Best Minor for an Anthropology Major?

[Minimalist]

Who wouldn't?

[paleochick]

You can borrow mine

[Minimalist]

You've got one of those?


I mean a hat.

[paleochick]

[uniface]

Re-assess your assumption that degrees correlate with employment. They don't. They only correlate 1:1 with crushing debt.

My sister parlayed her (completed) PhD coursework (astronomy) into a research labs job when she realized her job prospects were essentially zero. A couple extra night courses while she worked and she had an engineering degree. And that was 30 years ago

A good friend with a PhD dissertation finished (but "on-hold" pending discovery and analysis of the right pre-Clovis horizon to validate it) in anthropology with extensive, top shelf excavation and lab experience considers himself lucky to have a job at Home Depot doing computer stuff.

Get a job (if you can) on the side where you can learn a useful trade that's in genuine demand. Like heating and air conditioning. Degrees are no longer tickets to a viable job. Ask around.

My dos centavos

[Digit]

Degrees are no longer tickets to a viable job. Ask around.

That I find depends on what the degree is for, a 2.1 degree in engineering is likely to be more jobworthy than than a first class degree in Art History.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

McDonalds hires lots of Art majors.

[Digit]

Exactly Min. Our late unlamented leader decided that 50% of school leavers must go to university, as they didn't have the brains he arranged to lower the entry requirements and allowed such degrees as a Major in pop music to proliferate.
Despite having had a university education himself he seemed unable to understand that the end result would be lots of graduates with 'Mickey Mouse' degrees that were worth nothing in the employment market.
Like you we have graduates waiting table and facing large debts. I did mine the hard way and took seven years but avoided any debts.

Roy.

[paleochick]

TY Uni.

[Minimalist]

We have pretty much the same problem, Dig. And we can't blame one politician for it. We did it to ourselves.

Our schools are so bad they allowed Bush to graduate from Yale!

http://2004.georgewbush.org/bios/yale-transcript.asp

[Digit]

I listened to a politician the other day complaining about our youth having to pay for university courses and explaining how in his day it was free.
I left state school at 15, as did all my generation, and applied for a geology course at my nearest university, geology being at that time Min the route into archaeology.
As my father was unskilled I could obtain a grant, in that sense the education was free, but my parents would still have to help with books, travel, living expenses etc.
My state school teacher warned about little job chances if I followed my chosen course, he suggested I try engineering as he knew that I was deeply into aviation and electronics, so I applied to join the RAF, where I was rejected for flight training due to poor eyesight.
As I was still too young for a civilian apprenticeship or to take up a university course I took an engineering course at your equivalent of High School.
At the end of the course I left home, aged 16, and was granted an apprenticeship in the aircraft industry, then began a series of unusual events that guided my choices for many years to come.
I signed in at the local Technical College to study engineering, and at the end of the first year I was taken aside and given the single most important choice of my young life.
The college wished to obtain university status, to do so thay had to prove that they could do it, and I was offered a chance to transfer from the ordinary technical course to the university course, but with the caveat I that would not be granted a formal degree.
Two years into the course I had a motor cycle accident that was expected to kill me.
I left hospital after three weeks and entered a long period of physio. In addition to my physical injuries I suffered considerable brain damage and could not concentrate, also I was left partially deaf and had trouble following the lectures.
The result was that I failed one paper, the college refunded my exam fees and entered me for the same course the following year.
In my final year my brother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and transferred to a specialist hospital in London. As I had lost my driver's license to epilepsy my parents and I travelled to London every Friday afternoon till he died.
The course finished in June with the finals to follow, when I was informed that I would not be allowed to sit the exams as I had not obtained the requisite attendance levels.
The college protested on my behalf as I was what you call a straight A student, but the governing body would only offer a free course the following year.
I was by this time 23 and had been in education since age 4, and I told them what they could do with it!
As the college was not enabled to award me a formal BSC anyway, and it was the education that was more important than a piece of paper, I was more annoyed than anything.
Thus my 'university' course lasted for 6 yrs and cost me both quite a lot of money for books, magazines etc, plus my social life as home study took at least an hour an evening on top of a 47 hr week.
That was my 'free' education!
And do you know what Min, the only time I was asked to prove my qualifications was for the management to quell a threatened strike!

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

he seemed unable to understand that the end result would be lots of graduates with 'Mickey Mouse' degrees

Well, his conversion gave you a good yardstick of the man's intellect, didn't it? So that shouldn't surprise anybody.

[Digit]

Apparently RS some of our present day degree courses require 11 hours of study per week for three years, and the students readily admit that most of the rest of the time is taken up with wine women and song!
Then they expect employers to bow before them.

Roy.

[Barracuda]

Just one hint. One place outside of academia that does provide paying jobs in Archeology is you state department of transportation!

The jobs would be classified as "environmental" something or other. They have to have people on staff to evaluate finds on road building construction sites. Like many government jobs you do not have to know how to do the work or have the qualifications to do the work, you just need to be able to administer the contract with a consulting firm.

[Minimalist]

I have a very dear friend who, at the age of 40 decided to go back to college at night as she also has a full time job and was, at the time still supporting her two kids. She has done very well and is close to getting her B.A. but some of what she has described in her classes makes it sound like high school. Quizzes. Tests every other week. When I went to college it was a mid-term, a final, a bunch or papers, and the prof didn't give a rats ass if you showed up or not. I know things have changed but the lowest common denominator does not seem to serve anyone particularly well.

That's quite a story, Dig.