Door Slamming/Question

[Karin Gosselink <U15593@UICVM.UIC.EDU>]

I graduated in May of 1994 from a small liberal arts school with a B.A.
in English.  During my senior year, I had a difficult time deciding
what kind of job I would like to pursue after graduation--mostly because
my liberal arts education made me interested in so many things.  I also
felt the squeeze of a tough job market; I received my fair share of rejections
for jobs at magazines, radio stations, businesses, museums.  My search
was made even more difficult because of geography; potential employers in
the Midwest had never heard of my good 4-year Eastern college (an interviewer
once asked one of my classmates during an interview in Chicago, "Is that
a community college?").

To be honest, most employers didn't care where I went to school or what
I majored in.  What they did care about was my previous work experience.
Every summer I worked as an office temporary and learned almost every
computer program under the sun.  And I had been a writing tutor--I could
write, I could communicate verbally, and I was experienced in working
directly with people.  It was those two experiences which got me the
interviews.  Yes, I did eventually take a job as the coordinator of a
writing center, but it was my previous experience as a tutor which made
the biggest difference.  Having an English degree was just a nice bonus.

Most of my classmates also obtained their jobs on the basis of their
previous work experience.  A women's studies major and geology minor
parlayed her work-study job as the house manager of the college's
concert hall into a job as a house manager for a theater in California.
Another friend who spent her summers as a secretary for city hall in her
hometown got a job at the Department of Commerce.  An English major
who spent a summer temping in a Human Resources department now has an
entry-level position in a human resources department at another company.

I also have friends who went to large universities and majored in accounting,
marketing, and business.  They report the same phenomenon--employers seemed
to look at their degrees for a total of five seconds (two to make sure they
had one and three to figure out by their GPA whether or not they were
good students).  The rest of their interviews focused on their jobs, volunteer
work, and extracurricular activities.

An accounting major isn't necessarily going to have an easier time finding
a job than an English major simply on the basis of their degrees.  Accounting
majors, however, are more liketly to gain job experience through work-study,
co-op programs, and for-credit internships.  Small liberal arts colleges
for the most part don't have the connections or the resources to offer such
opportunities.  If you're a humanities concentrator, you have to take
a semester off or a summer to work for free through an internship to gain
job experience, a luxury many students can't afford.

Even with the difficulties of the job market, the lack of access to important
job experiences, and having to sweat through the first year out of college
in a job which does not require a college degree (as my best friend from
college is now doing), I don't think any liberal arts graduate would exchange
their liberal arts degree for a pre-professional degree.   As a liberal arts
graduate, I feel much more confident and able to function in any situation
the world presents me.  Because I went to a liberal arts college, I took
classes in English, Math, Psychology, Music, Religion, Art History, Creative
Writing, Classics, Spanish, History, Sociology, Government, and Philosophy.
I learned about culture, history and traditions of people from every continent
on the globe.  In my entire college career I took multiple choice tests
only once--in my psychology class.  In all other classes I had to write and
speak my ideas.  I could easily contact all of my professors, and they all
knew me by my name.  If I had a problem with they way something was run
in the administration, I could go directly to the source, even if that meant
setting up an appointment with the president of the college.

I compare those experiences to the experiences of the students I work with
now at a large public university.  Many have never talked personally with
their instructors.  Except for their intro comp. classes, most don't
have to worry about writing a paper or taking a final essay exam until
their junior or senior year.  Their requirements for their majors are so
onerous that between them and the token "liberal arts" requirements,
most students don't have an elective to spare.  In my liberal arts education,
only ten of my courses were in my major, and only six were in my minor--
the other 16 were in other disciplines.

My liberal arts education left me with confidence in my writing skills,
in  my speaking skills, in my ability to solve problems presented to me, and
in my ability to work with a wide range of people.  I'm not sure if I would
have gained those skills in a pre-professional major where the
most important goal is to figure out the rules and follow them, or in a
school in which my professor doesn't even know my name.

My liberal arts skills are what is going to help me keep my job, learn what
I can from it, and move successfully on to my next job.  Liberal arts students
have to take lower-level jobs at first, simply because most lack
significant job experience.  But liberal arts graduates are better equipped to
learn from their jobs and move on.  If you're an accounting major from a big
univeristy, all you are trained to learn about is business.

I would choose a liberal arts English major every time.

Karin Gosselink
Univ. of Ill. at Chicago