A Mindset for Majors Without an Obvious Career Path
This article will share some of the lessons I have learned with my own weird social science degree and from others who have been successful in the social sciences and humanities.
By Xavier Royer — November 2, 2023
"So, what are you gonna do with that?" is an unbelievable question I got so sick of in undergrad. Political Science was not a field anyone any of the adults in my life had any experience with. Even my attorney uncle went to law school after completing a business degree, not political science (a common degree path for law school). I became a college instructor, but even then, there are some other paths for political scientists.
Campaign work immediately comes to mind, but political scientists can be useful in many roles with governments or other organizations. Still, I was always jealous of my friends in STEM fields whose majors answered that question quite easily. That said, political science is not easy to convert into a relevant job, especially if you want a ton of money. For political science and many other degrees that are tough to explain or do not have an obvious career pipeline, certain aspects of the mindset make those in that field successful. This article will share some of the lessons I have learned with my own weird social science degree and from others who have been successful in the social sciences and humanities.
You Have to be Undeniably Talented
No pressure, right? The tradeoff between a social science or humanities degree and a STEM degree has always appeared to differ between relative and nominal success. STEM courses tend to have more unforgiving standards, and completing a STEM degree can be quite difficult. Some of my math department colleagues recall excitement over B+s on important exams.
In social sciences and humanities, A's can come a bit easier because there is more room for discussion and interpretation instead of one right answer. If a math problem or code is wrong, it is just wrong. In a philosophy class, you can argue for a decent grade on a paper, even if you are a bit off on the core concept. The tradeoff is that the STEM job pool is generally more prominent, so while an average STEM student can walk into a good position out of college, an average social science/humanities student will be overshadowed by their higher-performing counterparts.
Perspective Taking
In last year's Superbowl, a controversial late penalty against the Philadelphia Eagles helped the Kansas City Chiefs score a critical touchdown late in the game, which the Chiefs would go on to win. On his podcast, Philadelphia Eagle's center, Jason Kelce gave great advice for Humanities and Social Science students. Slightly paraphrasing, his statement was:
"Regardless of whether you think it was a penalty or not, as a professional, you have to know that late in a game, you can't even put yourself in a position where the ref has to make a decision — you have to take it out of the ref's hands."
Replace "Ref" with "future employer," and you have found the mindset students should take as they work through undergrad. Students need to come with the mindset that if they are truly passionate about whatever fringe major they want to get, they need to be so undeniably qualified that employers will have no choice but to take their resume seriously.
Take Political Science, for example. I stress to all my students they absolutely can not leave the university with nothing else to show for their four years but their degree alone. If they want to get into campaign politics, they need to start volunteering canvas or work in the office of a state senator or something. They need to be doing Model UN or at least going to other conferences when the opportunity presents, ideally presenting at those conferences. A 4.0 with an otherwise empty resume will always lose to a 3.5 GPA with a laundry list of relevant experience. The thing social science and humanities students have to grapple with is they probably need to have the 4.0 and the laundry list of experience.
I love fringe majors. The underwater basket weaving jokes get old immediately, but the world does need these fields. Take COVID-19, for example — while medical science was (mostly) widely discussed and available, I was appalled at the lack of sociology paired with it. The virus itself was bad enough, but there were mountains of research about handling things like social distancing that went largely ignored and made our recovery prolonged and worse.
If students in fringe majors get anything from this article, it's that they should keep soldiering on with their major. And, they owe it to themselves, their professors, and, potentially, the rest of society one day to maximize the potential of their degree by doing their absolute best.
Xavier Royer
I am currently a full time instructor at a William Penn University, a small private university in Iowa. I am the lone political science faculty member there. In my time teaching, I have already connected with an incredible cohort of students in ways I could never have expected. Partnering with SAGE will allow me the opportunity to help even more students across the globe navigate those tricky questions.
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