In a Cosmopolitan.com survey of nearly 800 twentysomethings, the five most popular majors among female respondents were psychology, English, biology, business administration, and sociology. But what exactly can you do with degrees in these fields? Five women who majored in sociology reveal their career paths.
Anna Steel
Age: 30
Degree: B.A. in sociology/social work, St. Olaf College (2007)
Current job: Trust and safety lead, Airbnb
I made a point to travel in college. We had something called a J-term at St. Olaf, a mini-semester held in January. It was the perfect solution for someone who wanted out of the state during Minnesota winter but couldn't afford an entire semester abroad.
My freshman year I studied Spanish in Ecuador. My sophomore year I studied social work and social change movements in Mexico, working in a Mexican women's prison. The summer before my junior year, I interned for a small nonprofit named Friendship Bridge in Guatemala that helped indigenous women through micro financing. My junior year, I went to Dublin and studied Irish literature with a focus on literary feminism. My senior year, I studied grassroots social work and social change with organizations in Ecuador.
After college I planned to move to New York City. I quickly realized that New York state wouldn't recognize my social work degree without a master's, which I couldn't afford. I began to look for jobs that drew on my skill set and found the Civilian Complaint Review Board. I was immediately drawn to the investigative nature of the work.
The CCRB investigates allegations of police misconduct, including the use of force and unlawful search and seizures, involving members of the New York City Police Department. It was my responsibility to maintain a docket of such complaints, interview complainants, witnesses and officers, occasionally canvas local neighborhoods, and analyze police records before reaching an evidentiary finding. It solidified a love for security and investigations-related work.
After nearly four years with the CCRB, I wanted a position with more responsibility and wanted to diversify my investigative experience. I found a position with the Office of Special Investigations where I investigated allegations of misconduct filed against members of the Department of Education. While I loved my work, there are inherent challenges to government work. At its core, you're often dealing with bureaucratic inefficiencies and change-resistance organizations. In late 2011, my long-term boyfriend was transferred to San Francisco. I quit my job, and we drove cross-country with our two dogs.
The job I have now didn't exist 10 years ago, and the job I'll have in 10 years may not have been created yet.
Just prior to the move, I saw a position with the recently created trust and safety team at Airbnb. Three months later, I was hired as the first trust and safety lead. Trust and safety deals very much with the things that can go wrong. These instances are rare, but my team is here to manage them when they do arise. We work a lot on prevention. For example, we recently created a Host Guarantee program, which covers hosts up to $1 million in the event of damages during an Airbnb stay. Earlier this year, I was promoted to operations manager and moved to Dublin to manage our international trust and safety teams in Europe and Asia.
When I look at my colleagues and my mentors, particularly in tech, I see that the most successful are often those who took an untraditional path. The job I have now didn't exist 10 years ago, and the job I'll have in 10 years may not have been created yet.
Samantha Moore
Age: 27
Degree: B.A. in sociology, Messiah College (2010)
Current job: Communications specialist, Penn State College of Medicine
I had grand ambitions to be a college minister. I remember deconstructing an emotion-packed montage scene from The Family Stone for a mass media paper and knew I had found at least a portion of what I enjoyed doing.
After college I moved to New York City and found a job teaching small, after-school public speaking classes to high school students through the nonprofit Apex for Youth. I wanted to look for another job outside of teaching, but this was the most challenging, most enlivening job I've ever had.
I found another position on Idealist.org at the Women's City Club of New York, a nonprofit organization founded by suffragists. I was hired as the membership and development coordinator — essentially, I'd be sending out donor/member appeals, processing gifts, ordering office supplies, and filming events.
After a year, I saw a posting for a night copywriter for Comedy Central's websites for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Political satire fit my character and liberal sociopolitical bent, and also, how awesome would it be if I nabbed it? I investigated the contact person's personal blog and used her blog's title nonchalantly in my cover letter sign-off.
