Anthropology

Growing up in Cincinnati, Transylvania University senior Abby Cullen couldn’t quite put her thumb on what she wanted to do with her life. “That unsettled me,” she admits. But she hoped to work for the consumer. “I knew that, as a business person, I wanted to ensure that the customer was being respected and represented, and that their voice was always something in the back of our minds,” she explains. At the same time, she wanted the business to be successful. She just wasn’t sure how to “encapsulate it.” Although anthropology might not be seen as a traditional major for someone interested in business, Cullen says the discipline has helped her develop “very pertinent skillsets that apply to business fields.” She has made connections between the broad, structural theories she’s learned in the classroom and how to think about them in the context of the relationship between business and consumer. “I don’t think I had an a-ha moment as I was signing up for classes,” Cullen says, reflecting on how pursuing her interest in anthropology made her a better business job candidate. “It was more just being in class and seeing how these things actually connect pretty well. Not in the classical sense of being in a business class and talking about HR and diversity, but thinking about a cost analysis and how it is going to affect our consumer long-term, and how is it going to affect our quality.”

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