How to find where alumni went

WilliamC
Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:27:05 +0000

You ask the department(s) at the school(s) you’re interested in about their graduate placement. Sometimes you’ll find a section on their websites that talks about where their students go after graduation. I don’t think there are any formal lists simply because the relationship between undergrad major and graduate field is normally pretty direct and obvious.

That said, the physical sciences have some overlap obviously and of course those majors find their way into various engineering fields pretty frequently. There are some very flexible humanities/social sciences majors that can lead to a variety of graduate fields as well, for example Classics (my field) can lead to Classics (duh), Art History, Religious Studies, Ancient History, Classical Archaeology, even Comparative Literature (but you can see how those are all related right?). And there are some “new” majors, like Biological Basis of Behavior that have a wide and deep base and can lead in many directions.

Keep in mind that graduate school is all about specialization so no matter what field you choose, you’ll need to have a significant academic background going in.