Undergraduate Resources
Study Abroad
As an anthropology major, we encourage you to consider enrolling in a study abroad program. These programs can offer direct experience of another culture, intensive language training, as well as excellent coursework in anthropology. By consulting with your departmental advisors as well as with UNC’s Study Abroad Office, you can assess the relevance of available programs to your interests and degree requirements. As part of your planning, you should talk to your advisor or the Director of Undergraduate Studies to arrange beforehand for transfer credit hours to count toward your anthropology major. Study abroad programs are often affordable even to students who require financial aid. Information about student loans and scholarships for the purpose of studying abroad can be readily obtained from UNC’s Study Abroad Office.
For information about study abroad programs, call the Study Abroad Office (919) 962-7002. Students may also wish to consult the Summer School about its own study abroad program. The Summer School telephone number is (919) 966-4364.
Medical Anthropology Minors
Study abroad is a fantastic learning opportunity and we encourage medical anthropology students to travel and learn globally! Contact the DUS in Anthropology and/or Professor Rivkin-Fish before you decide on a program to ensure that the courses offered may be counted towards your Medical Anthropology Minor. We will need a syllabus to evaluate whether the course can be counted toward your degree at UNC.
Medical Anthropology is not the same as Public Health…
The Medical Anthropology Minor focuses on teaching students about the theories and methods of the specific field of medical anthropology. This approach differs from courses in kindred fields such as Global Health, Public Health, Health Policy, Comparative Health Systems, etc., and we cannot grant credit for courses that address issues of health, but do not do so from an anthropological perspective.
Course titles are often unclear, unspecific, and confusing about a course’s disciplinary approach!
You often can’t tell what the course content will be from a title alone. Sometimes a course may be called “Global Health” and it DOES present medical anthropological approaches, but sometimes it does not. This is why a syllabus is necessary for the course to be evaluated.
What criteria does UNC’s Medical Anthropology Department use to assess a course?
When assessing a course from another university for credit towards the Medical Anthropology Minor, we look for the following elements:
- inclusion of anthropological methods, including participant-observation, ethnographic inquiry, and comparative human biology;
- attention to cultural, historical, socioecological, and political-economic forces as necessary for understanding health issues;
- readings that are published in anthropological journals and contribute to debates regarding anthropological theory, methods, and interpretation;
- student research that includes anthropological theory and methods and refers to published anthropological literature.
Honors Program and Thesis
Writing an honors thesis is an excellent way to cap one’s major in Anthropology. The process offers students the chance to carry out original research on a topic they are passionate about. Our thesis writers work closely with a faculty advisor and committee members to develop their project. The department provides excellent support, offering a specific seminar during the fall (ANTH 691H) and a corresponding independent study (ANTH 692), that together walk students through the essential steps of research design and writing. For our students, writing a honors thesis continues to prove a pivotal experience–at once a capstone to their studies at UNC and an achievement to carry with them into their lives and careers beyond.
- Maintain a minimum Grade Point Average of 3.3 from the spring semester of the junior year through the entirety of the senior year
- Secure a faculty advisor who is an anthropologist at UNC.
- Successfully complete the ANTH 691H and 692H sequence
- Receive approval from UNC’s Office for Human Research Ethics prior to the start of research, for all project involving human subjects
Process
1) Students considering an honor thesis should first contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies or the Honors Thesis Seminar Instructor, during their junior year (or earlier).
2) Eligible students next should secure an advisor prior to enrolling in ANTH 691H for the fall semester of their senior year. Typically, one’s advisor is a professor they have worked with in classes, or faculty with shares interests.
3) In the fall Honors Thesis Seminar, ANTH 691H, students develop their research design and begin to write their thesis.
4) In the spring, students complete an independent study, ANTH 692H, with their advisor, focusing on writing the thesis. Students also form their committee, by adding two additional faculty members.
5) To complete the process, students ‘defend’ (i.e. present and discuss) their thesis to their committee, before submitting it to the university to receive the Honors distinction.
