Careers for non-science/math students? (other than the law!)

Thank you! I’ll be working this thanksgiving break on encouraging the internship piece. So far, our discussions (and her interest) in that area have revolved around legal summer interships/work (with me also suggesting some art gallery stuff). Would be great to find something in other lines (e.g., as suggested above).

Funny, in working w IT and web teams in my current job, I’ve suppose I’ve contributed a bit in the UI area - it really is pretty fun (putting self in shoes of user and making it all helpful to them without legalese). Not fluent in acronymns, but I think I could categorize what we did as that. Never thought about it as a possible profession for my D so thanks!!

Why is everyone suggesting UI/UX design? The best UI/UX designers are CS majors/minors who have the technical base required to build elegant systems. STEM is the future.

In any case, no STEM or law rules out the vast majority of high-paying careers. It’s great that your kid will have no undergrad debt, as her choice of study necessitates that she will have to live very frugally for many, many years.

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bloomington019 - well…do you happen to have any suggestions for fields in/around STEM that don’t necessarily require a huge amount of science math? And might appeal to someone who is a bit creative?

Marketing, advertising, consumer product brand manager (P&G etc), pharmaceutical & technical sales, product management, fundraising, product design etc are all fields where you can make a living that don’t involve STEM (and, of course, there are others). How lucrative they are varies.

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That’s a ridiculous generalization. We have no idea about the talent and drive of OP’s D.

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Not to mention that most college grads live pretty frugally the first few years out (I certainly did) and it isn’t the end of the world. This poster’s message is that if you aren’t a STEM major or independently wealthy you’ll struggle your whole life. That doesn’t jive with my lived experience - yes, many humanities majors will not make as much as their STEM counterparts, but that doesn’t mean they will be living in penury. You don’t have to be wealthy to have a good life (which seems to be the underlying message here).

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I came across the above UI/UX internship accidentally when poking around for one of my other (STEM) kids. I have a kid with a social science major, interest in art (and, like OP’s kid, has noticed the law school option) and has also taken CS1 and 2, so UX/UI caught my eye.

My understanding is that, in larger tech companies, there are multiple areas of expertise involved in UX/UI such that one person does not possess all of that expertise, but instead the work is broken up into various separate employment positions/areas. Apparently, one of those areas involves research that is very similar to social science research, and from what I understand, that person is typically not doing the CS side. That’s one example I’ve gleaned thus far of the non-STEM possibilities, though there are more.

One reason I pushed my kid to try out CS, besides just to see if she liked it, is that even if she isn’t looking at work that involves coding things herself, one day she might want to pick up something like R in a pinch (skill diversification), or, might need to communicate with someone who does code, as seems to be the case with UX/UI. At this point halfway thru college, I have no idea where she’ll end up, but I’m glad I came across this angle, as one never knows what the future will bring or what twists and turns one’s career might have. (I’d love it if she picked up the cs minor, but alas, I don’t get to decide.)

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Yes, even those who will not major in science or engineering will find it useful to have some knowledge of the subjects, as the UX/UI example above suggests. After all, many colleges have general education requirements based on that idea. A scientist or engineer who cannot write clearly will be less desirable to employers than an equally technically competent one who can write clearly. Similarly, someone in a role that is not science or engineering will be more desirable to employers if they have enough knowledge about those subjects that they can work on subjects adjacent to those subjects (or use those subjects, such as statistics in social sciences and business).

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To add onto the same idea of skill diversification, on the business side, kid also took a course in financial accounting and a course in marketing. As with CS, didn’t love, didn’t hate, did quite well. I believe that one day, all this exposure will prove useful no matter the ultimate career field.

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In terms of job prospects, a major in traditional linguistics, computational linguistics, or philosophy, can be very employable these days in the Artificial Intelligence field.

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Oh my, there are so many possible fields out there – with plenty of good income potential. If career development office is pushing her to law related internships, encourage her to ask for online “aptitude” assessments and other guides which will help her see what else is out there. Or meet with a different advisor who might offer broader suggestions. Ask Career development to help identify alumni who studied in her department/major, and then reach out to them to do “informational interviews” to learn about how they got where they are, what they enjoy, what else they considered. Check CDO for panel discussions on different fields, go to “lunch and learn” type events for employers who visit campus, just to get a feel for what type of jobs they have and what type of students they are looking for. My LAC kid knows plenty of classmates in entry level business jobs who were “standard” liberal arts majors. A class in stats, maybe financial accounting would help with foundations.

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@Jolynne_Smyth is your daughter already IN college?

My cousin was an American Studies major and got lucky to get a job in Manhattan as a researcher at a think tank right out of college. She’s been there for 35 years! She did get a masters in library science during this time. She loves it.

My daughter is currently getting a MA in History. Her current goal is to work in researching art ownership and returning art confiscated during wars and conquests to the rightful owners. Her focus is still being formed. She’d like to work with Asian art but her main adviser is a WWII/Poland/Nazi focused person so it may benefit her more to use his expertise and stay with European art.

She’d like to be Ryan Reynolds from Woman in Gold (movie with Helen Miren) but Ryan is a lawyer and also spoke German. He sued the Austrian govt for return of Helen’s Klempt paintings. I read a newspaper article about a woman who is doing this in France (of course she speaks French). Still working out the specifics on how daughter could make a living doing this. She could end up in law school but I doubt it.

Income? This kid has never worried about money and still lives like a poor college student (which she is). She works at Starbucks and has a fully funded (tuition, fees, insurance, stipend) grad school position. She really doesn’t mind living in a basement student apt ($400/mo) and living off free coffee from Starbucks. She is saving her stipend money to live in Europe next summer to see if she can make this focus work. If her student loans were forgiven, she’d be golden.

Well that makes a lot of sense. These days, think tanks prefer hiring MAs or PhDs, preferably in Econ (or at least folks who have taken LOTS of quant courses). Gone are the days when a humanities major can walk into a stable, high-paying job.

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Twoin- the FBI has some of the most talented art experts/provenance trackers in the world. Might be a place to start. The auction houses now employ experts (mainly to stay on the right side of Interpol, the FBI, etc.) so that they are not unwittingly selling works where the consigner does not have legitimate title. For many years the auction houses didn’t look too carefully when a choice piece came up for sale. Now it’s bad for business when it turns out the work was looted, stolen, or used as a bribe to get the legitimate owner out of the gas chamber line and onto a prison work detail.

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The Denver Art Museum just agreed to return some artifacts that were looted from Cambodia and other Asian countries about 50 years ago. The controversy has been going on for years.

They aren’t the only museum holding things that don’t belong to them, things people just took that they had no right to.

@thumper1 - yep, my daughter is in her sophmore year of college. We’ll chat at thanksgiving about some options, I think, given all the info I’ve read on these threads recently. I hope she’ll chat w/career services soon, just to explore!

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Your D can do more than “chat” with career services. Many career services operations offer a pretty robust set of services to help kids narrow down their interests- shadowing alums in certain fields, getting internships (doesn’t need to be summer- your D can do two weeks over winter break) in a field she’s curious about, help with her resume, mock interviews on video so she can review what she does and doesn’t do well, etc.

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blossom - that would be perfect. My hope is that she at least goes to career services and finds this info out! I really hope her school has something along these lines. It’s a big state school, so hopefully. I can also look at the website and see what they’ve got and mention it. Thanks!

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I know I may not be in the majority here, but I think your D needs space to figure this out herself. Make some suggestions, but allow her to do this on her own. She’ll figure it out.

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