An Ordinary Person

Career Advice for Would-Be Graduate Students

In a previous blogging incarnation I was an amateur career advice columnist. This is something I would like to continue to do with this version of An Ordinary Person. After all, what unites us common folk is the fact that we all have to work, right? And as working people, career issues such as job-hunting, resume-writing, office politics, and the all-important how to get ahead in this world are of prime importance and potentially good fodder for blogging.

This article from the Washington Post outlines the trials and tribulations of navigating the public interest career field.

Armed with a Georgetown University diploma, Beth Hanley embarked in her 20s on a path hoping to become a professional world-saver. First she worked at nonprofit Bread for the World. Then she taught middle school English in central Africa with the Peace Corps. Finally, to certify her idealism, she graduated last spring with a master’s degree in international relations from Johns Hopkins University.

But now the 29-year-old faces a predicament shared by many young strivers in Washington’s public interest field. After years of amassing so many achievements, they struggle to find full-time employment with decent pay and realize they might not get exactly what they set out for. Hanley, a think tank temp who dreams of aiding the impoverished and reducing gender discrimination in developing countries, is stuck.

What surprised me when I read this article were the mean-spirited and nasty comments that people posted in the comments section. These commentators basically questioned the life and educational choices people who seek public interest careers and cast wanting to be a “do-gooder” in a negative light. They excoriated the subjects of the article for not choosing a more practical or marketable field of study and had no sympathy whatsoever for the fact that many of these young adults who set out in this career path have taken on tens of thousands of dollars in student loans and are now struggling to make payments while employed in jobs that do not pay very well.

Basically the young adults who graduated from public interest graduate programs were mocked for not having the foresight to know the meager offerings in the job market for their field of study, for taking on a field of study that develops few marketable skills, and for having an article written in a national newspaper that framed their situation as a problem.

As someone who was in the same boat as these graduates not so very long ago (when I graduated with a Sociology degree and struggled for several years before I got my first professional break) I have a lot of sympathy for these young adults who feel like they are stuck and have limited options. When I started the Liberal Arts Grad blog I also got the nasty, unsympathetic comments. Which is why I am not going to join the chorus of jerks who choose to kick a person when they are down. My focus in blogging about careers is to give practical tips, context and advice to people who have been in the same boat I was in.

I can’t really add anything more to the article as advice to idealistic would be world-savers other than don’t forget to be practical when you are making a decision, especially one such as graduate school which involves getting into debt for tens of thousands of dollars (or even more). Look before you leap; talk to people in the field and see whether or not that graduate degree is indeed worth the investment. See if alternative ways to enter the public interest field exists through ways other than a graduate degree—and see if perhaps those avenues are more practical and direct routes to that public interest career.

Unlike the nasty commentators I see nothing wrong with wanting to enter public interest careers motivated by a desire to save the world. We need idealists and altruists in leadership positions in this world. But I can’t stress enough the fact that you have to be smart and cognizant of the financial ramifications of seeking higher education and to really think hard about the various routes to a public interest career that might exist—including foregoing a graduate degree and perhaps developing a critical technical skill or expertise that is needed in the field.