Bachelor's in Anthropology

Williams College has a rich history and a strong commitment to providing a well-rounded, top-tier education. Williams College offers a wide range of undergraduate programs across various disciplines in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The college is known for its rigorous academic standards and small class sizes, which facilitate close interactions between students and faculty. Williams places a strong emphasis on critical thinking, analytical skills, and intellectual curiosity, preparing graduates to excel in a diverse array of careers and fields. With a stunning rural campus surrounded by the Berkshire Mountains and a vibrant community of scholars, Williams College offers a truly immersive and intellectually stimulating environment for students seeking a liberal arts education of the highest quality.

The disciplines of anthropology and sociology aim to teach students how to enter into the social/cultural worlds of others, how to grasp those worlds from the viewpoints of their inhabitants, and how to articulate those denizens’ habits of mind, worldviews, and values to broader audiences. Anthropology critically analyzes social forms and practices in all their local and global diversity, illuminating the cultural grounding of the ideologies, narratives, and structures in which we are all implicated. Archaeology extends this analysis to social formations of the historical and prehistorical past. Sociology studies the nature and trajectories of modernity, examining the intricacies of industrial and post-industrial societies and the dilemmas that confront individuals in modern social systems. These disciplines introduce students to classical and contemporary theories that illuminate the contours and contradictions of social experience. The Anthropology & Sociology program promotes a critical engagement with these diverse schools of thought while at the same time bringing evidence and case studies into conversation with theory.