Master of Arts in Anthropology (MA)

Overview

Our MA program provides students with a broad knowledge of anthropological theory and research methods. Students build their research and writing skills in their graduate courses, culminating in the preparation of a significant piece of scholarly writing, which constitutes their MA thesis. Interdisciplinary contacts are encouraged, and links are maintained with departments and programs such as Asian Studies, the Institute of Asian Research, Linguistics, History, Geography, Sociology, and the Centre for Women's and Gender Studies.

What makes the program unique?

We are the second oldest anthropology program in Canada, with more than six decades of research and teaching to our name. Our students are supported by a dedicated staff and faculty and access to outstanding research resources, such as the Museum of Anthropology and Laboratory of Archaeology. Today, UBC anthropology faculty and students conduct original research throughout BC and around the world.

 

Program Structure

The M.A. is based upon a combination of coursework, research, and a thesis. Compared to the Ph.D., the M.A. is a structured course of study. Students must successfully complete 30 credits:

  • ANTH 500 History of Anthropology (6)
  • ANTH 506 Current Research in Anthropology (3)
  • an advanced anthropological methods course (3)
  • two 3-credit courses outside of the student's sub-disciplinary specialty; Students are encouraged to take at least three credits of these in Anthropology (6)
  • at least 6 credits of elective courses
  • a 6-credit thesis, which is initiated after submitting an approved thesis proposal

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Program Enquiries

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Contact the program

Admission Information & Requirements

Program Instructions

We look for applicants with developed intellectual interests as well as abilities and a strong commitment to their area of study and with interests that fall within the current interests of the Department. If applicants have questions about the match between their interests and those of the Department, they should contact the program administrator. It is also helpful for applicants to discuss their program with the appropriate faculty members before making a final application.

1) Check Eligibility

Minimum Academic Requirements

The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies establishes the minimum admission requirements common to all applicants, usually a minimum overall average in the B+ range (76% at UBC). The graduate program that you are applying to may have additional requirements. Please review the specific requirements for applicants with credentials from institutions in:

Each program may set higher academic minimum requirements. Please review the program website carefully to understand the program requirements. Meeting the minimum requirements does not guarantee admission as it is a competitive process.

English Language Test

Applicants from a university outside Canada in which English is not the primary language of instruction must provide results of an English language proficiency examination as part of their application. Tests must have been taken within the last 24 months at the time of submission of your application.

Minimum requirements for the two most common English language proficiency tests to apply to this program are listed below:

TOEFL: Test of English as a Foreign Language - internet-based

Overall score requirement: 100

Reading

25

Writing

25

Speaking

22

Listening

22

IELTS: International English Language Testing System

Overall score requirement: 7.0

Reading

6.5

Writing

6.5

Speaking

6.5

Listening

6.5

Other Test Scores

Some programs require additional test scores such as the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) or the Graduate Management Test (GMAT). The requirements for this program are:

The GRE is not required.

Prior degree, course and other requirements

Prior Degree Requirements

Applicants must hold a four-year bachelor’s degree with a major, honours or concentration in anthropology or the equivalent. Outstanding candidates with undergraduate degrees in other disciplines but with substantial background related to anthropology, or who are missing one or more of our admission requirements, are occasionally admitted on the condition that they complete a number of additional courses in anthropology.

Course Requirements

Applicants to the MA program must have completed at least 12 credits in senior anthropology courses with a minimum average of A-. The courses should cover a broad range of anthropology, including at least three credits of archaeology or physical anthropology, six credits in ethnography, three credits in methods, and, if possible, at least three credits of anthropological theory, and three credits in museum and visual anthropology. The Department also favours applicants who have taken introductory courses in linguistics and statistics. Highly qualified applicants lacking one or more of these requirements may have courses in contiguous fields accepted as equivalents or may be required to take such courses as part of their program of study.

2) Meet Deadlines

September 2025 Intake

Application Open Date
07 September 2024
Canadian Applicants
Application Deadline: 15 December 2024
Transcript Deadline: 03 January 2025
Referee Deadline: 07 January 2025
International Applicants
Application Deadline: 15 December 2024
Transcript Deadline: 03 January 2025
Referee Deadline: 07 January 2025

3) Prepare Application

Transcripts

All applicants have to submit transcripts from all past post-secondary study. Document submission requirements depend on whether your institution of study is within Canada or outside of Canada.

Letters of Reference

A minimum of three references are required for application to graduate programs at UBC. References should be requested from individuals who are prepared to provide a report on your academic ability and qualifications.

