As an anthropology major in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, you'll study what makes us human.
Apply to anthropology
Studying anthropology will teach you how to navigate and respond to the challenges of an increasingly complex and interconnected world. As an anthropology major, you’ll gain perspective of different societies, practices, and beliefs; see how biology and culture interact; and analyze human material culture and our built environment.
Anthropology will prepare you to enter into a broad range of jobs and professions, because you will gain skills that will enable you to confront problems, issues, and situations with cultural sensitivity. UIUC anthropology graduates have gone on to careers in social services, teaching, law, medicine and health, government, international relations, business, bioscience, technology, and more.
"Everything we find fits into a larger picture of the lives of those in the past, answering the questions archaeologists are asking and unearthing new ones."
Rachel Burdette participated in a field school opportunity through the Department of Anthropology—while there, she discovered her calling.
Anthropology concentrations
Focus your education, choosing a program that targets your specific interests. In addition to general anthropology, majors can choose a concentration in archaeology, sociocultural and linguistic anthropology, or human evolutionary biology.
In archaeology, you'll explore the human past through its material remains to understand cultural and societal change through time, and the role of heritage in the present.
Human evolutionary biology allows students to examine the interconnections between genetics, environment and culture to address issues from human origins and morphology to forensics and modern health.
Sociocultural and linguistic anthropology studies the daily lives of people around the world, including detailed attention to spoken and signed languages.
Meet anthropology professors
If you major in anthropology at UIUC, you'll take interesting classes with professors doing ground-breaking research. Learn more about some of them.
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