Mapping your path from chaos to career.
Katharine Brooks very readable new book, You Majored in What? deals with the question so many liberal arts grads get: "What are you going to do with that major?" Though I've encouraged liberal arts majors to stick to their guns for years, no one has done a better job at answering the question, at least in print, than Brooks.
You don't have to have picked the perfect major. In fact, as I often tell students, a business major is not at all necessary for success in today's world. If you're thinking about a grad degree in business or. . . (fill in the blanks), I'd skip undergrad business and go for a degree that spends more time teaching you how to think. Big picture majors like history, political science, sociology, communications, biology, physics and English are especially great for preparing you for business. They focus on both inductive and deductive thinking as an inherent part of their curriculum.
It's rare to see an educator with as rich a knowledge of business as Brooks. She challenges the notion of a linear path between college major and job. We're most familiar with the linear tradition. Art major turns out cartoonist. Chemistry major results in veterinarian, or psychology major results in psychotherapist.
But reality doesn't match up to that traditional linear career path. The art major became a special prosecutor, district attorney's office. The chemistry major ended up teaching English as a second language in Korea, and the psych major became a cartoonist. Of course, some psych majors do become psychologists and some English majors become English profs.
Even if you've finished college and are firmly entrenched in your career, you'll probably change your career two or three times over the next 40 - 50 years. Brooks gives you some neat ideas about how to use chaos theory to think about your career over the remaining years. I've made permanent space for it on my book shelf.
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