| Program start date | Application deadline |
| 2023-04-24 | - |
| 2023-09-19 | - |
| 2024-01-09 | - |
Program Overview
Overview
Anthropology offers a unique and powerful means for understanding cultural and social diversity in the modern world. It considers issues which can lead to mind blowing revelations about how individuals and cultures experience life differently.
Anthropology is concerned with contemporary issues such as multiculturalism, identity politics, racism and ethnic nationalism, changing forms of the family, religious conflict, gender, and the political role of culture. It also addresses perennial questions about human nature, such as: ‘What do we have in common with each other cross-culturally?’ and ‘What makes us different?’.
If you are intrigued by these questions and want to study a discipline that will enrich your everyday life as well as equip you for a great variety of occupations, anthropology is the right course for you.
A special feature of the course at Brunel is the opportunity to do fully funded fieldwork placements anywhere in the world according to your anthropological interests. Fieldwork is excellent preparation for work and a chance to make useful contacts and will help to add greater meaning to academic studies. Around half of Brunel’s anthropology students carry out a placement or fieldwork abroad, in places as wide ranging as India, Nepal, Australia, South Africa, Papua New Guinea and Jamaica. Additionally with the fieldwork now fully funded as part of your degree, you can concentrate on your research rather than financial obstacles. Recent UK placement destinations include the Royal Anthropological Institute, Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, Amnesty International and the Department of Health.
Examples of dissertation titles based on fieldwork findings have included work in a Nepalese monastery, a South African women’s refuge, the Police Complaints Authority (on the Stephen Lawrence case), as well as in schools and charities.
Outside of classes, you can look forward to a one of the most cultural diverse campuses in the UK with opportunity to meet people from all over the world.Additionally, Brunel’s anthropological student society arrange class trips to places like the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford, and the campus’s London location makes it ideal for exploring places like the British Museum in Central London.
You can explore our campus and facilities for yourself by taking our virtual tour.
Program Outline
Course content
Through a set of compulsory modules in your first year, you will gain a firm foundation in the central themes and debates in anthropology as you are introduced to the international work carried out by the teaching staff that explores the practicalities of undertaking anthropological funded fieldwork.
In years two and three, you will follow a pre-set group of compulsory modules according, plus optional modules choices according to your interests. Below is a list of the variety of modules typically taught within the subject.
This course can be studied 3 years full-time or 4 years full-time with placement, starting in September.
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
This course has a placement option. Find out more about work placements available.
Please note that all modules are subject to change.
Read more about the structure of undergraduate degrees at Brunel.
Careers and your future
As a graduate of a three year anthropology degree, your research and fieldwork experience, which forms such a major part of our degree course, will help to set you apart from other graduates.
These placements build up fantastic experience and can connect you with organisations and people who will be invaluable when it comes to progressing your career.
Brunel anthropology graduates have gone on to work at the World Bank, UNICEF, the NHS, NGOs and charities such as Oxfam and Save the Children, as well as local government, legal sectors and the media.
Graduates have also gone on to work as teachers, journalists and research officers in the health and social sectors, and in other professions requiring knowledge of social and cultural processes.
Others go on to pursue further research degrees in anthropology and become academic anthropologists.
Assessment and feedback
There are no examinations for our anthropology degree. Assessment is typically by essay or practical assignments (for example, analysis of a short field exercise), and a dissertation of approximately 10,000 to 15,000 words based upon your own fieldwork experience anywhere in the world.
Read our guide on how to avoid plagiarism in your assessments at Brunel.
