[2] De Laguna attended Bryn Mawr College on a scholarship from 1923 to 1927, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in politics and economics.

Although she was awarded the college's European fellowship, she deferred for a year to study anthropology at Columbia University under Franz Boas, Gladys Reichard, and Ruth Benedict.

In 1928, de Laguna traveled to England, France, and Spain, where she gained fieldwork experience under George Grant MacCurdy, "attended lectures on prehistoric art by Abbe Breuil, and received guidance from Paul Rivet and Marcellin Boule."

She co-led an archaeological and ethnological expedition of Prince William Sound in 1933 with Birket-Smith; the trip became the basis for "The Eyak Indians of the Copper River Delta, Alaska" (1938).

She kept this position until 1942 when she took a leave of absence to serve in the naval reserve as a lieutenant commander of Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service (WAVES).