Many aspects of the Washington University undergraduate academic experience are pre-professional, such as pre-med students studying to become doctors or business students learning about investment banking. However, the humanities majors within the College of Arts & Sciences often have a less defined path in relation to their job outcome.

How can they try to find jobs? The Career Center strives to serve as a link between students and the job world, with the Career Fair and other on-campus activities providing students with resources and possible future connections. However, some humanities students are concerned that the University does not do enough for them.

Sarah Chang, a senior majoring in Film and Media Studies, expressed that she likes some of the resources the Career Center provides, including resume help and the Entertainment Career Interest Group, which has her grouped with other film students and helps her to see the options she has.

However, overall, Chang said that the Career Center does not have enough resources for film students, especially during the Career Fair.

“I didn’t get much out of it,” she said. “The career fair does nothing for me.”

Chang obtained a summer internship at Dreamworks, but did not consult the Career Center in her application process. She expressed her worry over getting a post-graduation job and noted that appointment calendars for career advisors often have little availability.

“They’re understaffed for advisors,” she said.

Karina Carcamo, a senior majoring in Spanish and minoring in Psychology-Neuroscience-Philosophy (PNP) who also obtained a summer internship through her own search, feels intimidated by the Career Center.

“It caters to pre-med, pre-law,” she said. “Anything with ‘pre’ in the front.”
She also noted her desire for the Career Center to hire more staff members of color in order to increase representation and create a more approachable environment for all students.

“Latinos and people of color find it intimidating. There’s a cultural barrier,” she said, later iterating how she would feel more comfortable if there were more diversity.

Mark Smith, the associate vice chancellor and dean of Career Services, said that “most employers at career fairs look for everyone.”

Jennifer R. Smith, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, agreed.

“I remember seeing employers that said that they were looking for everyone, not just business and engineering students,” Jennifer Smith said.

However, she acknowledged that humanities degrees do not directly translate to a specific industry. When discussing internships, she said that she doesn’t “think humanities-specific internships exist.” She expressed that as opposed to other majors, the humanities “don’t have a sense of linearity. It may seem scary how a path is not set and they may even be jealous of their peers in other academic schools.”

So then why be a humanities major? What comes out of it?

“Imagination,” Smith said. “They have a large capacity for imagination on what it means to be human and have self-awareness.”

Smith mentioned skills such as critical thinking and analysis as some of humanities majors’ greatest assets and how following their passion can increase their capacity for learning in college. “It’s a unique opportunity to delve into what humans are and can be,” which is something she holds to not be entirely possible in some other fields.

So what does the Career Center do to ensure that humanities students can receive good jobs? As a beginning step, the Humanities and Social Sciences: Career Mapping presentation gives knowledge on how to begin the search for a job, even though a major may not match up to a specific field.

The presenter, Amy Heath-Carpentier, assistant director of the PreGraduate School and Career Development, stated how “only certain fields need certain degrees,” such as medicine, law and engineering. She iterated how even fields such as engineering take humanities students, but only subfields like civil engineering require a specific skill set.

“Once you go through your first job, your major doesn’t matter for the most part. Only the skills,” she said. She agreed with Mark Smith about how the most important academic concepts learned in college are job skills.

Heath-Carpentier mentioned how it may seem that “the career fair is dominated by business and tech, but they also want humanities.” She mentioned during the meeting that ExxonMobil had employers on campus looking for students who would serve as their government relations, as companies that appear dominated by engineering or medicine actually need people with skills that many humanities students have.
Following the presentation, one student asked, “How do you find jobs that don’t even exist?” Heath-Carpentier responded by saying to look for people with similar interests and what they do or like.

After planning a career, Mark Smith advises students to talk to as many people as possible and to experiment with different things during the search, commenting that there are many programs through the Career Center that humanities students can use to help the process of the job search, including the Business Fundamentals & Professional Competencies for Non-Business Students (a Management 200 class), career interest groups and Career Early Action, which is offered six to seven times every fall and informs students on how to do informational interviews, talk to people in different fields and find where they want to go in life.

The Career Center’s online website can be used to find past success stories, career outcome data of past students and CareerLink, where students can “can search and apply for job postings, internship opportunities and co-ops, manage applications and RSVP for programs and workshops,” according to Mark Smith.

Smith expressed how she wants humanities students to recognize the value in their skills, stating that that the University can always do better when it comes to helping students find adequate jobs, especially those who may feel lost in their job search and anxious over not having a job. “We gotta help.”

Mark Smith estimates that only around half of all Wash. U. students use the Career Center during their time in college, and he wants more humanities students to visit the Career Center. “We’re always open to more ideas.”