You may find it difficult to choose or settle upon a topic for research and writing. Students eager and qualified to pursue an honors thesis often begin with the question: “What can I possibly research or write about!?” Investigate possible subject areas and topics in several ways. A particularly memorable course, for instance, might be a source of ideas to explore further; you may have a class paper that could be expanded in depth, or a provocative topic or intellectual issue that remains of interest.
You might approach a favorite professor and ask if, in addition to serving as your honors advisor, he or she has research materials in need of analysis. If you had the opportunity to attend a field school during the summer between your junior and senior years, the subject area and topic of your study could be further researched. These approaches to choosing a topic for research and writing often result in the most satisfying honors experience because you continue to work with your own experiences and materials as well as with ideas and subject areas of interest to you. But, be advised that, however personal, successful honors projects always are based on topics, problems, and methodologies finalized in consultation with your faculty advisor.
Additionally, you may apply for funds to support the activities (travel, equipment; books and related materials, etc.) necessary to carry out your research project. Funds are available from the Honors College Undergraduate Research Award Program as well as the Center for Global Initiatives, if your research concerns a non-U.S. topic. There may be other funding sources available on campus such as the Office of Undergraduate Research, and you can consult with the DUS and your advisor about such possibilities.
Anthropology 691H typically is devoted to narrowing and organizing your topic and methodology and to your carrying out basic research and analysis/interpretation. This course usually culminates with finalizing a thesis outline agreed upon by you and your advisor. Anthropology 692H covers the formal writing and production (supplemental illustrations, etc.) of your thesis. You will receive a grade of “S” (satisfactory progress) in Anth 691H. The “S” grade for ANTH 691H then will be converted to a permanent letter grade, and a letter grade assigned for ANTH 692H, upon successful defense of your thesis.
Throughout the year you probably will have regular (e.g., bi-weekly) meetings with your advisor, although details vary by professor. Discussion during these meetings most likely will move from defining a feasible problem (early fall) to effective writing of your investigation (mid-spring).
Early in the spring semester, and in consultation with your advisor, you will select an additional two faculty members who will advise you on the written aspect of your project and serve as members of the committee to which you will present a formal oral “defense” of your thesis. You should plan on having a preliminary draft of your honors thesis completed and distributed to these three faculty members by mid-March (keeping to this deadline also means that your thesis will be eligible to be reviewed for the Honigmann Award, an award presented to the student in UNC’s Anthropology Department who has completed the best undergraduate honors project in that discipline.) It is advisable that you meet with each faculty member of your committee in a timely manner, in order to receive their suggestions for any changes to your written thesis in time to submit to them a revised draft well-before the formal defense.
“Defense” (or the milder, “oral exam”) is a bit of a misnomer. By the time you and your faculty advisor have spent a year with your project, with at least one round of critique and revision with your committee, your formal defense of your thesis project probably will be a bit more refined than the military connotations of the term ‘defense.’ Seated before your faculty advisor and two committee faculty, you most likely will be asked to begin your presentation by giving a succinct summary of your problem, research methods, and findings. Faculty then might seek some insight into the background of your project. They may have questions about your execution of the research (why you chose a particular approach or methodology over another, for instance). They may have stylistic issues concerning the manner in which you chose to write your thesis. They may want to explore what you might choose to do next with the subject, had you time and research funding to pursue it further. In general, these ‘defenses’ are congenial and informative occasions, intellectually fun for faculty and for the student as well, as soon as nervousness subsides. The timing of the defense is up to you and your committee, but the date of the formal defense ought to allow for any further changes, printing and preparation of figures or illustrations (with the usual computer glitches, etc.) and comfortably meet key deadlines set by the Honors College (it is critical that you know deadline dates, always set by the Honors College).
Your faculty committee then will decide if you are to be awarded your degree with Honors. In rare cases, they may also recommend the designation “Highest Honors.” “Highest Honors” remains reserved for projects in which the thesis truly is exceptional (by honors thesis standards) and often follows on an unusually distinguished record of student undergraduate performance.