Statement of Interest

Many programs require a statement of interest, sometimes called a "statement of intent", "description of research interests" or something similar.

Supervision

Students in research-based programs usually require a faculty member to function as their thesis supervisor. Please follow the instructions provided by each program whether applicants should contact faculty members.

Instructions regarding thesis supervisor contact for Master of Arts in Anthropology (MA)
Applicants should browse faculty profiles and indicate in their application who they are interested in working with. No commitment from a supervisor prior to applying is necessary, but contacting faculty members is encouraged.

Citizenship Verification

Permanent Residents of Canada must provide a clear photocopy of both sides of the Permanent Resident card.

4) Apply Online

All applicants must complete an online application form and pay the application fee to be considered for admission to UBC.

Research Information

Research Focus

UBC offers graduate study in the fields of socio-cultural anthropology (including legal, medical, and ecological anthropology, oral and expressive culture, religion, globalization, and applied anthropology), linguistic anthropology, anthropological archaeology, biological anthropology, and museum studies. Faculty research interests include North America, Asia (Russia, India, Japan, and Korea), Mesoamerica, South America, Oceania, Europe, and Africa. The program provides training in quantitative, qualitative, archaeological and museum methods.

Research Facilities

Extensive research facilities are available in the Museum of Anthropology, and in the Laboratory of Archaeology. The UBC Library has excellent collections to support program interests, as well as a large collection of microform theses and dissertations, and the Human Relations Area files. Anthropology has a dedicated graduate computer lab with a wide range of software to support quantitative and qualitative research.

Tuition & Financial Support

Tuition

FeesCanadian Citizen / Permanent Resident / Refugee / DiplomatInternational
Application Fee$116.25$168.25
Tuition *
Installments per year33
Tuition per installment$1,838.57$3,230.06
Tuition per year
(plus annual increase, usually 2%-5%)
$5,515.71$9,690.18
Int. Tuition Award (ITA) per year (if eligible) $3,200.00 (-)
Other Fees and Costs
Student Fees (yearly)$1,116.60 (approx.)
Costs of livingEstimate your costs of living with our interactive tool in order to start developing a financial plan for your graduate studies.
* Regular, full-time tuition. For on-leave, extension, continuing or part time (if applicable) fees see UBC Calendar.
All fees for the year are subject to adjustment and UBC reserves the right to change any fees without notice at any time, including tuition and student fees. Tuition fees are reviewed annually by the UBC Board of Governors. In recent years, tuition increases have been 2% for continuing domestic students and between 2% and 5% for continuing international students. New students may see higher increases in tuition. Admitted students who defer their admission are subject to the potentially higher tuition fees for incoming students effective at the later program start date. In case of a discrepancy between this webpage and the UBC Calendar, the UBC Calendar entry will be held to be correct.

Financial Support

Applicants to UBC have access to a variety of funding options, including merit-based (i.e. based on your academic performance) and need-based (i.e. based on your financial situation) opportunities.

Program Funding Packages

Our Master students have opportunities to work as Teaching Assistants during their program.

Scholarships & awards (merit-based funding)

All applicants are encouraged to review the awards listing to identify potential opportunities to fund their graduate education. The database lists merit-based scholarships and awards and allows for filtering by various criteria, such as domestic vs. international or degree level.

Graduate Research Assistantships (GRA)

Many professors are able to provide Research Assistantships (GRA) from their research grants to support full-time graduate students studying under their supervision. The duties constitute part of the student's graduate degree requirements. A Graduate Research Assistantship is considered a form of fellowship for a period of graduate study and is therefore not covered by a collective agreement. Stipends vary widely, and are dependent on the field of study and the type of research grant from which the assistantship is being funded.

Graduate Teaching Assistantships (GTA)

Graduate programs may have Teaching Assistantships available for registered full-time graduate students. Full teaching assistantships involve 12 hours work per week in preparation, lecturing, or laboratory instruction although many graduate programs offer partial TA appointments at less than 12 hours per week. Teaching assistantship rates are set by collective bargaining between the University and the Teaching Assistants' Union.

Graduate Academic Assistantships (GAA)

Academic Assistantships are employment opportunities to perform work that is relevant to the university or to an individual faculty member, but not to support the student’s graduate research and thesis. Wages are considered regular earnings and when paid monthly, include vacation pay.

Financial aid (need-based funding)

Canadian and US applicants may qualify for governmental loans to finance their studies. Please review eligibility and types of loans.

