Somebody on Meta Filter asked:
“Have you managed to turn an undergrad degree in the humanities/liberal arts into a satisfying and intellectually challenging career? Please tell me about it.
I'm finishing up a social science/humanities degree (philosophy/psychology/cognitive science, if it matters.) I'm considering graduate school, but I'd like a sense for my other options - what can I do with my degree? Standard answers like "education, research, law, academia, marketing, etc" are vague, and of little use in forming a concrete plan. I'd like some specific examples of possible paths (the more details, the better), and some reassurance that my degree is at least somewhat useful. So I'd like to hear how you turned your liberal arts/humanities/social science degree into an intellectually challenging and reasonably fun career, one that utilizes abilities like:
- writing clear, succinct prose
- research skills
- reading and summarizing abstruse/academic material
- analytical/problem solving skills
(etc.) I should mention, also, that I've taken some computer science courses - I don't want to become a programmer, but if you have a relevant job that requires some modicum of technical skill, that's fine. I'm not looking for something particularly lucrative, but extra points if your story doesn't involve a dying industry (e.g. print journalism.) Extra, extra points if it's a career that I've probably never heard of.”
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I'm reposting some interesting responses:
"Graduated with Honours in film studies. BA was film studies and political science. Both before and after graduation I was a freelance writer for about 5 years. This work encompasses everything from what you'd typically expect a freelancer to do (articles, interviews, reviews) to broadcast work with national radio, contracts with various government departments on internal writing projects and weird, ad hoc kind of stuff that might have been grant-related etc. etc. The perks were phenomenal, but the pressure to be shit was intense, and the pay was usually appalling. From there I worked in the non-profit advocacy sector for a while, diong communications/marketing stuff like press releases, newsletters, organising events, building or writing content for web sites etc. You can get a lot of responsibility with these kind of jobs, but the pay is again lower than median and the non-profit sector is largely dominated by two types: people who are too shit to work private sector, and crusaders of one sort or another. Crusaders can be nice or terrible. But the combo makes a weird mix. Obviously, as someone just started out, I was in the first category for a couple of years. Then - whilst unhappy with my job, my girlfriend suggested I apply for her large multi-national company. I was initially worried because I'm a bit of a commie and had never worked in that kind of environment. It's now been two and a bit years working in the communications department for one of the largest companies in the world. I have done external PR for them, things like organising events, setting up interviews with journalists, reco
rding podcasts, etc. and now work on the internal side, trying to make the workforce feel more engaged and energised about work, and trying to simplify their lives a bit from a comms perspective. I also do a lot of polling and metrics stuff now, which ties in nicely with my pol sci major. So that's my story, but I just want to point out a couple of crucial things:1) No one gives a shit about your degree, positive or negative. They want to know you have one, they won't care what it is, and won't believe it qualifies you for anything. (this is for 'soft' degrees. Obviously pharmacy is a different story.)2) You may not ever find anything as stimulating as uni. You pay to go there cause it's so fun. Jobs pay you money mainly cause they're shit. If they're not shit, everyone wants to do them and they are either super competitive or pay terribly.3) Following on from points 1 and 2. If you want something good, you need to start thinking about it now. Throughout my degree I was nearly always doing something that would set me apart from the other fifty kabillion graduates of any given year. Concrete skills from things like internships, volunteering or anything. Your degree won't 'lead' to any kind of job, it is your work that will do that. A degree like ours is only good for teaching you how to think, and frankly, thinking is not rated very highly in the world of jobs, a fact that recent graduates seem largely unable to grasp. Doing, on the other hand, people love doing."
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"BA with honors in anthropology. I also took a certificate program (more than a minor, but not quite a second major) in culture, health and science. It took me 5 years of work, in an unrelated field (project management for a small web design firm), to figure out that I wanted a Masters in public health.
What really helped over those 5 years was not just getting up and going to that same job every day, but trying different volunteer opportunities (I never did any internships in college, which I immensely regretted as soon as I was out and tied to a paycheck and my student loans). My last volunteer work - at my city's local board of health - really helped me see the connection between my undergrad coursework and the huge field of public health (epidemiology, health policy, bioethics, etc).Connections I made through that volunteer work turned into my current job, as a writer/editor for a health communications firm. I've also been accepted to a Master's program in Health Communication and Education. My current work hits many of your points - writing clear, succinct prose - absolutely a requirement. Research skills - definitely, and this one - reading and summarizing abstruse/academic material - yes, in the sense that I
'm often 'translating' medical / technical jargon into plain language.The greatest part of all this is realizing that the 9-5 I had for so many years at the web design firm wasn't a waste. Even though on the face of it, it was totally unrelated to health or anthropology, it was a great experience in dealing with hands-on usability and literacy issues, design challenges, and of course the critical thinking / problem solving needed to actually get projects out the door on time. Plus, my technical know-how is serving me well as the field of health communication moves online and into new media (Twitter, etc.)."
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"I have undergrad degrees in physics and English from a liberal arts college. Neither degree offered much in terms of immediate employment, so I decided to go into technical writing. I earned a Masters degree and immediately had good job prospects in the software industry. I've been a tech writer for about 7 years, and I really enjoy it. I get to work with brilliant engineers who respect my unique skill set. Plus, I even get to teach tech writing courses at my local university.Tech writing matches your description well:
- Requires clear, succinct prose
- Requires good research skills
- Requires ability to analyze and summarize
- Requires an understanding of the reader's thought process, an area of study increasingly dominated by cognitive scientists
- Requires some computer science skills, but not as much as a programmer
- Should grow as a field over the next few decades
- Prefers people who write using bulleted listsTwo ways that it doesn't match:
- You'll get further faster if you have a degree or a certificate in tech writing, so you might be looking at more school.
- You can expect to make good money as a tech writer, so I hope that non-lucrative wasn't a requirement."
See more thoughtful responses at http://ask.metafilter.com/139099/What-did-you-do-with-your-degree
You are either a student who already has a definitive answer, or the question will lead you give that “deer in the headlights” look while thinking to yourself, “but I don’t graduate until…”
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