valley. The point of this research was to find evidence of Post-Classic (or late) occupation of the Maya in this Valley.”

Like Jordan and Camille, Jacob also received help from the Department of Anthropology and other resources around campus, specifically the Honors Program and the Office for Undergraduate Research.

All three of these majors hope to continue studying anthropology in graduate school, but majoring in anthropology allows you to pursue a career in a multitude of different fields – from programs in business, law, or medicine, the training in cultural diversity allows you to work with all types of people around the globe as you move forward in a career.

Few undergraduate majors have the ability to take you around the world and open your mind to new experiences like anthropology can.

Plus, like Jordan, Jacob and Camille, you get to choose your own adventure in the process.