<p>im a transfer student whose majoring in a liberal arts major. i've always thought that as long as you'll do good in college you'll go far in life career wise and personal wise, but now my peers and parents tell me the only thing that matters if you want to be successful or get a respectable paycheck is to do something else, (doctor, engineer, lawyer) and major in something that employers want. My major isn't obscure but it isn't widely popular</p>
<p>“Liberal arts” still requires a major and majors tend to lend themselves to different industries. You haven’t really given enough information for anyone here to help you. I advised my son to look for an internship this summer and he is interning with a marketing department. This has helped him see the benefit of his English major (he is revising technical manuals into “people speak” for a company). This is just one small example. What do you like to do, what do you find interesting, what kind of companies interest you? These are all questions that will help you figure out how to point yourself in the right direction. Also I advised my son to wait until he secures his first “real job” after college as many companies have tuition reimbursement if he should decide to go for an MBA or to law school or some other advanced degree. Some liberal arts majors have a natural paths, others are not as direct, as an example I’ve known philosophy majors that have done many wildly different things with their majors.</p>
<p>I suspect the OP, like many others, is confusing “liberal arts” with “humanities”. What we call “liberal arts” includes lots of things with decent employment prospects, like math, physics, basic science.</p>
<p>In mid-career, History majors average higher salaries than Business majors. Becoming a competent communicator, researcher, and synthesizer of information from multiple sources is the best pre-career investment you can make.</p>
<p>What do you want to do? Surely you had something that attracted you to the major you chose. There are all kinds of jumping off points from any major. Hard to help without more info.</p>
<p>As someone who just went through the post college job search hopefully I can help.</p>
<p>For starters it is really important to get an internship or two under your belt before looking into full time work. Ideally you can finish these off during college (either during the semester or in the summer). This is especially true in this job market where employers don’t seem to even consider applicants who don’t have an relevant work experience. Internships will also allow you to try out a couple fields to see which one you like best. Additionally interning in one area, finding out you don’t like it, and switching to something else doesn’t really count against you as you aren’t really expected to know what you want to do when starting out.</p>
<p>As for majoring in liberal arts, I can’t really give you any specific advice without knowing your actual major (liberal arts can literally be anything). I do know that your majoring in a topic doesn’t mean you have to work in a directly related field. I mean you can’t work as a computer programmer if you don’t have any of the required skill set, BUT if you do possess that knowledge and happened to have majored in English you could still find yourself working in a computer related field. An example I have is a friend of mine who is a history major who will be working as a Trader for a large investment bank (a job usually reserved for finance/econ majors). Most schools have a career counseling office, and usually that office will have job postings from a number of employers. Don’t be afraid to try something different. It can’t hurt!</p>
<p>Finally there are always programs like Teach for America or Americorps. These programs are not only really fulfilling, but are also great resume builders. The largest “group” of people in any incoming Harvard Law School class are TFA alums (larger than harvard grads, yale grads etc…). </p>
<p>Good luck with the job hunt! It looks brutal out there, but hopefully by the time you graduate the worst will be over!</p>
<p>I think the best advice advice is not to think of undergraduate degree is X equals job Y. gadad’s point is well taken. Like any “job hunter” it is important to think about what skills does one posess and how are those skills valuable to a particular company. Verbal skills, writing skills, research skills and so on and so on. Think about it this way: “specialists” may have a more direct route to a career as they have “specialized” in a particular something, but a specialist also is also limited by this specialization. By example, a pharmacist is a pharmacist. A “generalist” might have a less defined road to a career but their skill set is less limited to a specific subset of employment opportunities.</p>
<p>I think the “sweet spot” in job-hunting is the intersection of something you’re good at and something you really love. It gives your job search a focus that you can get excited about, and it gives you a more vivid story to tell prospective employers about why you want to work for them.</p>
<p>If you’re a sports nut and a wonderful writer, for example, those could intersect in sports journalism, marketing/advertising/P.R. for a sports equipment manufacturer, or sports team public relations jobs.</p>
<p>If you’re good at languages and history and you love travel, those could intersect in everything from international sales/marketing jobs to U.S. diplomatic service jobs to teaching English abroad.</p>
<p>Great at verbal persuasion and passionate about a certain cause? Fundraising for an organization devoted to that cause.</p>
<p>I think too many people start job hunting from the angle of “What jobs are available?” instead of “What jobs would be the best fit for me?”</p>
<p>“For starters it is really important to get an internship or two under your belt before looking into full time work. Ideally you can finish these off during college (either during the semester or in the summer)”</p>
<p>This is much harder to do right now…unless you are lucky enough to have enough $ to take an unpaid internship in the summer or extend your schooling for one semester. I know quite a few kids who were unsuccessful in securing paid internships this summer and are waiting tables or acting as camp counselors. </p>
