“Anthropology.”
“Antho polly whaty?”
When I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology, I had no idea that I would be spending a good 10 minutes out of most job interviews explaining what it is and why it’s cool.
As I look back on specific experiences and seasons that have shaped me, studying anthropology at a liberal, academically rigorous college is definitely in my top three.
Just to build some bridges, whether people have had a predominantly Christian or secular college education doesn’t matter (both have value and both have disadvantages). What matters is that each of us follow where God himself is leading us (not what the people around us are doing).
As an 18 year old beginning college, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, let along study in college. After doing very well at a community college and some providential timing, I was accepted and offered a significant scholarship to attend Rollins College. It was a small liberal arts college with an exceptionally diverse anthropology program.
From challenges to my faith that I had never experienced before, shattering the primacy Eurocentric perspectives, and asking what it means to care for people who are different from me, God used this education to root me deeper in His word while simultaneously learning not to be afraid of hard questions.
Anthropology definitely isn’t for everyone. It’s uncomfortable and straddles a kind of fringe liberality that most would find questionable, but it’s where God led me and it’s something that I never regretted studying. It’s provided me with unexpected jobs, it taught me to engage with perspectives I disagree with in a non-aggressive way, it showed me the power of observation, it taught me how to love people better, and most importantly, it taught me to stand firmly on Scripture rather than following trends and traditions.
P.S. Just In case you don’t know, anthropology isn’t to be confused with the clothing store Anthropologie. It is the science of human beings. To this day it’s one of my favorite topics to discuss and a key reason I studied ethnomusicology several years later… but that’s another story. 😉
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