RESUME LANGUAGE FOR ANTHROPOLOGICAL ABILITIES
(adapted from Omohundro 1998)
Social agility - In an unfamiliar social
or career-related setting, you learn to size up quickly the "rules of the
game." You can become accepted more quickly than you could without
anthropology.
Observation - As you must often learn about a culture from within it, you
learn how to interview and observe as a participant.
Planning - You learn how to find
patterns in the behavior of a cultural group.
This allows you to generalize about their behavior and predict what they
might do in a given situation.
Social sensitivity - While other people's ways of doing things may be different from
your own, you learn the importance of events and conditions that have
contributed to this difference. You
also recognize that other cultures view your ways as strange. You learn the value of behaving toward others
with appropriate preparation, care and understanding.
Accuracy in interpreting
behavior -
You become familiar with the range of behavior in different
cultures. You learn how to look at
cultural causes of behavior before assigning causes yourself.
Challenging conclusions - You lean that analyses of human behavior are open to
challenge. You learn how to use new
knowledge to test past conclusions.
Interpreting information - You learn how to use data collected by others, reorganizing or
interpreting it to reach original conclusions.
Simplifying information - As anthropology is conducted among publics as well as about them,
you learn how to simplify technical information for communication to
non-technical people.
Contextualizing - Attention to details is
a trait of anthropology. However, you
learn that any detail might not be as important as its context, and can even be
misleading when contexts is ignored.
Problem-solving - Often functioning within a cultural group, or acting upon
culturally sensitive issues, you learn to approach problems with care. Before acting, you lean how to identify the
problem, set your goals, decide upon the actions you will take, and calculate
possible effects on other people.
Persuasive writing - Anthropology strives to represent the behavior of one group to
another group, and is in continual need of interpretation. You lean the value of bringing someone else
to your view through written argument.
Social perspective - You learn how to perceive the acts of individuals and local
groups as cause and effect of larger sociocultural systems. This enables you to "act locally and
think globally."
02/23/2000