You must register your thesis with the Honors College, via the on-line Honors College Database Archive for Senior Honors Projects. You must present two unbound copies of your thesis to the department/Director of Undergraduate Studies, along with a letter from your advisor stating the results of the defense, by two weeks before the beginning of the examination period for the semester in which your defense is held (this schedule can be adapted to suit students who take the 691H-692H sequence on a Spring-Fall schedule). One copy will be retained by the department. One copy will be bound by and archived in the North Carolina Collection of Wilson Library. Please adhere to the thesis formatting instructions of the UNC Honors Program.
Independent Study
Independent study courses provide an opportunity for students to pursue a special research or academic interest under the direction of a faculty member of the Department of Anthropology.
A student who wishes to pursue an independent study should write a research proposal and contact a faculty member who teaches in the research area of interest to supervise the project. After identifying a faculty supervisor, the student must complete an Independent Study Learning Contract through the Online Learning Contract Manager (OLCM) and a research proposal outlining the specific details of the semester-long project. Students should complete this process before the semester begins.
Deadline: The Independent Study Learning Contract must be completed and approved by both the faculty supervisor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies by the Friday of the second week of classes for fall and spring semesters; for summer semesters, the contracts must be completed and approved by the Friday of the first week of classes.
If you have questions about independent study or the approval process, please contact the Student Services Manager, Katie Poor.
Career Tracks
There are three basic career routes for BA-level anthropology majors:
- Anthropology majors have open to them all of the career options of any student with a bachelor of arts degree in the liberal arts and social sciences, with the added advantage that they surely are more prepared than most in the growing international arena of business, government, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The resources and professional staff of University Career Services and the department’s director of undergraduate studies can provide guidance.
- Anthropology majors can seek a career that puts their anthropology degree directly into practice.
- Lastly, anthropology majors can continue with graduate education in order to seek a career in education, either as a social studies teacher in a school or a professor in a university.
Links
Careers in Academic Anthropology – The Graduate School Route
University Career Services Office
The Anthropology Department’s Undergraduate Career Advisor
Internships
Anthropology 393, Internship in Anthropology, provides you as an anthropology student with the opportunity to engage in internships within or beyond the University which have a significant anthropological learning component.
An internship related to anthropology can be a very rewarding experience. An internship with an anthropological component can be a rich and challenging opportunity for you to engage in “hands-on” learning in anthropology, allowing you to apply and extend your anthropological knowledge. Particularly when such an internship is in an agency with a demonstrable anthropological objective, e.g. the Smithsonian Institution, it may have direct bearing on a future career in practicing or academic anthropology (see the section on Career Tracks). Internships in an agency without specific objectives in anthropology may also be potentially valuable in learning more about “practicing anthropology” — indeed, it may help you to think originally about how you might practice anthropology in a future career (see the section Practicing Anthropology). In short, there are many good intellectual reasons for doing an internship, and beside, a successful one can be lots of fun!
Irrespective of the agency for whom you are planning to do an internship, it is up to you to define the “anthropological component” of the internship to the satisfaction of the Department faculty member sponsoring your internship and of the Director of Undergraduate Studies. For advice, see your advisor.
Variable credit may be obtained for this course, although usually you register for 3 credit hours. Anthropology 393 is a “controlled enrollment” course which you can’t register for through ConnectCarolina without the permission in advance of (a) the Department faculty member sponsoring the internship, (b) a responsible official of the agency in you intend to do the internship, and (c) the Director of Undergraduate Studies, who will register you for it.
It is essential that you make arrangements and secure permissions prior to the semester of the internship!
Important Reminders
1. No credit is given for internships in progress or completed before a contract is signed. The contract must be signed by all parties before the first day of your internship. Students will not be allowed to enroll in internship hours after the first week of classes.
2. Under normal circumstances, you can only get 3 hours of credit for Anthropology 393, and you may only do one such internship.
3. Find an internship and faculty supervisor early – before or during preregistration. If you wait longer than this, your chances of getting either are greatly diminished. You are not guaranteed a faculty supervisor just because you have located an acceptable internship.
