A question for the alumni

<p>What did you do after graduating from W&M and where are you now?</p>

<p>First job was a risk analyst for a large insurance company. Now am a partner in an investment firm. W&M prepared me very well for the real world. Liberal arts can take you in any direction you want to go. Reading, writing, and thinking will always be in demand and, from what I have observed, are in very short supply.</p>

<p>You may start off lower ($) than engineers and accountants but the ceiling is much higher as you go through your career.</p>

<p>I immediately entered law school. Currently I am a 2nd year law student. WM helped me alot in terms of research and writing for law school. Also, WM helped me improve my ability to articulate complex thoughts verbally in a concise, yet coherent thesis. I am very pleased with the education I received at WM. I once had a visiting professor say that the standard of the classes at WM is such that you should feel total confidence in entering a graduate program.</p>

<p>After graduation from W&M, I went backpacking in Europe. Best decision ever. Would strongly recommend to anyone. Then I came back and got a job with AmeriCorps at that funny university two hours to the west =P. My year with AmeriCorps is ending right before thanksgiving, at which time I will having a hiring bonus with the federal government, so I will try to turn that into a job while I take graduate classes in the spring to give myself the option of entering grad school full time fall '10.</p>

<p>You can find some job info on the WM career center website, just as another place to look.</p>

<p>Hope the OP won’t mind if a parent chimes in - my oldest d is open to sharing her post-W & M experience, but doesn’t read CC. She started out behind many of her classmates when she graduated in 2005 - she’d been offered a teaching fellowship in bio at another university, but belatedly realized that she didn’t want a career in academics. So she graduated without having done any job interviews on campus - never even visited the Career Center! She had a retail job with CW (which even provided health benefits), and kept that through the fall following graduation, when it just became too hard to make ends meet in Williamsburg and look for a full-time career position at the same time.</p>

<p>She was not happy to return home to NY. She immediately found a job as a full-time retail manager, and also took a part-time job at a second retailer, which quickly promoted her to assistant manager. She worked a crazy number of hours each week, saved her money, and was able to transfer as a manager to one of her company’s stores in Northern Virginia, where she’d always wanted to wind up. After a few weeks there, she decided she had time for a second job, and wound up assistant manager at another retailer.</p>

<p>So - all that OOS money for a W & M degree, and the best she could do was two retail jobs? Nope. About 18 months after graduating, she was hired as a sales rep for office equipment - an awful job, but she’d decided she wanted a career in pharmaceutical sales, and she needed the experience in another field before she could get an interview. A year later, she was hired by a small pharma company (at 23, one of the youngest sales reps on staff), and was told that her W & M degree was a primary reason they decided to take a chance on her. Financially, it’s a great job, and she enjoys the science involved and the conversations with physicians. The remaining 75 percent of what she has to do isn’t something she can put up with forever.</p>

<p>She plans to return to school in 2 years - probably for a master’s as a physician’s assistant, though she did well enough on her MCATs recently to be a viable med school candidate. But she isn’t sure that she wants to take on all the debt of med school, particularly with today’s uncertainty about health care. And - she’s already saved enough to pay for the masters degree. So - not the smoothest start, but she’s thrilled to be where she is, and credits the W & M degree for a lot of it.</p>