Anthropology is the science of culture. The history of the course, however, is marked by intense theoretical and methodological debates to define the concept of culture. This is a pre-paradigmatic science, in the sense offered by Kuhn (1998). At the same time, this condition did not prevent it from becoming a compulsory subject in almost all undergraduate programs in Brazil, including the largest ones, such as law. The popularization of anthropology, especially in private universities, has promoted a series of dialogues between anthropologists, some recent graduates and students who will not be anthropologists. Although the debates occur in contexts of anthropology teaching, it is possible to turn them into spaces of anthropological research. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a research on the meanings of culture, made from the point of view of students recently enrolled in a law program in a private college, located in Rio de Janeiro.