Post 5 - Changes to my study programme

I think that one of the things that most of us students think about the most are certain changes that our curriculum or career itself could have, regarding many topics that do not favor us or that we do not like at all. 

I´m a second year student of anthropology at the faculty of social sciences at the University of Chile. And I entered this university specifically, because it manages to cover the mentions of my interest that the career includes. Such as physical anthropology and archaeology, which has as a priority the human being and his ways of developing in the world, as a whole.  

The career lasts 5 years, in which the first two are general training, and the mentions (social anthropology, physical, and archaeology) are taught at the same time or are supposed to be so, with classes such as: human evolution, hunter-gatherers, formation of society, fundamental problems of anthropology, workshops and so on. Then from the third year, one chooses the mention of his interest to practice it so that it´s your only training until the fifth year, where your subjects focus on certain topics that only the mention covers. And at the end of the career, there is the professional practice and the completion of studies with certain tests. 

From the beginning I thought that entering this university and career in particular could open the way to many opportunities with the type of profession that I will be able to obtain in the future, since this career, in this university, manages to cover the areas of my interest. However, something that keeps me disappointed, is that during this year and a half of career I have not seen the interest of this, in promoting certain subjects such as physical anthropology, but rather enhance a mention that includes the career, which is not my greatest interest. 

However, despite the above, my career, being theoretical, also includes a lot of practice, in which field trips are mostly enhanced by the great research that we as anthropologists would have to generate. But, even so, we do not have the necessary practices that we should have as anthropologists and it would be interesting to make some changes.

I believe that the academic load is not much compared to other careers, since there is not much to apply, but rather to theorize and support. But that doesn´t take away the fact that it presents certain difficulties. However, my faculty loses classes most of the time, since many times there are mobilizations on the part of the students to achieve a change and improve either the facilities of the university, improve certain actions, and even issues that should not exist as a problem. And this makes us lose certain information regarding a subject that is probably very important.

Referring to the facilities of the faculty, it could be said that they do not fulfill what was promised. Anthropology being a career often requested, often exceeds the limit of students, so the capacity of the rooms can not cover the number of students that we are, so we have to divide into groups, so that one can attend in person one week and the other is online from their homes at the same time, and so on. This can be a problem for many. 

In terms of technology, I believe that the university has sufficiently supported the rooms with equipment that achieves a good performance when we present online classes, or when certain information must be projected. But even so, there are always certain connection errors that often cause us to lose time, interest and part of the class. We also have a library, but it´s very small and really doesn't have much to offer.

As for the classes, I think that the field trips could be promoted much more, where I could be confronted with real situations in which only an anthropologist can develop. Although at the same time I would like to see that great interest of the professors in their career, and thus inspire us as future anthropologists. 

Despite all the things that do not completely fulfill me, I am very excited to continue learning and to see gradual changes in the way anthropology is taught.