UMass Boston

Careers

For more information on careers in anthropology and related fields, see below and visit the American Anthropological Association. We encourage you to check these important resources: “What You Can REALLY Do with an Anthropology Degree” and "What is anthropology and what can you do with that degree? (US News and World Report).” Be sure to talk to your professors and advisors about how to make the most of your time in our department and on campus to ensure future success in employment, community, and other pursuits after graduation. Starting in Fall 2020, watch for workshops, panel discussions, and new learning outcomes in some of our core courses (e.g., ANTH 105, 106, 107, 425). 

You can do many things with an anthropology degree. Our alumni apply their learning to a wide range of fields including:

  • Community development, as community organizers, community outreach workers and coordinators for community-based or grassroots initiatives.

  • Education, as teachers and administrators at the elementary, secondary, and collegiate level.

  • Environmental and cultural resource management, as guides, assistants, and researchers in the preservation of the environment, heritage, and the arts; and as consultants in ensuring compliance with both national law and local community desires in educating the public about sites and objects of historic, architectural, and archaeological interest.

  • Field archaeology, as field or laboratory technicians for private companies, public agencies, and universities in New England, throughout the United States, and in other countries.

  • Museums and heritage tourism, as researchers, curators, conservators, and guides at institutions such as the Boston Museum of Science, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, JFK Presidential Library and Museum, Plimoth Plantation, and Peabody Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology at Harvard.

  • Public health, as epidemiologists, health promoters, and researchers, whose training in biocultural processes, the body, and the health consequences of global phenomena such as war makes them uniquely qualified to study disease from biocultural perspectives and communicate information about disease prevention and management.

  • Public policy and law, as policy analysts, activists, legislative assistants, attorneys, and coordinators of policy change interventions, especially on topics such as human rights, immigration, rights, research and biomedical ethics, and cultural property.

  • Journalism, as reporters, videographers, and writers for documentaries and publications such as Cultural Survival Voices, Cultural Survival Quarterly, Boston Globe, Boston Parents Magazine, and Columbia Journalism Review.

  • Social service and advocacy/justice, as youth workers, health educators, nurses, international relief specialists, and supporters of Cultural Survival and similar organizations.

  • Business administration and management, as operations managers, programmers, senior accountants, warehouse managers, senior test engineers, project managers, and hospital inventory controllers. Many of our graduates own and operate businesses, such as bookstores, internet commerce firms, sporting goods outlets, restaurants, and landscape design companies.

  • Graduate study, as alumni with master's or doctoral degrees in anthropology and other fields at 50+ universities, including UMass Boston, University of Chicago, Duke University, Syracuse University, Cornell University, Brown University, Yale University, Rutgers University, New York University, Boston University, UMass Amherst, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Vermont, Brandeis University, University of Southern Maine, University of California at Berkeley, University of California at Irvine, Arizona State University, University of Illinois, New Mexico State University, Columbia University, and (in the U.K.), Bristol University and Sussex University.