My kid is intent upon majoring in Middle Eastern and Near Eastern Studies. My husband and I are concerned that after finishing up the B.A., our kid will not be able to find work. Does that mean that graduate study is the only course of action? And once having gotten a Master’s or, more likely a PhD., along with all of the accompanying debt, will this starry eyed kid be able to find a job? Any thoughts or any accounts from experience?
Does he speak Arabic? Possible job in State department etc. What does he want to do?
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He wants to learn a variety of languages spoken in the Middle East, including Arabic and Farsi, as well as Turkish. Is it realistic for him to look to the State Dept for possible future employment? What about a career as a college professor, in colleges starting or expanding their Middle Eastern departments?
In non-STEM fields many new Ph.D.'s are adjuncting, if they are lucky.
In other words, every major university that offers an M.A. or a PhD. in committing fraud? There are nearly a hundred such programs around the country. Are you saying that working as an adjunct is the only job prospect for all of those graduates?
No, I’m saying it is a big gamble, like most Ph.D. programs, especially in non-STEM fields.
OK.
New BA/BS graduates may look for three types of jobs:
A. Major-specific – where the student’s major is required or highly desired for the job. Typically for such fields as engineering, accounting, nursing, etc…
B. Major-related – where the student’s major may be helpful, but not essential (so would be competing against applicants of other majors as well).
C. Not major-related – where applicants with any major may apply.
Where opportunities in categories A and B are limited or undesirable, the applicant needs to look in category C (e.g. many general business jobs would be category C generally, though they could be in category B for business majors).
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@Movielover747 I took the liberty of moving your thread to a forum where it might see more attention.
FWIW I know many people who studied Middle Eastern languages, most of them through MES/NELC departments but also through things like the military and the Defense Language Institute, and none of them have had trouble finding gainful employment. That said, it’s pretty common to complete a master’s in Middle/Near Eastern studies and/or international relations/affairs if you’re angling for state department jobs.
He should definitely look into applying for a [Critical Language Scholarship](http://www.clscholarship.org/), which is a summer of intensive language study in a relevant country fully funded by the US Department of State. The Arabic and Persian programs require at least one year of prior study, but Turkish is available at the intro level.
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Outside of the State Department, if he’s fluent in at least one of these languages, he can look at the UN, World Bank, IMF, as well as several branches of intelligence/law enforcement. He can get a job at a global bank, energy/oil company, any large corporation with substantial business interests in the Middle East.
It is more important for him to establish fluency than to have modest proficiency in a bunch of languages.
Re: PhD debt- if he doesn’t get funded by a doctorate program, that is the universe telling him that he shouldn’t go to grad school. He can get a Master’s in International Relations or an MBA in two years which is a better use of his time (leading to better employment prospects) than an unfunded PhD program.
The Middle East is likely to be strategically important to the US for the next 20 years- I’d say it’s a good bet for a kid who is interested in the region. But language fluency is the key- there are a lot of kids who are sort of “regional dilettantes” assuming that more is better. The companies that I’ve worked for have all required fluency to get posted abroad- not the “familiar with” that most kids put on their resumes.
There are excellent opportunities with NGO’s as well- Doctors without Borders is operating in Syria due to the refugee crisis and not everyone there is a physician- they need experts in supply chain management and transportation and logistics and finance. The big public health NGO’s have enormous operations in the Middle East-- maternal health, infant mortality. You don’t need to be a doctor or nurse to have a cool job at one of these organizations- they need marketing, finance, accounting, distribution, graphic designers, etc.
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There are a surprising number of native fluent speakers with whom student will compete for jobs. For some of the proposed employers, he is already past the age to obtain the language proficiency they seek.
Also please be advised that international public organizations severely limit the number of Americans that can be hired to strict quotas (and other nationalities, it just happens that there are many more Americans interested in those jobs). Most Americans at World Bank, for example, have dual citizenship.
My D did a minor in Middle Eastern studies, including learning Arabic. She is gainfully employed, but could not find any position where her knowledge of Arabic/background was helpful. She also studied Spanish - employers were much more interested in that language skill.
One of D’s bffs majored in MES, became fluent in Arabic, and she was active outside classes. She had a college job in an intl support program, spent jr year in the middle east, then after grad, a major govt grant to live/work in an Arabic speaking country, then a job at top US college in a related program and is now a key manager for a national program.
You don’t have to work for the govt or get a PhD. It does help to pull together some idea of what direction you want to pursue. If it’s NGOs or banking, eg, you find those experiences during college that build your first resume.
Ps, she’s 25 and went to a state flagship. No advanced degree, yet.
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If your kid wants to be more marketable, they can always consider adding a minor or double majoring with something complementary. Economics, International Business, or Security Studies come to mind. They could also work towards a teaching certificate in your state if there are opportunities for teaching those languages in high schools. On a related note - have you looked into any of the Language Flagship schools for Arabic? Those may offer some advantages for your kid.
As others have pointed out, some jobs will require an advanced degree. The other thing to keep in mind is that some grad school programs are open to any undergrad degree (law school, MBA, med school and even MS in Public Policy, International Relations) so those doors will also be open after graduation.
(While not majoring in MES, my kiddo is in a related field. It takes a bit of faith to let them major in a field where the path to employment is not as obvious as obtaining a BS in Engineering.)
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My daughter is majoring in cyber security with a minor in Middle Eastern Studies – seems practical and still pulling in the history interest
I agree if your kid learns arabic, they will be marketable for a government job. My daughter wants to work in intel like her father. He said she needed a stem degree plus a language like arabic to really stand out. So, she is going to major in statistics and minor in arabic. There are not a lot of schools that offer this combination, so she will be going out of state, unfortunately. But, I feel pretty confident she will be able to find a good job after graduation.
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Tif, any college with a math department offers statistics. It might be called a degree in Applied Math- but it’s statistics. All you need to do is look for Arabic,
What college in your state doesn’t have a math department?
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ME studies now seems pretty common. I wonder if there will be too many non native speaking American students for the jobs available.
OP for #2. They probably have many native speakers to fill professorships.
At least half the IR majors at Tufts combined it with Econ/Business type stuff. My younger son did IR there with more of a security focus and he also took four years of Arabic including spending two semesters and part of a summer in Jordan. He worked for a couple of NGOs first as an intern then hired. Didn’t use the Arabic for either one. He’s in Navy intelligence now. We don’t know exactly what he’s up to though. His girlfriend is working on a PhD that revolves around trade in the Indian Ocean. She’s a language whiz. She speaks fluent Cantonese and English. Her Arabic is good enough to be doing some research in Arabic. She learned Indonesian a couple of summers ago. She’s not sure what she wants to do, but thinks she will be able to find NGO type work in the DC area if she doesn’t go into academia.
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