Response to DTH article on majors and jobs
By Analisa Price, UCS Career Peer Student Director
Last week's issue of the DTH featured a front page article that poses the following question: “Will your major get you a job?” As a Psychology major, it’s a question that I’ve become quite accustomed to. Especially considering the fact that my parents, who are graciously paying my tuition, are a nutritionist and an engineer. They’ve experienced the value of choosing a pre-professional major. If I couldn’t graduate with a psychology degree and become a psychologist, then how was I going to make my degree something of value?
Feeling the pressure from Mom and Dad, I started doing some homework on potential careers and came across human resources. It met all of the requirements. Related to psychology? Requires only a bachelor’s degree? Comes with a salary that will allow me to become financially independent? Check. I declared myself an HR Lady in Training and successfully got my parents off my back about my future career.
I took an HR related internship with Target stores and enjoyed my time spent interviewing candidates, running orientations, and learning about the factors that influence employee motivation. That internship ended with an offer for the next summer, and there was already serious discussion about my potential as a full time hire.
At that point, I could’ve slacked off a little bit – taken easier classes, settled for a few more B’s, passed up some leadership opportunities in my clubs and activities – nothing that would majorly compromise my employability. But instead, I signed up for classes on quantitative psychology, survey methodology, and research design. Through these classes I found out that I really like statistics. I like data. I like trying to sort through numbers in order to tell a story that pieces together why people behave the way that they do. And I wanted to do it for a living.
I discussed this with my Target recruiter, and was steered towards a few internships at the corporate office, and worked this past summer as a Merchandise Planning Business Analyst in the electronics department. In short, it was my job to look at thing like sales history, advertising initiatives, economic activity to figure out how people shop and why people make the purchases they make. Then I have to take that information and use it to predict how people will shop over the next few weeks and order inventory accordingly.
I ended up getting nominated by my mentor for a thought leadership award because, due to my psychology coursework, I knew how to dig through data. I knew how to perform an analysis that would zero in on the effects we cared about and control for all of the extraneous variables that masked these effects. I loved the work – so much so that I decided to take a full time offer for after graduation.
Now that I’m going into a business field, I get asked quite often whether I wish I was a business major. Most definitely not. Some of my lowest grades in college have been a part of my business minor, like Accounting and Finance, because they just didn’t captivate me, and I would’ve had to take even more of those courses.
And even during my interviews, no one really questioned which business classes I had or hadn’t taken as a part of my minor. They wanted to see me use math and logic in order to solve a problem during my case interviews. They asked behavioral questions about how I handled problems and worked on teams. My major was rarely an issue of discussion.
But my situation doesn’t invalidate the DTH’s findings. The unemployment rate for psychology majors is still around 10% and on average, we still make some of the lowest wages of all college grads. What has made my case so different? I wish I could say it’s because I’m wildly intelligent, a savvy networker, or an effervescent interviewer, but none of these things are exactly true.
My parents just pushed me to get started early. What classes did I like most and why did I enjoy them? What jobs would allow me to do the things that I enjoy? What internships, clubs, and volunteer activities would prepare me for those jobs?
The major difference between professional schools and the humanities and social sciences is how easily they’re able to give the same advice (or pressure) that my parents gave me. Professional schools have a more homogeneous student body, with similar post-grad plans, and they can give more direct as to how to make these goals become a reality. Becoming successful in business and journalism require professional experience, so both schools push internships for sophomore and junior year.
Likewise, the nursing school and school of education build shadowing and experiential education into their curriculum. It’s not quite as easy in the Psyc department, where students are pursuing careers in research, counseling, medicine, education, business, and social services. Their needs are all so different so that seems hard to give advice that’s one size fits all. But it’s actually really simple. Find out what you love and why you love it.
Find out which jobs let you do the things that you love. And prepare for jobs in these fields with your internships, part time jobs, and extracurricular activities. And if you ever need help at any point in this process, come by Career Services. There are 12 counselors devoted to helping each student – regardless of their major – find a rewarding and fulfilling career doing what they love.
