i want to be a forensic anthropologist...please help me!

[anthrolover]

i really want to join a forensic anthropology department! what do i need to do??? can anyone help me please?! what places should i apply?!

[anthropologygeek]

Why not do forensics on the side and do physical/biological anthropology? Jobs are not available for strictly forensics.

[noodles.galaznik]

Why not do forensics on the side and do physical/biological anthropology? Jobs are not available for strictly forensics.

This. Forensic anthropology is a really, really competitive field, and there really are not a lot of jobs strictly in forensics. I think about half of the people I graduated with are trying to get into forensic anthro. If you want to work in forensics really bad, consider approaching it from another angle. For instance, the archaeology grad student I worked with last year did forensic work in palynology for the CIA. I'm interested in forensics, too, but I'm in a criminology program, to look at forensics from a sociological perspective.

[mutualist007]

i really want to join a forensic anthropology department! what do i need to do??? can anyone help me please?! what places should i apply?!

More power to you. I prefer to work with dry materials myself. But anyway, if I was only doing Forensics I would apply to UT Knoxville, some fine forensic specialty schools in England, and Mercyhurst mainly for the sheer number of Forensic Anthropologists they have on faculty.

Mercyhurst Forensic Anthropology

http://mai.mercyhurst.edu/academics/applied-forensic-sciences/undergraduate-studies/concentrations/forensic-anthropology/

UT Knoxville

http://web.utk.edu/~anthrop/graduate.html

It may be a tight market but it seems like JPAC (Defense Dept) is always looking. Train with Forensic in mind, get some other chemical skills under belt and prepare to teach.

A lot of professors end up getting some aciton (legal examiner/forensic identification calls) on the side.

More about JPAC

http://www.jpac.pacom.mil/index.php?page=fsa

[funny_bone]

You should look into Texas State University in San Marcos, TX. I know it's not a huge school, but they recently created a forensic anthropology department, complete with a body farm for research. It's worth looking into. =)