Ky Holland, April 28, 2026

Today’s Anchorage Daily News had an interesting article about the challenges that people are facing, thinking about their careers and university choices. “College students search for ‘AI-proof’ majors.”

Over the years of hiring and teaching, I’ve noticed something interesting when it comes to college degrees—especially the classic four-year path.

If you set aside career and technical programs (which are incredibly important and often lead to strong, well-paying careers and instead think of a university education as a way to train your brain—to build how you think, not just what you know—two degrees consistently stand out to me:

Anthropology and Geology.

At first glance, they seem completely different. One studies people and cultures. The other studies rocks and earth systems. But structurally, they share three powerful traits that make graduates unusually adaptable and effective in the real world.

1. They train you to think across long arcs of time.
Anthropology teaches you to understand cultures and societies across generations. Geology teaches you to see the Earth across millions of years. In both cases, you learn a simple but powerful truth: the way things are today is not the way they were yesterday—and not the way they’ll be tomorrow. That mindset builds adaptability, perspective, and the ability to navigate change.

2. They ground you in real, field-based evidence.
Both disciplines teach you to go out into the world—literally or figuratively—and examine evidence. Not guesses. Not opinions. Evidence.
Why is this here? How did it get here? What does it mean?
That habit of critical, evidence-based thinking is incredibly valuable in any field, especially in age when we need to differentiate a hallucination from a fact.

3. They teach you how to access and use knowledge.
Yes, you learn where the library is on campus—but more importantly, you learn how to use it.
You learn how to find information, evaluate it, build on it, and communicate it clearly to others. That combination—research + synthesis + communication—is foundational to almost any meaningful work.

Where they differ is just as important:

• Anthropology leans more into people—culture, community, behavior—making it especially valuable in leadership, policy, and organizational work.
• Geology leans more into systems and science—how complex processes interact—building strong analytical and operational thinking.

In a world that is changing as fast as ours—especially with the rise of AI—this kind of foundational thinking matters more than ever. Many students today are already shifting toward degrees that build “human skills” like critical thinking and communication because they know the job market is a moving target.

We’ve been through disruptive periods before—industrial revolutions, the rise of computing, globalization. The people who do well aren’t always the ones trained for a specific job… they’re the ones trained to adapt, learn, and apply their thinking in new ways.

And maybe most importantly—they’re the ones who understand people and serve others well.

I do worry about our young people right now who are graduating from high school and thinking about their future. It’s a lot to ask them to make big life decisions in a world that feels so uncertain—technologically, ecologically, economically, and politically.

But if there’s one bit of reassurance I’d offer, it’s this:

Don’t just pick a degree for a job.
Pick a path that trains how you think and learn.

That investment will carry you much further than any single skill.

Ky