Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology Sonoma State University, USA

The Anthropology major at Sonoma State University teaches students about humans and their societies throughout the world, how they developed, the significance of their differences, and how they change over time. By taking courses in all four subfields (archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology), students learn to formulate theoretical and practical questions, and collect, organize, and interpret data. The combination of knowledge about human ways of life and training in analytical skills are crucial to any field dealing with human biology, society, and culture. This perspective is invaluable in preparing students for careers in a wide range of professional fields, including cultural resources management, environmental planning, education, public health, business, law, community development, and international service.

Program Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the program, students should have:

• An appreciation for the comparative perspective that uniquely allows anthropologists to explore the forms and foundations of human social, cultural, biological, and linguistic diversity, past and present.
• An ability to integrate the four major subfields of anthropology – sociocultural, biological, archaeology and linguistic – via holistic and contextualized interpretations of evidence.
• An understanding of how anthropological perspectives, methods, and theories came to be, and how their application can contribute to solving the issues and controversies of our time.
• Competence in the qualitative and quantitative methods of at least one anthropological subfield, and the ability to apply these methods to real-world scenarios.
• An awareness of the ethical issues involved in anthropological inquiry, scholarship, professional practice, and public citizenship, at the level of local communities and our increasingly globalized world.
• An ability to critically locate, understand, evaluate, and synthesize anthropological scholarly materials, and to communicate resulting interpretations orally and in writing, individually and collaboratively.