New to CC here.
With the massive trend towards STEM majors (especially CS) and the decline in Humanities majors, we’d love to hear some real life examples of first post-graduation jobs attained by recent Humanities majors.
For those who are willing, here’s what would be especially helpful to us:
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Major + First job after graduation (where and maybe a brief description of the role)
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How they/you got it (on campus recruiting, summer internship, networking, cold application etc.)
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Name of college/university, of type of school, if you’d rather not name it.
Thanks!
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I can’t answer you per se but If you scroll all the way down on the Kenyon website to First Jobs and Careers, they list by major for class of 23.
Cornell lists not only the roles but the source. I have it set to Comparative Literature.
You can also do an indeed job search - put in entry level and the major and see what pops up.
Good luck.
https://www.kenyon.edu/academics/career-development/after-kenyon/
https://ccs.career.cornell.edu/dash/dashboard_employment
Of course these are higher level schools. Other schools of lesser pedigree and rank will have career outcomes.
Of course you don’t know if these majors are single or double.
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My D has a couple of friends who graduated with humanities degrees in '22.
History major, small regional catholic college, working as an AP history teacher. Got the job after student teaching at the school.
English major, small regional LAC, working in HR at a large regional university. Cold application.
English major, big public flagship, working in a law office (and has intention of going to law school). Not sure how she got her position.
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Thank you!! These links are fantastic - so much good info. 
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I know someone who recently graduated with an English degree from a state flagship who got an analyst job at EY straight out of college. A humanities degree is not a limitation; many employers value the critical thinking skills, analytical skills, and writing skills that often come with an education in the humanities.
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UNC has a similar to Cornell career outcome calculator as will others.
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Most universities have a first destination survey report. Here’s the link to Purdue’s: Purdue CCO
You can do a search by college and then see median income, top employers, top industries, grad school, internships, and location.
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My daughter has a BA and an MA in History from U of Wyoming (just got MA in May). She’s limited in where she can work as her fiance just got out of the Army and got a job so they moved to Clarkville, TN. She was substitute teaching in the spring, and then just started working as a tour guide in a Nashville museum a few days a week (she has a certificate in museum studies), and was just offered a job as an instructor at a local university to teach two sections of a history class this fall. She’s getting married in the fall so may just do those and then try to get something to tie it all together in the spring. I suspect she’ll end up teaching more sections of university classes. She’s also been able to complete some projects from her UW professors, and that work isn’t bad as she can complete it at her pace.
Or she could go back to working at Starbucks, and she said the sad thing would be that Starbucks would pay the most of any of the jobs!
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Not sure about first jobs, but here are some career paths for history majors who graduated from a range of colleges:
Lots of interesting information from Williams’ Career Center here, as well.
Unfortunately, not all have per-major filtering.
Here are some career survey results that can be filtered by major from some public universities. They include lists of job titles and employers.
From a research university, but not what is ordinarily seen as the top flagship: First Destination Survey
From a relatively pre-professionally focused public university: https://careerservices.calpoly.edu/gsr-dashboards
From a regional public university with a large local commuter student population (note that most humanities majors are not very selective at admissions here):
https://surveys.lightcast.io/dashboard/embark_delivery_dash/YtQsMqTMyuvLFxcTrwzQ3?tab=first_destination_outcomes
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D graduated 3 years ago from a selective LAC with an English major and Women’s studies minor. Her first post-college job was as an assistant editor for a large publishing company that does educational curriculum work. She has been promoted and gotten small raises. It’s great that she got a job in her field and has good benefits and 401K matching. Hooray! I believe she got the interview through networking.
My S’s first job is with MBB consulting, and even though I know that is a long shot for anyone, it is possible with a humanities-type major. He designed his, and it was a combo of economics, sustainability and ethics, with a number of language courses as well. He did not have a math heavy schedule and only took Calc 1. He decided not to ask for a reference when applying for MBB internships, but was at a highly regarded university, so that may have helped.
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Just want to log in a quick reality check… organizations don’t hire majors or colleges- they hire actual people. What does that mean? There are ways for humanities majors to make themselves more employable (and there are ways for engineers, math majors, etc. to make themselves more employable as well… this isn’t just for the humanities folks). So knowing where kids who major in poli sci at U Chicago end up is all well and good… but it’s often the other things that move the needle.
There are ways to make any degree more rigorous-- and in general, more rigor is better than less. Some employers won’t care but some do. Being fluent in a language other than English is often very helpful. Again, some employers don’t care. But the ones that do REALLY care. And if a kid loves foreign languages and learns them easily, looking at the list of “strategic languages” put out by the US State Department can be really helpful. Yes, it’s great your kid wants to study Portuguese poetry and loves the language. But if the kid is at a university where she can study one of the strategic languages- why not?
Being numerate- it matters for everyone. Our world is increasingly math driven even in disciplines which didn’t used to require math. So if your kid is good at math- terrific. And advanced statistics sequence is a fantastic thing to add to a transcript. If that included R or Matlab-- even better.
College offers the choice of an honors thesis or senior thesis- take it. The topic may not be relevant to employers (although surprisingly, sometimes they are) but it demonstrates a level of rigor and the ability to do primary research and have to organize and analyze the results which is very relevant to a lot of jobs.
Follow my podcast (just kidding) for more ways for a kid who majors in literature or history or Renaissance Studies to become happily employed and self-supporting…
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I think a lot depends on the school. An English major from Dartmouth or Yale can become an investment banker.
Real examples – DD21 has a couple of friends graduating with humanities degrees that went to “regular schools.” One majored in History and is working as a legal office assistant while preparing for LSAT. Went to UNC-Greensboro.
Another is working as an elementary school teacher. Majored in Education. Went to UNC-Asheville
Another went to UNC-Charlotte, majored in sociology and working as a Social Worker. Plans to get MSW.
They had no trouble finding gainful employment upon graduation.
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