4. Internships do not automatically qualify for academic credit; the internship must have a hands-on work component and be meaningfully related to the study of anthropology, as determined by your faculty advisor.
5. It is your responsibility to meet all of the deadlines and the other internship contract provisions in order to receive credit.
6. If you have any problems at the internship, it is your responsibility to speak with your faculty supervisor immediately. By way of example, if you begin an internship and you find that the activities, duties or supervision are not what you expected, contact your faculty supervisor at once.
7. At the beginning of the internship, you should discuss with your faculty supervisor the criteria which will determine your grade.
By its very nature, an internship involves a three-part arrangement between you as a student, a faculty member with whom you will study for academic credit, and some outside organization for which you agree to work for several hours per week to further the goals of that organization. Thus, you should think of yourself as a student forming one part of a three-part contractual arrangement.
As such an internship arrangement must be both flexible and academically rigorous. The “Requirements for an Internship” section and within that the “Internship Contract” point eleven provide you with essential information needed to initiate an internship arrangement, as well as required forms that you will need to file with the Director of Undergraduate Studies in order for your internship to be approved.
Please note the following important points:
You must secure approval in writing of an individual faculty member with whom you wish to study, an official of the organization with which you hope to serve, and the Director of Undergraduate Studies prior to the beginning of your internship. Failure to do so can result in your being denied academic credit for any work you carry out within an outside organization.
You must take independent initiative to set up your internship; this will be your responsibility, not that of an individual faculty member, nor of the Director of Undergraduate Studies of the Anthropology Department — although we may be able to provide guidance and advice in your quest.
If you need assistance finding an internship, you may begin by consulting the resources that are available through University Career Services, 211 Hanes Hall or 962-6507. UCS is an excellent source of information and assistance. Information on more than 2,000 internships in this country and abroad, including over 250 internships in the Triangle area, is available on the Internship Finder database in the UCS Library and through the UCS homepage. Announcements of internship opportunities are also circulated through the Anthropology Major’s email list to which all students can subscribe. However, the Director of Undergraduate Studies is available to provide assistance and information.
Generally, for academic credit you will need to keep a journal of work done for the outside organization and your reflections on its anthropological significance, and you will need to complete a course paper of the length specified by your faculty supervisor.
Your faculty supervisor will set with you a deadline by which he or she will need to receive both your journal and your course paper from you, for grading purposes. It is your responsibility to honor this deadline.
1. Purpose of Anthropology 393 Internship The two purposes of the internship are: a) to provide you as a UNC-CH student with the opportunity to earn academic credit while obtaining appropriate, practical work experience, demonstrably related to the study of anthropology; and b) to enable you to develop the research basis necessary to write a high-quality research or project paper on a topic related to your work as an intern at the agency or organization. There are no prerequisites for the Anthropology 393 Internship, and it is open to majors and non-majors alike.
2. Types of Internship Agencies or Organizations The work of the sponsoring agency must be meaningfully connected to the study of anthropology. It is your responsibility to find your own internship, and to make the case that it has a significant anthropological component to your potential faculty supervisor and to the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
3. Tasks of Interns at Agencies Although some routine administrative tasks are required of any professional employee, we expect that the majority of your work as an intern work will be directed towards the substantive mission of the agency and that the tasks will be of a quality and nature that will justify the award of academic credit to you. In an agency that serves clients, for example, you asn an intern must have recurrent contacts with the client population whose problems the agency is addressing. You should make sure that your agency supervisor is informed explicitly of these Departmental expectations.
4. Academic Credit and Limitations With respect to academic credit, you are:
a) normally limited to a maximum of 3 hours of academic credit for an Anthropology 393 Internship. Internships whose duration exceeds a single semester or which involve an extended period of intensive work (e.g., international research or fieldwork) may count for up to a maximum of 6 hours of academic credit, depending upon the particular circumstances of the experience.
b) limited to one Anthropology 393 Internship.
