Ques­tion of the Week #7: What are some unex­pected career paths for lib­eral arts majors? – Emanuel Cas­taneda ‘16

As you may know, Emanuel, career paths are not always per­fectly lin­ear. For instance, you may not know where you will be career-wise five years down the road.  In From Bull­fight­ing to Finance, Car­men Bermudez gives a great por­trait of her career path and shows that where one starts out may not be nec­es­sar­ily where one ends up! With a lib­eral arts degree, the path to one’s “ulti­mate” career usu­ally involves many twists and turns. This is pri­mar­ily because lib­eral arts majors are extremely well rounded and suited for posi­tions in a vari­ety of indus­tries. Here at Prince­ton, lib­eral arts majors aren’t only well versed in their spe­cific major, but they have devel­oped ana­lyt­i­cal, writ­ing, prob­lem solv­ing, research, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills—all traits that are extremely valu­able in today’s job mar­ket! Don’t believe me? Check out this great Daily Finance arti­cle What Good Is a Lib­eral Arts Degree in the Job Mar­ket?.  Author Vanessa Richard­son out­lines some great tech­niques for lib­eral arts majors as they explore their career options. Here are some high­lights from her article:

• Believe in your degree
• Sharpen your skills
• Mar­ket your skills
• Give your skills a boost
• Draft a port­fo­lio and cover let­ter that shows off your degree
• Deter­mine whether you need more education

Another resource that can help you explore some “unex­pected career paths” is the Links by Indus­try page on the Career Ser­vices’ web­site.  Career Ser­vices’ posts links to a host of indus­tries that might not be typ­i­cal for lib­eral arts majors. Some that really caught my atten­tion were the fol­low­ing: TV, Film, Enter­tain­ment, Reli­gion, Sports-related, Man­u­fac­tur­ing, Fash­ion, and Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals & BioTech. The Career Ser­vices Annual Report is also a great place to learn about the post-graduation career plans of grad­u­at­ing Prince­ton seniors.  Stu­dents reported accept­ing posi­tions in fields such as Retail Trade, Health Care & Social Assis­tance, Infor­ma­tion, Edu­ca­tional Ser­vices, Con­struc­tion, Pub­lic Admin­is­tra­tion, and many more! Also included in the 2012 Sum­mer Expe­ri­ence Report that offers a look at the types of sum­mer oppor­tu­ni­ties Prince­ton stu­dents have pur­sued. Take a look at these pub­li­ca­tions to get a bet­ter feel for the types of indus­tries hir­ing Prince­ton stu­dents and graduates.

All career paths can in some ways be deemed “unex­pected.” Unless you have very solid­i­fied career goals such as going to med­ical school to become a physi­cian or law school to become a lawyer, there really is no set equa­tion that can pre­dict where you end up. My advice to you is to really use your lib­eral arts edu­ca­tion to become a well-rounded stu­dent and per­son. Take classes that both chal­lenge and inter­est you. Try to amass and refine your skills so that you can be mar­ketable in the job mar­ket later on. In “Strengthen Those Soft Skills” on the Savvy­In­tern site, author Dave Ellis points out that employ­ers are seek­ing can­di­dates with the soft skills gleaned through a lib­eral arts cur­ric­ula. Seek out oppor­tu­ni­ties such as extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties, intern­ships, and even vol­un­teer work where you can fur­ther develop these skills, make con­nec­tions and turn inter­ests into pas­sions. Some­times the best career infor­ma­tion may come from out of the box think­ing or uncon­ven­tional expe­ri­ences. (For exam­ple, take a look at this great arti­cle about how one woman’s vol­un­teer expe­ri­ence turned into a career oppor­tu­nity).  Don’t limit your options—explore them while you are in school so you will plenty of future oppor­tu­ni­ties to choose from.

Make sure to set up an appoint­ment with a career coun­selor today to speak one-on-one to some­one who can help you get started explor­ing your inter­ests. There are also lots of pro­grams and resources for fresh­men such as you to get the ball rolling. Check out Career Ser­vices’ info­graphic “Fresh­men Year: 12 Steps to Begin Your Career Devel­op­ment,” for spe­cific steps you can take now. (In fact, you should con­sider apply­ing for a Princetern­ship as a great way for you to get an inside look at dif­fer­ent career paths and receive invalu­able advice from alumni. Appli­ca­tions are now live on Tiger­Tracks!)

Hope this helps, Emanuel.