Lib. Arts majors: what do you do for a living?

If you were a former liberal arts major (philosophy, history, English, whatever) I'd be interested to hear where you've ended up career-wise. Thanks.

The smart ones go into Law and other professions.

What do you do with a Masters degree in Philosophy??
Deliver the mail.

No offense postal employees are the most overeducated people in the work force

I got my degree in fine arts - emphasis in painting. I'm working for the state at a desk job and will be starting an MBA program this spring.

I should have just gone the easy way and done a BA in finiance and said "screw it" to unrealistic aspirations.

Originally Posted by celery

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I got my degree in fine arts - emphasis in painting. I'm working for the state at a desk job and will be starting an MBA program this spring.

I should have just gone the easy way and done a BA in finiance and said "screw it" to unrealistic aspirations.

What were your aspirations?

Oh, and to answer the original question, IT, which i seem to have a love/hate relationship with.

I have a BA in Ancient History, MA archaeology. I was a field archaeologist for 6 years (reluctantly gave it up as I couldn't carry on living under constant threat of, and occasional actual, unemployment) but now have an office job cataloguing historical photography. Money isn't great, but I couldn't devote most of my waking hours to something I didn't care about or take any interest in.

No one's ever going to make a lot of money doing a job that requires the specific knowledge gained from a liberal arts degree - teaching at university level is probably top of the tree and that won't be for everyone.

I see a lot of advantages working in the heritage sector. I have good working conditions and benefits (including a great pension), my colleagues are all interesting people dedicated to their work, I have no stress and am continuing to add to my personal knowledge in subjects that interest me through my daily routine.

I have to support myself and don't have a high living standard, but I would not even consider an opportunity to double my salary to work a 60 hour week in finance, law or IT. This may change if I gain any dependents, but so long as I have just myself to look out for I'm happy.

Originally Posted by GQgeek

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What were your aspirations?

Oh, and to answer the original question, IT, which i seem to have a love/hate relationship with.


To be a fine artist and create beautiful things that people would enjoy and gain some type of spiritual fulfillment from (not in a religious way).

But, money is money and everyone needs it. So I'm going to go get that instead.

Majored in history/philosophy.

Ended up in management consulting in the pharmaceutical industry. The key takeaways from my degree were the ability to write and do research well, pick up new vocabulary quickly and use it in daily speech, and syncretize information from diverse subjects (ie - biology, finance, law, statistics, etc).

Originally Posted by lee_44106

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The smart ones go into Law and other professions.

Double majored in history/politics. Wound up in law. Seven Years $200k+ not to mention limited earnings. I respectfully disagree that the "smart ones go into law". There are many people who can do what I do...and but for the fact that education is prohibitively expensive maybe they would. I regret not going in to a more creative field...or at least experiencing something beyond the BS ultra-liberal nonsense that is a pre-requisite to selling your soul to law. I do not believe the work I do, at least what I do to pay the bills provides the least bit of good and wholly contradicts nearly every value my educators tried to instill in me.... Law is a default degree...its for people who are risk adverse (or have Jewish mohers as in my case) and don't know what they want to do or picked a dead-end major.

Education has become a prestige contest...people who want to make money should go into banking/finance...and there is nothing wrong with that....most liberal arts fields provide nothing in terms of actual business skills. People need to experience life,,,the struggles...paying bills, dealing with people, time management...basic stuff that is beyond many people in my age group (mid 20's). People who truly want to become artists or scientists and so on cannot make those decisions at 16/17/18 when they are applying to schools. Just my 2 cents.

Good post.

You know what I do and how I feel about a liberal arts education. I think you can really do anything w/ it, but I'd say the majority of my classmates went into consulting or law.

Writing, editing, press.

Corporate Marketing for Fortune 500 company.

Originally Posted by lee_44106

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The smart ones go into Law

Me too.

I think that the intellectual stimulation provided by the liberal arts is a great, great thing. Unlike many of my peers I don't dread going to my classes because they are often poetry, history or philosophy. Frankly I could not imagine doing a finance or marketing degree. I find the material to be stifling and flat-out boring as hell.