All students may be able to access private sector or bank loans.

Foreign government scholarships

Many foreign governments provide support to their citizens in pursuing education abroad. International applicants should check the various governmental resources in their home country, such as the Department of Education, for available scholarships.

Working while studying

The possibility to pursue work to supplement income may depend on the demands the program has on students. It should be carefully weighed if work leads to prolonged program durations or whether work placements can be meaningfully embedded into a program.

International students enrolled as full-time students with a valid study permit can work on campus for unlimited hours and work off-campus for no more than 20 hours a week.

A good starting point to explore student jobs is the UBC Work Learn program or a Co-Op placement.

Tax credits and RRSP withdrawals

Students with taxable income in Canada may be able to claim federal or provincial tax credits.

Canadian residents with RRSP accounts may be able to use the Lifelong Learning Plan (LLP) which allows students to withdraw amounts from their registered retirement savings plan (RRSPs) to finance full-time training or education for themselves or their partner.

Please review Filing taxes in Canada on the student services website for more information.

Cost Estimator

Applicants have access to the cost estimator to develop a financial plan that takes into account various income sources and expenses.

Career Options

Alumni from our graduate program now work in a wide number of fields both in Canada and across the world: academia, health, Indigenous communities, government and public policy, non-profit organizations, and private business. 

Enrolment, Duration & Other Stats

These statistics show data for the Master of Arts in Anthropology (MA). Data are separated for each degree program combination. You may view data for other degree options in the respective program profile.

ENROLMENT DATA

 20232022202120202019
Applications4962643650
Offers12127117
New Registrations107574
Total Enrolment2623201814

Completion Rates & Times

This program has a graduation rate of 100% based on 27 students admitted between 2015 - 2018. Based on 16 graduations between 2020 - 2023 the minimum time to completion is 1.7 years and the maximum time is 5.82 years with an average of 3.18 years of study. All calculations exclude leave times.
Disclaimer
Admissions data refer to all UBC Vancouver applications, offers, new registrants for each registration year, May to April, e.g. data for 2022 refers to programs starting in 2022 Summer and 2022 Winter session, i.e. May 1, 2022 to April 30, 2023. Data on total enrolment reflects enrolment in Winter Session Term 1 and are based on snapshots taken on November 1 of each registration year. Program completion data are only provided for datasets comprised of more than 4 individuals. Graduation rates exclude students who transfer out of their programs. Rates and times of completion depend on a number of variables (e.g. curriculum requirements, student funding), some of which may have changed in recent years for some programs.

Research Supervisors

Supervision

Students in research-based programs usually require a faculty member to function as their thesis supervisor. Please follow the instructions provided by each program whether applicants should contact faculty members.

Instructions regarding thesis supervisor contact for Master of Arts in Anthropology (MA)
Applicants should browse faculty profiles and indicate in their application who they are interested in working with. No commitment from a supervisor prior to applying is necessary, but contacting faculty members is encouraged.
 
Advice and insights from UBC Faculty on reaching out to supervisors

These videos contain some general advice from faculty across UBC on finding and reaching out to a supervisor. They are not program specific.

 

This list shows faculty members with full supervisory privileges who are affiliated with this program. It is not a comprehensive list of all potential supervisors as faculty from other programs or faculty members without full supervisory privileges can request approvals to supervise graduate students in this program.

