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Jobs
Andrew Petto (AJPETTO@MACC.WISC.EDU)
Wed, 8 Jun 1994 08:13:00 CDT
I am often asked by students about careers (or more often jobs) for
anthropologists. As a biological anthropologist who has never had an
academic faculty job in any anthropology department, here is the scenario.
A.B. Degree
Day Care Center teacher/director
Emergency Room Technician
Graduate School
M.A. Social Services Coordinator & Discharge Planner, Chronic
Disease Hospital
Instructor in Anthropology in a couple of different universities
PhD.
Animal Care Program Coordinator
Research Fellow in Psychiatry Program
Research Associate
Lecturer in Anatomy for Morticians
Associate Director of University Educational Enhancement Program
It was not that anthropology per se was particularly relevant in the
minds of those hiring me, but it was, as John McCreery pointed out, the
perspective of seeing the world as an antropologist that made me different
from the other job candidates in a way that was appealing to those doing the
hiring. In my more cynical moods, I say I was hired *despite* being an
anthropologist, since most people outside the discipline didn't know what an
anthropologist is/was/does; and I wasn't going to try to explain the 4-field
"science of all humanity" in a job interview. But the feedback I have had
from these jobs (and interviews) is that there is something different about
anthropologist job candidates -- and now John has put his finger on it; it's
perspective!
Anj Petto
Cntr Bio Ed
UW-Madison
ajpetto@macc.wisc.edu
voice: 608.262.0478
fax: 608.262.0014
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