5. Your Faculty Supervisor Your faculty supervisor must be a member of the Department of Anthropology. You are responsible for finding a faculty supervisor who will work with you. (If you are at a complete loss, the Director of Graduate Studies may be able to help.) Even if you find an internship, you are not guaranteed a faculty sponsor. Therefore, you are strongly advised to secure a faculty supervisor early.
6. Prior Approval of Internships Required You may not receive credit for any Anthropology 393 Internship unless you obtain approval for it before you begin the internship. Under no circumstances may you receive credit for an internship in progress or completed before the internship contract is signed.
7. Procedure for Prior Approval of Internships The procedure for securing approval to undertake an internship for academic credit varies slightly according to the time of year your internship is to occur:
a) Fall and Spring Semester Internships: If you will be working at an internship during the fall or spring semester, you should arrange the internship, obtain the faculty supervisor’s approval, and sign the internship contract during preregistration the semester prior to the internship. However, in the event that this is not possible, you should complete and return the internship contract to the Director of Undergraduate Studies no later than the first week of classes. The internship contract must be signed by all parties concerned and turned in to the Director of Undergraduate Studies’ Office before the first day of the internship. After the first week of classes, no additional students will be allowed to enroll in internship hours.
b) Summer Internships: a summer internship will be considered for approval only if you have obtained a faculty supervisor, completed arrangements with the agency, and turned in the internship contract before your internship starts. For summer internships, credit for Anthropology 393 is earned and the research or project paper is completed during the fall semester following the summer internship.
c) Summer School Credit Internships: A student may complete a summer internship for summer session credit only if the student secures a faculty sponsor who will be available to the student during that session. The requirements for summer session internships are the same as for other Anthropology 393 internships.
8. Internship Hours Requirement As an intern, you must work a minimum of 8 hours per week at the internship placement, for a total minimum of 100 hours per semester. This is the minimum number of hours. If you miss hours one week, you are expected to make up these hours. These required hours are roughly equivalent to the number of hours you would spend in class and preparing for class during an ordinary course over a semester. The same minimum number of hours are required for summer and summer school session internships.
9. Research or Project Paper Requirement A high-quality research paper or equivalent research task on a topic related to the internship is generally expected of you as an intern. The length of the paper, the date due, and the topic or project are to be determined by your faculty supervisor and you in consultation.
10. Journal Requirement You are required to keep an internship journal containing daily entries. These entries should set out your activities at the internship that day; your impressions and perceptions of those activities; reflections on how that day’s work relates to your service and learning objectives; and outline action that you plan to take at the agency in the future based on what you learned that day. Bring your journal with you when you meet with your faculty supervisor.
11. Internship Contract The internship contract sets out the Anthropology 393 requirements and the particular tasks and goals for your internship as determined by you, the agency and your faculty supervisor. You must obtain the contract forms from the departmental website (to download, click any of the internship contract links on this page), from the Department Registrar, or from the Director of Undergraduate Studies, and you are responsible for taking the contract to the agency and faculty supervisors for completion. You, your agency supervisor and your faculty supervisor must all sign the contract. You must then return the contract to the Director of Undergraduate Studies who approves and files it. You must provide copies of the Contract to your faculty advisor and your agency supervisor. The contract should be turned in no later than the end of the first week of classes, and it must be signed and returned to all parties before the first day of the internship.
12. Meetings with Your Faculty Supervisor You are required to meet periodically with your faculty supervisor to discuss the research or project paper, your progress in the internship, and any internship-related problems. The number of meetings, times and dates are to be determined by your faculty supervisor. If problems arise at the site of the internship, you are required to contact the faculty supervisor immediately.
