college, it’s ridiculed. Liberal arts majors in particular have become the ninety-eight-pound weaklings of the education field, beaten up by the public and media.
But then, last time I checked, this “bracketology” business wasn’t easy for anyone. I read the other day that there were 18,446,744, 073,709,551,616 possible combinations for filling out a 64-team bracket. For the liberal-arts majors in the crowd, that’s, like, a lot.
—JIM ARMSTRONG, DENVER POST
Students in preprofessional majors like accounting are told from day one that their education is relevant to the workplace and are encouraged to think accordingly—constantly applying their theories and knowledge to the workplace. If you took a less career-oriented major, you have not received this same encouragement. In fact, your professors may never have said a word about what you could actually do with the knowledge you were acquiring. If that’s your situation, you have some catching up to do. Conversely, those of you who took preprofessional majors like advertising or marketing may be finding that there aren’t enough jobs in the field to support the number of majors. When the first question you’re asked in an interview for a position in banking is “You’re an advertising major. Why aren’t you interviewing for an advertising job?” suddenly your “practical” major seems like a liability. Even management majors can struggle in the job search if they feel they’re always competing with finance or accounting majors. In many ways, a management major could be considered the liberal arts of the business school.
Getting the most out of your academic experience isn’t just about attending classes, writing papers, and taking exams. It’s about delving into fields of study that will expand your mind and help you develop new connections. Your classroom experience can be the start of a new world and open up career opportunities you didn’t even know existed. In the rest of this chapter, we’re going to mine your major and your classes for all the valuable knowledge and practical learning you’ve been acquiring whether you know it or not.
English at Work:
WHAT MOBY DICK AND ESPN HAVE IN COMMON
Are you sitting in English class wondering why the professor is making such a big deal out of Moby Dick ? It’s just a story. And how about that film professor who spends hours analyzing Citizen Kane ? It’s just a movie. We spend so much time and energy analyzing works of art, music, films, and books because analyzing them enriches our experience and understanding. We learn new information. We have a deeper understanding of the author or story and what happened. We learn to pay attention, notice details, find meaning, and maybe even understand ourselves better. So if you’re thinking it’s a waste of time to analyze works of literature, consider this: how many hours are spent on ESPN analyzing a football game? What about all those pregame and postgame shows? The commentators who pick apart the game, analyze the players and their moves, and how a mistake likely happened because a rookie was playing? It’s just a football game, right? Right. And that’s why English, film studies, and other courses could prepare you for a great career in sports broadcasting. Or analyzing world events for CNN.
Before we move forward, though, let’s pause for a quick discussion of a common concern for students: grades. Never confuse grades and learning. Yes, it’s easy to make a superficial argument that you learned more in a course where you received an A than in a course where you received a C. But as you have probably know, it’s not that simple, as Angelo discovered:
I had to take a science class and I wasn’t very good at science in high school. I thought I had hit the jackpot when I learned that a particular anthropology class counted for the science requirement. I knew I could handle anthropology. Well, within two weeks I was in over my head. It was
But then, last time I checked, this “bracketology” business wasn’t easy for anyone. I read the other day that there were 18,446,744, 073,709,551,616 possible combinations for filling out a 64-team bracket. For the liberal-arts majors in the crowd, that’s, like, a lot.
—JIM ARMSTRONG, DENVER POST
Students in preprofessional majors like accounting are told from day one that their education is relevant to the workplace and are encouraged to think accordingly—constantly applying their theories and knowledge to the workplace. If you took a less career-oriented major, you have not received this same encouragement. In fact, your professors may never have said a word about what you could actually do with the knowledge you were acquiring. If that’s your situation, you have some catching up to do. Conversely, those of you who took preprofessional majors like advertising or marketing may be finding that there aren’t enough jobs in the field to support the number of majors. When the first question you’re asked in an interview for a position in banking is “You’re an advertising major. Why aren’t you interviewing for an advertising job?” suddenly your “practical” major seems like a liability. Even management majors can struggle in the job search if they feel they’re always competing with finance or accounting majors. In many ways, a management major could be considered the liberal arts of the business school.
Getting the most out of your academic experience isn’t just about attending classes, writing papers, and taking exams. It’s about delving into fields of study that will expand your mind and help you develop new connections. Your classroom experience can be the start of a new world and open up career opportunities you didn’t even know existed. In the rest of this chapter, we’re going to mine your major and your classes for all the valuable knowledge and practical learning you’ve been acquiring whether you know it or not.
English at Work:
WHAT MOBY DICK AND ESPN HAVE IN COMMON
Are you sitting in English class wondering why the professor is making such a big deal out of Moby Dick ? It’s just a story. And how about that film professor who spends hours analyzing Citizen Kane ? It’s just a movie. We spend so much time and energy analyzing works of art, music, films, and books because analyzing them enriches our experience and understanding. We learn new information. We have a deeper understanding of the author or story and what happened. We learn to pay attention, notice details, find meaning, and maybe even understand ourselves better. So if you’re thinking it’s a waste of time to analyze works of literature, consider this: how many hours are spent on ESPN analyzing a football game? What about all those pregame and postgame shows? The commentators who pick apart the game, analyze the players and their moves, and how a mistake likely happened because a rookie was playing? It’s just a football game, right? Right. And that’s why English, film studies, and other courses could prepare you for a great career in sports broadcasting. Or analyzing world events for CNN.
Before we move forward, though, let’s pause for a quick discussion of a common concern for students: grades. Never confuse grades and learning. Yes, it’s easy to make a superficial argument that you learned more in a course where you received an A than in a course where you received a C. But as you have probably know, it’s not that simple, as Angelo discovered:
I had to take a science class and I wasn’t very good at science in high school. I thought I had hit the jackpot when I learned that a particular anthropology class counted for the science requirement. I knew I could handle anthropology. Well, within two weeks I was in over my head. It was
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