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Major challenge; Applying what you studied in college to your career field isn't always easy

Source: Tribune Media Services

There are a countless number of careers out there that don’t correspond with a particular university major. When John F. Kennedy attended college at Harvard, he didn’t take classes called, “How to Be the President of the United States.” He studied history, preparing a senior thesis like every other normal student, and spend a brief period of time at the Stanford business school before deciding it wasn’t for him.

In fact, many college programs, particularly those with a liberal arts focus, can leave students confused about the practical, real-world application of their talents. For a psychology or art history major, there is no specified skill set, no intensive job training, and no clear-cut destination when it comes to finding a real job. But with an increasingly complex job market, almost any field can accommodate almost any course of study. The trick is knowing how to pursue your options.

Charles Kovacs, director of the Office of Career Services at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, says the first obstacle to progression in the job world that students encounter is simply the limited amount of time and energy they have to devote. “Most students who are undergraduates at our universities have a short amount of time to do career development,” Kovacs says. “A lot of time and effort goes into being a good students.”

But, as Kovacs points out, the “clock is ticking,” and students who don’t start thinking about careers early enough in the game are the ones who have the most trouble.

Expand your thinking

Another problem Kovacs notices among students at Bates, a liberal arts college, is that the students think too narrowly about possible career fields related to their major.

“What we’re dealing with is a dialectical tension between academics and how one expresses that in the real world,” says Kovacs.

A history major, he explains, may believe that he must graduate and find a job as a historian – and when that job search hits a dead end, the student gets discouraged and believes there’s nothing out there for him. But Kovacs is quick to debunk the notion that your job title must contain the name of your major.

“You can use your major as a direct corollary or as a basis for something else,” says Kovacs, himself a liberal arts graduate. “My undergraduate major was not English or psychology. It was history, with a minor in studio arts.”

According to Kovacs, the largest employer of Bates graduates is IBM consulting. Although these students are rarely trained in specific fields like business or technological engineering, Vera Chota, leader of IBM’s university recruiting program, says the company hires a substantial number of liberal arts students, as well as those with highly specified training.

“We look for good candidates that are talented, regardless of their major,” Chota says. “For university students, that means high achievement in academics and valid internship experience, which is a good indicator of future success.”

Although positions in IBM departments like technological development may require a strong skill set and training background, Chota says that IBM also has one of the world’s largest consulting arms and service organizations, which staffs about 200,000 people.

“We want people who are able to think, reason, and be creative, and this is what liberal arts majors concentrate on,” she says, adding that any major would also be considered in their sales and distribution department.

Speak up

Chota says her most important criteria for potential employees in these fields is that they be very articulate, because a lot of the roles deal with clients, and demonstrate a desire to achieve a certain level of success. Within IBM, there are opportunities for on-the-job training and courses available to employees who want to be more skilled in their specific field, but Chota says the best resource for career newbies is to take advantage of the mentors within the companies.

Marty Nemko, called the best career coach in the San Francisco Bay Area and the author of “Cool Careers for Dummies” (For Dummies, $19.95), believes that outstanding students have outstanding skill sets, but some might be less apparent than others. In this case, it is the students’ responsibility to highlight their strengths during a job search.

“Liberal arts majors have embedded skills that end up being critical to success, but the burden (of pointing these out in an interview) shifts to the job seeker,” Nemko says. “Recognize that this is where you really need to show your rigorous intellect.”