Contact: Sally Widman, Director of College Communications,
610-409-3300, [email protected]
URSINUS GRADS FIND JOB MARKET IS HOT FOR LIBERAL ARTS
COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. -- The job market has never been better for liberal arts graduates. In fact, the old joke about the liberal arts grads being the ones who ask, "Would you like fries with that?" seems to have become obsolete. These days, the vast majority of liberal arts graduates are *ordering* the fries, not serving them, and Ursinus College graduates are a case in point.
According to Carla Mollins Rinde, director of career services at Ursinus, liberal arts alumni now can find opportunities easily and everywhere, whether they enter the workforce or attend graduate, medical or law school. Rinde's preliminary survey of the Ursinus Class of 2000 found that the majority of those who had sought jobs before graduation had received one or more offers before receiving their diplomas. Many of those applying to graduate and professional schools had been equally successful. And prospects were excellent for those still applying or postponing their searches until after commencement. The highest paid graduates were those accepting computing jobs, most with starting salaries between $40,000 and $50,000.
This year's successes are part of a continuing national trend that has been building steam over the past few years. A survey of 1999 Ursinus graduates shows that 98.8 percent of those responding are working or continuing their studies. Of the class's 264 members, 241, or 91.3 percent, completed the survey. Among those, 159 (66 percent) are working, 27 (11 percent) are in medical, dental or veterinary school; 12 (5 percent) are in law school, and 44 (18 percent) are in graduate school. Nine members of the class (3.7 percent) are both working and attending graduate or professional school. Only 5, or 1.8 percent, reported that they were unemployed.
The list of employers and graduate/professional schools is impressive for both classes. Medical schools include Jefferson, University of Pennsylvania Medical and Veterinary schools, Tufts and Baylor. Among the graduate schools listed are Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Bryn Mawr, Georgetown, Cornell, Tufts, Vanderbilt and Purdue. New Ursinus alumni who entered the job market found positions at MBNA, Lockheed-Martin, Unisys, Merck, Vanguard, Brookhaven Labs, KPMG, Andersen Consulting, various school districts and the Peace Corps, among others.
The old stereotype of liberal arts' graduates having a tough time finding jobs because they have "no skills," never was true to begin with, Rinde emphasizes, and especially not now.
"That 'no skills' image is completely inaccurate," she said. "Employers have always told us our graduates have exactly the sorts of skills they are seeking--the ability to write, speak and think clearly, to reason and analyze, to work well with a team, to lead, and above all, to learn new things. Liberal arts graduates are flexible, because they have a broad base of knowledge."
Another myth about liberal arts colleges is that they aren't the best choice for those seeking careers in science. Again the reverse is true. Like most nationally ranked liberal arts colleges, Ursinus offers bachelor's degrees in 23 subjects, including a full range of sciences. Thirty-one percent of Ursinus graduates last year were biology majors. They along with chemistry, computer science, mathematics and physics majors comprised 43 percent of the class --138 graduates. Many of these found jobs as researchers or programmers for large pharmaceutical, biomedical, or Internet companies. And they weren't the only ones. A number of humanities majors with computer skills were hired by companies that create and run Web pages. One of last year's English graduates works in clinical research for Merck.
The non-science job market has been wide open for humanities and social science majors too. One English major is now a production coordinator for The History Channel in New York. A history-politics major is working as a high-tech magazine editor and will enter graduate school at the University of Chicago next fall. Communications majors landed jobs at ABC Sports, V-Span, QVC and Allcoach.com. Economics majors earned titles in sales, marketing and financial analysis.
But it wasn't all about business. A significant number were in education or human services work. The class includes 16 teachers (among them, five English, four history, and four math and science teachers), several caseworkers and counselors. One class member was attending seminary while working as a bilingual secretary at a denominational headquarters.
Forty members of the class of 1999 carried double majors, with modern language majors leading the pack. Seventeen of the department's 20 graduates majored in a second subject. Five of these are now in medical or veterinary school; two in law school (including class valedictorian Susan Pauley, a French-math major now at Villanova Law); one, a chemist for Merck, another a research technician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and yet another a research analyst for Bloomberg Financial Markets.
And yes, if truth be told, there are a few food servers among the 1999 statistics, but they are hardly living the dead-end life of the old stereotype. One is a student at Dickinson Law School who works part time at a neighboring cafe. Another is earning an M.A. in counseling psychology at Temple, while working after class at Houlihan's. A third, at Applebee's, is applying to graduate schools.
It will be several more months before full results and statistics are available for the Class of 2000, but Rinde predicts a similar level of accomplishment. "I am confident that the skills possessed by our graduates will continue to be highly valued by employers and graduate schools next year as well," she said.
Ursinus College, founded in 1869, is a highly selective, nationally ranked, independent, coeducational liberal arts college, located on a scenic, wooded 165-acre campus, 28 miles from Center City Philadelphia. Ursinus is one of 11 members of the Centennial Conference, along with Swarthmore, Haverford and Bryn Mawr colleges, and one of only 8 percent of U.S. colleges to possess a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.
###
RSS