Working Towards a Career

I want to start by talking about career exploration first because graduate programs are, and should be, a means to building the necessary skills and network for a career.

1. Don’t start by looking for programs, start by looking for a career. A common pattern of interested students is applying to graduate programs before thoroughly reflecting on what they would like to do as a career. Some of this is because careers that use social scientific training is not widely advertised or are not common knowledge. However, career exploration and research is especially important in the social sciences, as there is high variation in the degree-to-job trajectory.
   
   Depending on how concrete your existing goals are, there are different things you can do to explore careers, including talking with trusted mentors (or me, your TA!). If your aspirations are very broad, you might benefit from a basic interest and skill profiler like this one on ONET. Please do not take the results of this diagnostically; it is simply a tool to help suggest potential paths. Another way to explore careers is to look at what alumni of different graduate programs have gone on to do as a job. Some of this information will be listed on university websites, or you might try searching for alumni of different programs on Linkedin to get a sense of what people are doing.
   

2. It’s never too late. I know that many of us think of working towards a career as a linear process, but people are increasingly taking “gap” years between degrees or going back to school after working. I think it’s important to emphasize diversity in the ways in which people find themselves in the social sciences and psychology because the reality is that going to graduate school right after undergrad may not may financial or life sense for everyone, especially people with pressing circumstances in other aspects of their life.
   

3. It doesn’t hurt to ask. One of the best things I’ve learned throughout this process is simply how willing some people are to help! In the age of online social networks, there are easy ways to find people with the answers to your questions. This can be as brute force as cold messaging people on Linkedin who work in a position you’re interested in, but ideally you’ll want to find communities online dedicated to mentoring young professionals in a particular industry. For instance, ADPList is a great way for people interested in User Research (one potential industry home for social science researchers) to learn from seasoned, volunteer mentors in the field.