The study of anthropology, as well as the field research itself, enables to learn many skills that can be used in different professions.
For example, during such field research, an anthropologist makes contact with people who ware practically strangers. And it doesn’t end there. As part of their work, they must gain people’s trust and continue to maintain and cultivate these relationships.
Anthropologists often have to get out of their own comfort zone and adapt to living in unsanitary conditions or in the environment where extreme situations, such as violence, crime, adverse climatic conditions, occur. It all depends on the conditions in which the researched community lives.
Long-term field research also improves observational skills and the processing of collected data improves analytical skills. Overall, ethnographic research can be imagined as a project that requires management: starting from the research design through the actual conduction of field research and subsequent data analysis, ending with the writing of ethnography and further presentation of results.
However, communication skills, versatility, management, observational and analytical skills are not the only skills that anthropologists acquire through the study and field research. During their study, anthropologists start to realize from their own experience that all people have prejudices, and anthropologists are not the exception. As a result, they gradually learn to overcome their prejudices, not only emotionally but also through understanding. This ability of anthropologists to overcome their own prejudices makes it easier to study other people.