  • Alaica, Aleksa (Other agricultural sciences; Archaeology; human-animal interactions; Moche Perceptions and Use of Animals; Food Security and Interregional Interaction during Wari State Expansion; Colonization, Diet and Animal Management)
  • Barnett, Kristen (intersection of Indigenous and western science; research and data sovereignty; Indigenous feminisms; decolonizing; reframing archaeology)
  • Blackburn, Carole (relationship between Indigenous peoples and settler states; how Indigenous nations assert their rights and sovereignty in struggles over land and political recognition, and the consequences for Indigenous people of engaging states in legal and political arenas.)
  • Bloch, Alexia (Social sciences; migration; Gender; Eurasia; Russia; ethnography)
  • Creighton, Millie (Japan, Japanese descent communities (Nikkei or Nikkeijin), Korea, Inter-Asian Relations, Identity, Consumerism, Popular and Mass Culture, Gender, Minorities, Work and Leisure)
  • Gordillo, Gaston (Space and violence, affect, ruins and ruination, critical theory and continental philosophy, object-oriented ontologies, resistance to agribusiness, Latin America, Argentina, the Gran Chaco)
  • Hayat, Zahra (Pharmaceutical pricing; Quality and intellectual property)
  • Heatherington, Tracey (Anthropology; Anthropocene studies; Anthropological engagements with fiction; Critique of neoliberalism; Environmental anthropology; Ethnographic writing and reflexivity; Multi-species ethnography; Political ecology of nature conservation; Power & resistance; Sustainable food systems)
  • Jing, Zhichun (Prehistoric archaeology; Archaeometry; Archaeological theory; Archaeology; Anthropology; Early China; Shang Civilization; Archaeological Science; Early Urbanism; Geoarchaeology)
  • Kamat, Vinay Ramnath (Anthropology; Global Health and Emerging Diseases; Dispossession; East Africa; ethnography; Extractive Industry; Global Health; India; Malaria; marine conservation; Medical Anthropology; Outsourcing of Clinical Trials; political ecology; Tanzania)
  • Kramer, Jennifer (Visual culture and art of the First Nations)
  • Levell, Nicola (interdisciplinary folds of anthropology, theoretical museology, material culture and critical curatorial studies)
  • Martindale, Andrew (Social sciences; Indigenous Archaeology; Northwest Coast; Oral Traditions; Spatial Analyses; Archaeology and the Law; Political economy; Radiocarbon Dating; Indian Residential Schools)
  • Menzies, Charles (Social sciences; Indigenous studies; Natural Resource Management; Maritime Anthropology; Western Europe; Ethnographic Film)
  • Moore, Patrick (Anthropological linguistics, languages of North America, sub-Arctic ethnography, ethno-history, gender, First Nations Languages, Literacy and Orality, Oral Traditions, Dene (Athbaskan Languages and Cultures), Codeswitching, Gender, Indigenous Activism, and the Anthropology of Media)
  • Muehlmann, Shaylih (Environmental politics, linguistic anthropology, drug trafficking, indigeneity, water scarcity, the anthropology of the awkward, US-Mexico borderlands, Mexico)
  • Robertson, Leslie (Indigenous and settler historiographies, colonial regimes of difference, spectacle and narrative, and political histories of resistance in settler nations, afterlife of historical colonialism, forms of power and representation in the context of urban marginalization (drug use, sex work, health, and violence) )
  • Rosenblum, Daisy (multi-modal documentation and description of indigenous languages of North America, with an emphasis on methods, partnerships, and products that contribute to community-based language revitalization)
  • Rowley, Susan (Anthropology, n.e.c.; repatriation; museums; material culture; Cultural Heritage; arctic archaeology; heritage management)
  • Sari, Elif (transnational sexualities; migration; asylum; humanitarianism; queer and critical race theory)
  • Shneiderman, Sara (Social and cultural anthropology; Indigenous issues; Disaster response and preparedness; Citizenship; migration)
  • Speller, Camilla (Anthropology; Archeological Data Analysis; Molecular Genetics; Ancient DNA Analysis (paleogenetics); Ancient proteins (paleoproteomics); Animal Domestication; Bioarchaeology; Environmental Archaeology; Marine Ecosystems)
  • Turin, Mark (Anthropology; Cultural Institutions (Museums, Libraries, etc.); Lexicography and Dictionaries; Language Contact and Linguistic Changes; Language Rights and Policies; Language Interactions; Political Culture, Society and Ideology; Bella Bella; Bhutan; First Nations; Heiltsuk; Indigeneity; Nepal; Sikkim; Tibet)
  • Weston, Darlene (Anthropology; Archeological Data Analysis; Bioarchaeology; Biological Anthropology; Osteoarchaeology; Paleodemography; Paleopathology)

Pages

Further Information

Specialization

UBC offers graduate study in the fields of socio-cultural anthropology (including legal, medical, and ecological anthropology, oral and expressive culture, religion, globalization, and applied anthropology), linguistic anthropology, anthropological archaeology, biological anthropology, and museum studies. Faculty research interests include North America, Asia (Russia, India, Japan, Korea and China), Mesoamerica, South America, Oceania, Europe, and Africa.

Faculty Overview

Program Identifier

VGMMAA-BN

Classification

 

Apply Now

If you don't have a UBC Campus-Wide Login (CWL) please create an account first.
 

September 2025 Intake

Application Open Date
07 September 2024
Canadian Applicant Deadline
15 December 2024
International Applicant Deadline
15 December 2024
 
Supervisor Search
 

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