My DC graduated with a philosophy degree five years ago. He works for an industry publication reporting on a certain industry, with a specialty in China. He travels a lot and enjoys that. He makes about $80K a year.

DD graduated last year in political science and is a management consultant in NYC.

Not sure why this thread was revived after 2 years, but it seems like the job market for liberal arts college grads is pretty good right now. One of my DCs is doing consulting, the other is interviewing for finance jobs in NYC. All of the older DCs friends are employed, and many of my younger DCs friends have jobs lined up post graduation.

Law school

+1...those jobs exist and will CONTINUE exist.

Here are some of the things that my liberal arts friends and I are doing:

doctor
lawyer
translator for a government agency headquartered in Langley, VA
Hill staffer
grant writer
policy analyst for large government agency
teacher
professor
advertising
management consulting
media relations
computer programming
museum curator
economist
nonprofit director
minister

AFAIK, most of these jobs still exist.

There is plenty other than law or teaching that a liberal arts major can do. I am a Foreign Service Officer, but came to it in a roundabout way. After graduating from GWU with a Political Science degree and a Russian minor, I worked in retail for a year until I landed a job on Capitol Hill. I worked for four years on the Hill making peanuts, but the experience was well worth it. When the USSR collapsed in 1991, I decamped for Russia without a job and started out teaching for rubles at a Russian university and then working for a U.S. non-profit recruiting Russian students to study on exchange programs in the U.S. My one year in Moscow turned into five when I landed a job at the Embassy where I combined my U.S. political experience with my Russian language and area expertise to consult with the Embassy on training and exchanges with the U.S. Congress, FEC and local and state governments and Russian government institutions. During that time, I learned the ins and outs of government contracting and parlayed that into a contract position with USAID and then was hired into the Foreign Service. This led to stints in Africa and Asia and back to Russia and now to Eastern Europe. It has been great!

At the beginning of my career, I made little: First job: $17K (inflation adjusted $25K); Second job: $25K (inflation adjusted $45K); Third job: $45K (inflation adjusted: $72,000); Fourth job: $65K (inflation adjusted: $93K). I am now well into six figures. However, I don't do the job for the money. Despite that, I amassed with savings and investments assets over $1 million.

The point is, there is everything that a liberal arts major can do. Why not Google "what you can do with a liberal arts career?" It is more than law and teaching, and the former is certainly no guarantee of a high paying job. More like "Better Call Saul."

My niece, a Spanish and Comparative Lit double major, is working for a multi-national corporation in Buenos Aires in public relations.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Several of my friends with such degrees are relying on wealthy parents and volunteering. A few are working low paying jobs in non profits. I have an engineering degree, had much more luck finding work quickly. class of 2013.

Our children relied on wealthy parents and grandparents and volunteered and may very well end up working low paying jobs in non profits. And what of it? That's the beauty of coming from money -- you don't have to major in something you don't want or take a job that doesn't interest you for the money. And it's important that people volunteer because they're doing important work.

Our children would be very, very unhappy as engineers no matter what they were paid.

I completely agree. Science is not for everyone. I absolutely agree that society can benefit from more volunteers. However, without the luxury of wealthy parents, I believe it is important to understand the pros and cons of liberal arts education. Without strong networks, it would be very difficult to find a well paying - or any - job that would related to their education or would be interesting. I know many people who payed 100k for education and are now working as low level staff in non profits, performing simple tasks.

This isn't true. Takes a little more imagination and ability to prove yoruself an asset, but liberal arts majors will have the skills needed for the 21st century worksforce, where everyone will need to change professions multiple times. Liberal arts majors have skills (critical reading and writing skills, for example). The content knwolege they have, may indeed, be irrelevent to future employment (say knowlege of Plato), but the ability to deduce and respond to changing rhetroical situations will pay dividends.

And then there is the issue of class. Unfortunately, I suspect that liberal arts majors will have a certain cache becasue in the next ten years they will become the sole of the haves. Getting one will be a sign of privledge and having one then gives you a leg up.

I teach at a local second or third tier private college. Our English majors have better job placement rates than business degrees (and oddly, than our nursing and educatation majors). They do all kids of cool things - lots of nonprofit work (they work their way up in the nonprofit world - one is in some executive position at americops now, about 5 years after graduating), some publishing work for trade magazines (one quickly became editor though she also is in grad school now), work in PR for small firms, etc.

I will say what makes the difference is 1) our strong internship program (many get jobs where they intern) 2) our program's focus on helping students translate how the deep critical thinking/reading/writing skills they learn make them marketable and 3) we're a second-teir program so our students don't come in focused on grad school or law school which means they try harder when they graduate to get a real job not a transitional job

I think I remmeber some studies showing liberal arts degrees start below the salaries of more vocational degrees (accounting, social work, education) but end up making more. But perhaps those studies are skewed by people who go to grad school? Bit I know that I graduated college in the early 90s before the whole STEM push (and I warn you guys that I think this is a bubble - encourage your kids to do it if they really like it because I am not convined there will be a plethora of jobs for them on the other side in 10 years) and before college got so expensive that people were stratgic about majors - we majored in what we liked. So I knew A LOT of liberal studies majors, and based on facebook even the ones who didn't go on to grad school ended up doing a variety of interesting, well-paid work.

In what world is working at a TMT IB better than sales? Seriously? I never ever wanted to do IB bc of the bs work and insanely long hours. No thank you.

state school english major. Editor for 25 years. Great for work/family balance. grade 13. would not trade my liberal arts educ/career for anything. Great balance for typeA/scientist spouse.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I was a salesperson at JPM. I was also a hot girl as were majority of the salespeople at JP and most other banks.


I know your type all too well - stumbling out of J-Tree trying to bed a buyside analyst. You are hot and went to a target - sales at JPM is the bare minimum you could've done.

I am extremely smart who happens to have a very pleasing candy coating - don't hate. If you really think being hot and at a target are enough to get a front office top tier Wall St job you are mistaken. You make it sound like bedding a buy side analyst is difficult. For what it's worth, I was not trying to do that anyway.

No - not really. If you were extremely smart, you wouldn't have gone to a dime a dozen sales job at a bulge bracket. You would've landed a job with a TMT IB team or joined a prop shop directly.

Regardless your data point is irrelevant to the OP.

English major here (bachelors and masters). Graduated in 2005. I am a proposal manager at a government contractor and make 6 figures.

Anonymous wrote:
I was a salesperson at JPM. I was also a hot girl as were majority of the salespeople at JP and most other banks.


I know your type all too well - stumbling out of J-Tree trying to bed a buyside analyst. You are hot and went to a target - sales at JPM is the bare minimum you could've done.

I am extremely smart who happens to have a very pleasing candy coating - don't hate. If you really think being hot and at a target are enough to get a front office top tier Wall St job you are mistaken. You make it sound like bedding a buy side analyst is difficult. For what it's worth, I was not trying to do that anyway.