13. Review of Research Involving Human Subjects University policy requires that research involving human subjects show due regard for the protection of their individual privacy and welfare. When the learning component of your internship entails research that might potentially infringe upon the privacy, the rights, or the welfare of its participants (be they agency clients or staff), you are required to file an Internal Processing Form with the Department for review and submission to the Academic Affairs Institutional Review Board. By way of example, such a procedure would be necessary in the following situations:
a) when the topic of your internship research paper deals with information which, if revealed, would potentially harm the agency or its clients;
b) when in the execution of internship duties related to your research, you are exposed to information concerning particular instances of illegal activity (e.g., domestic violence);
c) when, in the name of your research, you elicit information from agency staff or clients which, because of the risk to their welfare that its disclosure would entail, requires the obtention of informed consent and/or the assurance of anonymity.
If there are any questions, you should speak with your faculty supervisor immediately.
14. Evaluation The Director of Undergraduate Studies will provide you with an evaluation sheet to give your agency supervisor. (The sheet will specify the date by which it must be returned to the Director of Undergraduate Studies.) The Director of Undergraduate Studies will give the completed evaluation to your faculty supervisor to assist that person in assigning a final grade to the student.
Your faculty supervisor is responsible for providing the grade to the student and to the Department at the end of the semester. The faculty supervisor determines what weight will be given to the student and agency evaluations, the journal and the paper. These criteria and their relative importance are to be made explicit to the student at the beginning of the internship. The faculty supervisor’s grade on the faculty grade form will be your final grade.
1. Requirements: Before or during preregistration, obtain and carefully read a copy of the Requirements for the Anthropology 393 Internship. If you have questions or need assistance, see the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Dr. Margaret Scarry.
2. Find an Internship: Before or during preregistration, find an internship and make tentative arrangements with that agency for you to work there the following semester or summer. University Career Services may be helpful in this.
3. Find a Faculty Supervisor: You need an anthropology faculty supervisor for your internship. Set up an appointment with your potential faculty supervisor to discuss the internship and the requirements. If you need assistance in locating a faculty supervisor, contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
4. Get the Right Forms: You need copies of the following: a) an Anthropology 393 internship contract b) the Agency Evaluation sheet, and c) the Release and Agreement Statements. These forms can be downloaded from any of the internship contract links on this page, or obtained from the Department Registrar or Director of Undergraduate Studies.
5. The Internship Contract: The completion of the internship contract should be done in the following manner:
a) Take the Internship contract to the internship agency. Meet with the agency supervisor and fill out the top section of the contract, including the sections “Description of Agency” (Section I, B) and “Nature of the Internship and Responsibilities” (Section III, A-F). Both participants must sign the contract. At the same meeting, give the Agency Evaluation Form to the agency supervisor.
b) Take the Internship Contract, signed by you and the agency supervisor, to your faculty supervisor. Secure the faculty supervisor’s final approval of the internship as set out in the contract and obtain his/her signature.
c) Make three copies of the completed contract, to be distributed by you as follows: original contract to the Director of Undergraduate Studies; a copy for you; a copy to the agency supervisor; and a copy to the faculty supervisor.
d) Take the completed original contract and the signed Release and Agreement Statements to the Director of Undergraduate Studies. The originals, reviewed and approved by the Director of Undergraduate Studies, remain in his/her office.
6. Internal Processing Form for Research Involving Human Subjects: When the learning component of the your internship entails research that might potentially infringe upon the privacy, the rights or the welfare of its participants (be they agency clients or staff), you are required to file an Internal Processing Form with the Department for review and submission to the Academic Affairs Institutional Review Board (AA-IRB). The Form is available from the Director of Undergraduate Studies. If there are any questions, you should speak with your faculty supervisor.
7. Permission to Add Form: Obtain a “Permission to Add” form from the departmental office in order to register for Anthropology 393. You may not register for Anthropology 393 through CAROLINE; you can only register through the department. Take the permission form to your faculty supervisor for his or her signature. Take the signed form to the Director of Undergraduate Studies, who will then register you for the course.
8. Agency Evaluation: For internships completed during the fall or spring semesters, a month before the internship is to end, remind the agency supervisor of the Agency Evaluation Form. Ask your agency supervisor to send the completed sheet to the Director of Undergraduate Studies before the last week of class. For summer internships, the Agency Evaluation Form should be completed and sent during the last week of the internship.