Anthropology’s Response to Finding Jobs for Its Undergraduates

Experiential Learning Opportunities

In 2001, David Thornton Moore wrote about the benefits of experiential learning for anthropology students that included the opportunity to apply theory one has learned in class, the ability to give back to the community, as well as the personal development and the value-added to students’ education. Moore also argued that these experiential learning opportunities, whether they were service-learning, research, or internship-based, better-prepared students for “later careers and civic engagements, even if those things have nothing to do with anthropological concepts” (2001: 20). This latter point introduces the force behind this article for which I continue Moore’s call for undergraduate students in anthropology to have “real world” experience in a historical moment where the usefulness of anthropology as a discipline is being questioned and where our value is increasingly being measured against the bottom line.

Having been on the job market for just over a year and half and called for interviews at both colleges and universities, I was pleasantly surprised at the number of faculties that could boast about their robust experiential learning initiatives. This is in contrast to Moore’s findings just over 10 years ago where he saw anthropological approaches to experiential learning to be idiosyncratic and inchoate and called for a community of practice among anthropologists (2001: 20). Service learning and experiential education opportunities for social science and humanities students have indeed become more institutionalized; for example, surveying a few universities located in southwestern Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University has the Laurier Centre for Community Service—learning where students can choose from placement—or project-based service learning, or pick up a co-curricular service option on their weekends or reading week; the University of Guelph has an Institute for Community Engaged Scholarship where undergraduates from across campus have the opportunity to conduct research with community partners under the guidance of senior graduate students and faculty; and McMaster University’s Experiential Education services include opportunities for internships, and both career and academic placements. Notably, these examples are, in some cases, tailored towards social science and humanities students. While I still do not see movement toward a community of practice for experiential learning among anthropologists, interested faculty can join with other like-minded instructors to use the resources of these offices, which provide guidance for both faculty and students alike.

In my experience, anthropology students tend to forego experiential education outside of academic research due to the opportunities that exist for students within the university. For example, students majoring in archaeology often have the opportunity to conduct lab-based research measuring artifacts, while sociocultural students may be asked to assist in the facilitation or transcription of interviews. While such opportunities provide a deeper level of understanding of theories and practices within academia, I argue that they fail undergraduates in two very important ways: (1) There is a failure of academics to close the circle on such learning by teaching their students how to talk-about the skills they have gained in a manner that would engage employers; and (2) Community-based or service-learning opportunities, that is, those opportunities located outside the classroom or laboratory, provide a skillset that may be arguably more identifiable to non-academic employers.

My first point is a call to individual anthropologists working with undergraduates to ensure the professional development of all members of their research team through, for example, sharing successful resumes and cover letters or, allowing undergraduate interns to sit in job talks or mock interviews set up by the department. As for my second point, it was not until my postdoctoral research that I understood the different skills that came with community-based research. I first learned how to successfully lead a meeting and negotiate varying agendas when we developed our research goals and methodologies in tandem with members of the community and our funding partners. When collecting data in the community, I learned how best to handle the stress of deadlines (without the option for an extension) and the importance of managing the expectations of my colleagues in order to keep on-track with my project goals. I came to realize that clear communication was a skill that one needs to develop and which is dependent on context. Researcher accountability took on a new meaning as community investment meant that my stakeholders had in fact paid for my services, the outcomes of which affected next year’s budget. When thinking about knowledge transfer and exchange, I found myself writing numerous summaries of my findings for various audiences and presenting at council meetings and community nights. Through these experiences, I found the community to be a very complex entity with varying agendas and one which I could use to answer challenging questions during an interview and which showed my breadth of experience beyond my academic pursuits.

I am not arguing that experiential opportunities in academic or research-based learning are not useful; however, we need to ensure that students receive the proper mentorship in order to be able to translate those skills learned in academic projects into workplace skills. Secondly, if instructors and anthropology departments are willing to invest more effort into providing community-based experiences for undergraduates, students will be able to sit in an interview and convey their skills to a future manager, such as their experience organizing a community event, developing a volunteer schedule, or working with provincial or national policy—all of which demonstrate a set of experiences and skills that might set them apart from the next candidate. With both Canadian and US economies struggling to give recent graduates opportunities for gainful employment, giving anthropology and other social science and humanities students the ability to talk about their transferable skillset and seeking out opportunities for them to engage in service-learning and community-based internships should become a mandatory part of our undergraduate education.

Jennifer Long is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations at The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. Her research examines settlement and integration programming in the Canadian and Dutch context.

Melissa Fellin (U Western Ontario) is the contributing editor for CAE AN column. Suggestions and contributions can be sent to mm.stachel@gmail.com.

via Anthropology-News http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2013/06/17/anthropologys-response-to-finding-jobs-for-its-undergraduates/