Anthropology was the first non-Seminar Honors class that I ever took. The work wasn’t that hard; there were only four major grades (midterms, finals, the term paper that is linked at the bottom of the page, and the presentation for said term paper). Really, the meat of the class was not the grades I got, but rather the experience I took out of it.
I learned all sorts of interesting things in Anthropology. We went on two field trips, including one where we went to a college and examined an actual dead body to learn about the skeletal structure and other such things. We were taught about Stonehenge, Islam, the old families of West Virginia, Jericho, the Philippines, and many other cultures. We also learned from each other’s presentations. My paper and presentation (the paper is linked below) was about Greek mythology, and other people did papers on a wide variety of topics, from sleep disorders to the Day of the Dead. Basically, the class was all about other cultures, which gave all of us a greater appreciation of the world around us.
Because of Anthropology, I have gained a greater understanding of many other cultures, both past and present. This class fills the Diversity requirement for a reason: it helps us learn about how other groups of people live(d) their lives, and we, in turn, can learn from those other cultures. This could help us going forward, especially when dealing with foreign policy and trying to work together with other countries. If we understand how those cultures operate, we can solve foreign problems with solutions that work for everyone.
This is an essay I wrote about Greek Mythology for Anthropology class (dated November 9, 2017). It was ten pages long, and it explains pretty much everything you need to know about the creation myth, as well as the twelve major gods. I am very proud of the amount of knowledge I used to create this essay.