UP alumni with humanities degrees don’t just end up on interesting career paths. They also draw upon the particular skills and insights of the humanities daily. Hear it from a few of them directly…
How do your humanities capabilities help you in your current job?
here’s 2018 grad Ana Hurley sharing how she uses her History major in her daily work as Research and Production Coordinator at MacGillivray/Freeman Films, a documentary production company.
“The person doing our newsletter left and they were like, OK, we can trust Ana to cover the newsletter until we find a new person to take this job.”
How do the skills of an English major translate into on-the-job research know-how?
2014 grad Kate Stringer, Assistant Director of Marketing and Communications at the University of Washington School of Public Health, explains how her humanities major helped her be ready to learn how to learn in new situations.
“…that’s because we knew how to do research, we knew how to ask good questions, and that all came from our English major.”
What relevance does the study of literature have for working in the business world?
Sarah Bokich, class of 2006, describes the surprising ways her English major work translates into her daily work as a Producer and Creative Director at Intel.
“To me, it is such a similar process as analyzing a novel or a short story or a book of poems where you’re looking for keywords, key themes, and then, you know, kind of like, OK, what are…these themes or keywords or ideas telling me…that I need to apply to our marketing strategy?”
How does classroom study of the humanities translate into interpersonal interactions in the workplace?
Renee Erb Kelley, 2012, describes how her History and Music majors taught her skills that equip her to engage with diverse constituencies in her work as Operations Manager at Montana Conservation Voters.
“What I really got from my history major in particular was…how to argue but still maintain dialogue.”
What good can humanities skills do for on-the-job challenges?
Ana Hurley, again, on the breadth of what her colleagues trust her to do thanks to her undergraduate learning.
“Even if I haven’t been involved in the project from the start, I can pretty easily pick it up and understand it through, I think a lot of the critical thinking and problem-solving skills I learned as a humanities major.”