<p>I agree with Lunitari about examining your strengths. The job market is discouraging right now, but in general, most of the folks I work with have degrees in the humanities. You just have to get that break…that first chance to prove what you can do. If you can work for free, do it. If not, keep trying to find something entry level…don’t give up…even if you have to wait tables until you find it. The market will open up again in a few years…patience and persistence are what you need now.</p>
<p>Miami, life definitely takes interesting turns. Someone’s undergraduate degree doesn’t set their future in stone. I know many bio and chem majors who went on to law school. Two of my former bosses majored in English at their undergraduate schools, but got their PhDs in biochemistry and chemistry.</p>
<p>I majored in psychology (neuro-lab based)- with minor in computer science and ended up as a contract negotiator for computer related contracts. You can take anything and go anywhere if you have been a good student and you open your eyes to possibilities. I started in the Federal Government but left after 7 years. The Feds have programs for college grads which are not necessarily related to a specific degree. For that matter , they also have ones for odd degrees.</p>
<p>How did your former bosses get their pre-requisites ? How did they handle the calculations ? </p>
<p>I am taking note and learning everything I can from this thread. Everyone I know in RL studied in a specific major - engineering/pharmacy/accounting/medicine. I have no clue how anyone trained in non-specific majors get a job.</p>
<p>Using those wonderful verbal, written and reserach skills one learns in a liberal arts curriculum! Seriously though, most every job posting will have a set of qualifications or requirments…those are generally the skill set that HR will use to quickly sort through and qualify applicants. In addition the job posting might have detail about what the job holder would “do” for the job or a “job description.” At the very minimum make sure as you look and apply for jobs after college you address the qualifications in your CV. Qualifications could be as simple as college degree, x years experience, proficient in office software, strong writing skills…whatever. After that, one can elaborate on why they “fit” a particular posting using the info in the “job description” but the preliminary reviewer is simply qualifying candidates based on the stated qualifications. In our company that work is generally done by interns or contract clerical employees. That is the first step. Remember companies know they can “teach you” about their company. They don’t want to have to teach you the basic skills related to the job. Go to Indeed dot com and look at some job postings…indeed also has many internship postings so I told my sons to add it to their favorites. Don’t get too hung up on narrowing your search, just pick a city and state and do alittle research. When my son applied for internships, I told him to move a list of classes that related to the particular internship to the top of his resume underneath that put his college, college location and major/minor and then his “student jobs.” My son got at least a call back from 4 of the 5 internships he applied for. He was never once asked for his GPA so my advice is tell them if they ask, otherwise leave it off unless a certain GPA is listed under the qualifications. Make it EASY for the person to fit you to the job. Don’t give them too much to wade through, but give them what they ask for. Use similar language to describe qualifications. The person sorting resumes may know nothing about what they are matching up. If 4 years of Div III swimming is not a qualification don’t put it at the top of your resume. Linkedin is also a great resource. You can put a company in the search and then look at the “resumes” of the people that work there. Most people will include the college(s) they attended and a list of their previous jobs. You’ll quickly see that people have very different backgrounds and bring very different skill sets to the table. Have fun!</p>
<p>munchkin, unlike medical schools, in the good old days some PhD programs did not have prerequisites (I do not know if they do now). High GRE score and GPA, passion for sience and a positive interview with the faculty used to get you into graduate school. I know that one of the persons I talked about have taken some chemistry courses to satisfy the science component of their liberal arts degree, got hooked on science but decided to pursue English major anyway. A couple years later something triggered their desire to go into a science PhD program.</p>
<p>I just picked up a book for my son called [You</a> Majored In What?: Mapping Your Path From Chaos To Career](<a href=“http://wisewanderings.com/]You”>http://wisewanderings.com/) by Katharine Brooks. I read it myself before giving it to him and I was really impressed with the author’s approach to career counseling. Here’s one of the reviews from a reader that describes it better than I ever could:</p>
<p>My two sisters-in-law were both English majors. One has written for a local paper, been a children’s library, taught in a private school, run her own nursery school, substitute taught in a public school, driven a school bus, written short stories, is and currently is developing a 100 acres as a new urbanist neighborhood. The other has worked for a performing arts center and has helped manage music groups (arranging their tours). Another English major friend of mine tests drives recorders, is an Episcopalian priest, runs a flower business (she grows them), teaches piano, and is a published novelist.</p>
<p>my degree combines encompasses a lot of subjects, cultural or global or international studies, so i take courses in other areas like sociology, psychology, political science, and etc. i get decent grades, but im not a math heavy or science heavy person. if i could do math or science then i would, but i can’t commit myself to that field.</p>
<p>the only thing i can think of when i finish college is to go into an industry-either a health field or business company that does international work, grad school, or law. im really hesitant about my choices because i fear ill be making the wrong choice and not being able to have a successful career. law offers a lot of financial security, but ive read that only the best get paid well.</p>
<p>thanks for your ideas, but it looks like the general consensus says do what you like or depending on your major, it might not lead to direct fields or to get an internship to get an idea. </p>
<p>do any of you have any more stories of personal experiences or of peers who experience the same feelings?</p>
<p>sorry if this was written awkwardly, i’m in a rush, thanks for the replies</p>