Worrying About What's Next...

It’s a question that comes after class or at the end of office hours. It’s a question that comes by email at the end of semester after all the grades have been posted.  And often with the hesitancy of dog bite victim perusing the pound: “So… what kind of jobs can someone get with a poli sci degree?”

I’m not sure if students hesitate because past professors have snapped at them for asking the same question, or because they anticipate the worst: there are no jobs. 

Not surprisingly – wait, scratch that -- SURPRISINGLY, the jobs question is extremely controversial.  Many professors resist describing liberal arts education in terms of utility: Education is not a means to an end; rather, it contains intrinsic, aesthetic, moral, political and unquantifiable value.  In other words, it’s the journey not the destination.   And they’re not wrong.  Liberal arts education helps people enrich their life; excite curiosity; inform political action; expand the horizons of possibility; develop important analytic skills. But still, many students have more immediate concerns: excessive debt and imminent membership with the boomerang gang.

I am at that point in my career, where I am confronting this reality head on -- the students I had as freshmen are now graduates (AKA I’m getting old).   On Saturday, I met with a former student and a recent graduate to talk about a lot of these very issues.  He’s currently unemployed and frustrated that UMass didn’t do more to help prepare him to transition.  I felt frustrated at myself that I hadn’t/couldn’t do more to help.   We spent a long time brainstorming different professional options and opportunities.  And I have a lot of faith that he will find success.  But still, I really identify with his frustration -- perhaps, because I hear the same frustrations from other students, or perhaps because it resonates a little with my own college experience.

So how can the university better prepare our graduates? The current answer: career services, advising and internship programs.  But there has to be more.  Degree programs should require students to take courses that will help students transition to the workforce.   

This semester, teaching Methods and Interpretation, I find myself in the position to help meet this need.  A section of the class requires students to practice different forms of professional writing.  I know some of my other colleagues have done the same.  As a result, we've started to move the peripheral question of utility out of the margins and closer to the center of our Political Science degree program.

What does this look like in the classroom? Last week, we started to map the variety of job opportunities and possibilities open to students with political science degrees.   It’s irrelevant to talk about a “career path.” Instead, we focused on the web that links different careers together – it’s about a network.   We talked about the interrelationship between government, political, non-profit and corporate jobs and the different opportunities to pivot from one sector to another.  We’ll continue this conversation next week and students will prepare cover letters and resumes for different entry level positions. 

My hope is that these conversations will defuse their anxiety – it already has for some.  The economy sucks, but opportunities for success abound… however you choose to define it.  I like to think that college has the potential to help students align their definition of success with their own values.  And set them on the path to achieve it.

Leave a comment below: What’s one thing that you learned, or could have learned in college, that better prepared you for your current job?