In this presentation I aim to foreground the continued importance of cultivating empathy and creativity while making analytical connections that foster youths' understanding of social and subjective experiences. I draw from my experience teaching Sociocultural Anthropology courses in an English-speaking Caribbean university—where Anthropology occupies a marginal position—to students in many disciplines who are not Anthropology majors as well as introducing a blog showcasing students' ethnographic projects. With the marginalisation of Anthropology in mind, I emphasise the value of teaching anthropological and ethnographic orientations across the neoliberal university. Encouraging an 'ethnographic mindset' (Gomes 2024) entails developing cross-cultural awareness, a social structural sensibility and an appreciation of praxis to counteract the individualism and the ever-present commoditisation of education. As young students undertook virtual fieldwork with peers in the Caribbean and the USA, and in-person fieldwork locally, they also voluntarily wrote blog posts for a public audience. Concurrent to sharpening analytical thinking by undertaking fieldwork and reflecting on matters of cultural similarities and differences in homogenised geographies such as the Caribbean, public writing of this sort helped students to translate structural issues for a broad audience. Including emic terms such as ‘liming’ or local proverbs aided intercultural communication, a recognition of shared experiences and social structural inequality, which resonated with the public. I suggest thinking of anthropology as enacting public citizenship is particularly useful in destabilising the neoliberal university, in the Global North as well as in the Global South. This orientation helps to envision ‘another academy’ within ‘another world’ (George 2004).