I met with my dad the other day for dinner at a restaurant near campus. It was the middle of spring break, so the place wasn’t very crowded and my dad and I got our meals very quickly after we ordered. At some point during the meal, my dad asked me about my job prospects after I graduated, which is still about two years away, and if I’m not already at least making a living off my writing. I’d already told him in previous conversations that there’s always a chance that I might be possibly be hired by the financial aid office, where I work, after I graduate, and if that didn’t happen, there’s a program that helps graduates finds jobs in Columbus through the school’s Jewish organization, OSU Hillel. I even added that English majors, which is one of my majors, are getting hired in record numbers lately.
Of course, my dad was still worried about my job prospects. This is understandable for several reasons: first, my dad’s a parent. Worrying about me is his job, and he probably won’t be cooling off on the worrying anytime until I’m safely secured into a position that pays enough to at least cover my basic expenses (rent, food, bills, etc). Also, my dad associates my English major and my History major with either teaching or scholarly work or writing (at least for English), and since the first two are not my aim and the third doesn’t always garauntee a successful career, he fears I’m going to live in his basement for the rest of my life. There are a few other reasons, but I’m not going to go into those here.
Besides, I’m writing this post because I want to assuage my dad’s worries at least a little bit, not point out why he worries about me (I’ll save that for a comedy act one of these days). So, I’ll write some reasons why, even if God doesn’t see fit to make me a writing success before graduation, I actually have some good job prospects, even if I don’t take classes that look good on a resume, whatever that means. I’ll skip over the one about my current workplace hiring me as a full-time employee after graduation though; that’s still two years off and there’s no garauntee that they’ll hire me, though they love me and my humor and the head of the office keeps saying she’ll have to get my autograph before I’m famous.
So without further ado, here are some reasons why my job prospects are actually pretty good right now:
1. Graduation is still two years off. That’s still plenty of time to write, take classes, earn money, make friends and contacts, and possibly write something that gets a lot of sales on Amazon and Smashwords. Besides, the job market can change rapidly over time, so what can be considered a job-winning major may not be the case a few years down the road and vice-versa (I will return to this point later on).
2. OSU Hillel is helping graduates. The program at OSU Hillel, Growing Jewish Columbus, apparently has had a great success rate in getting grads of all majors hired after college. I’ve already contacted the woman in charge of the program and a friend of mine, and she said I should contact her again in the fall, when I’m in that two-year stretch to graduation. Still, with her track record, there’s some reason to have faith, isn’t there.
3. My majors are assets, not liabilities. Back when my parents were in college, unless you planned to teach or you were so incredible a writer that publishers were banging down your doors, majors like English were the kiss of death. However, with the advent of the Digital Revolution, the market has shifted in ways that most people at the time could not imagine. In fact, English majors are getting hired at rates not seen in years, and for jobs not necessarily associated for English. In fact, a report I read in May last year said that Nationwide Insurance has hired English majors to work on PR and Communications. Apparently English majors are very good for writing online pieces about the companies that employ them.
Also, my History major has a hidden benefit: research skills! Historians are not just fat old men sitting in libraries looking over tomes, we’re actually more like investigators, trying to piece history together with the facts and the evidence before us. Plenty of my history professors have gone abroad or have spent extensive hours in libraries tracking down one piece of information, the elusive diary, the one date. Plenty of jobs need research and investigative skills, so what’s better than a history major?
4. Some jobs don’t care what your major was! In fact, plenty of jobs at my university, they hire you irregardless of what you majored in during your undergrad years. At the financial aid office, I was told when I was hired that no one wakes up hoping to be a financial aid administrator. And several people in the office had majors unrelated to finance. There’s a guy who graduated not too long ago and is working while attending grad school part time. His major was Sports Education!
This not only applies to the financial aid office, but it applies to all sorts of different jobs. Administration, clerical work, heck library work, they don’t necessary need to have corresponding majors. With that in mind, a lot of possibilities do open up. Plus I have backgrounds in working in administrative and clerical positions and I’ve done some work in libraries, so I might actually be better off than some of my peers.
Of course, there’s always a chance that I may be wrong and I just might not be listening because my parents are the ones imparting advice.
So what are your thoughts? I’d love to hear them. I think the reasons listed above might actually help me, but I’d appreciate your opinions if that’s not too much to ask for. What’s your take? And would any of you be interested in hiring me?
Rami Ungar The Writer 