Many colleges and universities in the United States have degrees in women’s studies, Chicano/Hispanic studies, African-American studies, and so on. If someone earned their undergraduate degree in … let’s say women’s studies, with no second major, what can they do with it? What kinds of jobs would such a degree qualify them for?
Consulting for companies that seek to target women, minorities, etc, with their marketing.
Or go back and teach another generation.
They could do many things. In my experience, many entry-level career positions will require a Bachelor’s degree, without further specification. Many of my co-workers (I work in commercial aviation) have degrees in history, teaching, and yes, even one co-worker has a degree in women’s studies. Depending on where you live and what field you go into, requirements may be tougher, but I think it’s safe to say that few degrees actually qualify you to do anything without actual experience, as well.
Go to law school/medical school/social work/teaching. As noted, there aren’t many liberal arts degrees that qualify new graduates to do any specific thing.
It’s not something I ever looked into, but isn’t it essentially a type of history degree?
So, whatever one could do with a history degree.
Many entry level professional Fed jobs require a BA- *in anything. *
It shows you can write a paper thus you have a reasonable degree of literacy and thus you can write a report. And keep up with butt-numbing bureaucratic nonsense.
You could ask this about any number of degrees. I majored in anthropology. Is there anyone who’s looking to hire someone specifically with a BA in anthropology? No. (I looked. I mean, there are jobs for anthropologists, but you have to have a more advanced degree.) But at least I qualified for all the jobs that require at least a bachelor’s degree.
As has been mentioned before, most people with BAs don’t end up working in the field they studies. What is important is the writing and critical thinking skills they learned.
But if you were looking for related jobs…there is of course academia. And then there is a lot in the non-profit sector and social work.
Professional activist?
Roadie for the Lilith Fair?
(Before I’m beset, I’ve taken Women Studies courses, my PC cred is impeccable.)
Do you want fries with that?
Several of my Irish friends did university degrees in the Irish language.
One of them several years after graduation very dramatically said"I’ve got a degree in Irish,I’m unemployable!"
Tell me about it. I did my bachelor’s in German language and lit, and it’s almost that bad. At least, I’ve mostly been employed, and done fairly well, except for my current hiatus. But I do look back and wonder what the hell was I thinking? It seemed like all I could do at the time. I enjoyed the subject and got a degree from a big name school, so that doesn’t hurt. But the thing was, in retrospect, it was not the only thing I could have done!
It would be interesting to do a survey: What percentage of college graduates work in jobs that relate to their undergraduate major? I would guess that it’s well under 50%. Personally, I can say that my job has essentially nothing to do with my major.
Certainly if you broke it down by discipline you’d see significant differences. I imagine most engineering majors are working as engineers, somewhat fewer natural science majors are doing that, and only a very small number of liberal arts majors are doing anything related to that.
I’m speaking of bachelor’s degrees here; I’m sure with graduate level degrees the correlation of curriculum and career is higher.