I worked the night shift, 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., for a year and a half. I watched Colbert four nights a week and pulled out the best moments of hilarity for the web. I loved it, but the schedule wore on me. After less than a year, I asked to work remotely and moved home to Erie. A few months later, Comedy Central asked me to move back to New York, but I decided to stay where I was. For a while, I lived off of random Comedy Central web writing gigs and freelance pieces for local publications. I also wrote for and edited an independent travel and culture magazine Local.
A friend of mine suggested a job she'd heard about at Penn State Hershey, and I hesitantly applied, mainly because it wasn't something I had come across on my own. In my role as donor communications specialist for the Penn State College of Medicine/Penn State Hershey Medical Center, I am able to write a wide range of content — short blurbs for marketing pieces, long yarns for alumni newsletters, and compelling proposals to donors. I've lost a handful of people to cancer, both family members and family friends. The fact that I can help raise money for something like cancer research is a comfort to me. I am encouraged to grow professionally at Penn State, and my ideas are heard.
I also get to work the day shift.
Rosalia Davi
Age: 32
Degrees: B.A. in sociology, Stony Brook University (2004); M.A. in gender and cultural studies and M.S. in communications management, Simmons College (2008)
Current job: Assistant director of experiential education, New York Institute of Technology
My first job out of college was as an administrative assistant for Let's Get Ready, a college access nonprofit that helps low-income high school students complete college with the help of student mentors. I was promoted to program manager not long after I was hired. I managed the student directors who were responsible for running the programs and mentoring the students.
After graduate school, I moved to New York and started my job search over again during the height of the recession. My strategy involved reaching out to professionals in the careers that I was considering and conducting informational interviews with them. Through these conversations I secured a freelance position as a communications consultant at a boutique executive search firm called Bridge Partners LLC. I assisted with marketing and promotion of the company — blogging, writing press releases, and drafting content for two editions of the company's quarterly publication.
I then returned to Let's Get Ready as a development associate. I researched donors, edited proposals and applications for grants, and assisted in communications and marketing. I shared my goal of working in higher education with my colleagues, and one of them put me in touch with my now supervisor at the New York Institute of Technology. About two months after we met, she emailed me to let me know a position had become available.
In my role as assistant director of experiential education at NYIT's Internship Certificate Program in Manhattan, I pair faculty and employers with students to help them prepare for the working world. I also advise students on topics ranging from résumés and interviewing to major selection and career development. I also plan events and programs that focus on diversity in the workplace.
I love what I do because I have the opportunity to help college students during a critical junction in their lives, supporting them through the sometimes difficult journey of professional and personal development.
Angelique Ashby
Age: 39
Degrees: B.A. in sociology, University of California, Davis (1999); J.D., University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law (2003)
Current Job: Council member and mayor pro tem for Sacramento
I was a single mom and worked full-time throughout undergrad and then again when I went to law school. They were different types of jobs, but just the kinds that paid the bills and helped me care for my son.
My first career-oriented job during college was with a foster family agency called Families First, where I did government relations work. I then worked in assisting legal positions at a couple of law firms, working on trial cases and labor law.
Toward the end of law school, I was a public defender in Sacramento County. The district attorney and the public defender both hire upper-division law students who have achieved certain academic standards. I worked under a bar-certified attorney and did much of the same work. I worked in the arraignment court, representing misdemeanor clients. It was fun and exciting, but it also showed me what I did not want to do. I love helping people, but doing so one at a time, case by case, wasn't satisfying to me.
After graduating I chose to forgo law practice and open a consulting firm with my dad, who is also an attorney. We do work in reducing recidivism rates through programming and services for parolees. We also work for child welfare and at-risk populations facing barriers to success. Our clients tend to be government agencies, nonprofits, philanthropic organizations, and large businesses serving these populations.
I opened my business in 2004, and in 2009, I started campaigning for City Council. It was never my endgame to go into politics, but being a mom made me want to get involved in my community. I heard about a neighborhood organization forming, so I attended the first meeting. About a dozen neighbors were there with a variety of concerns, including the need for traffic control at the major intersection leading to our area. I agreed to take the lead on figuring out how to get that four-way stop installed.
That stop sign led to many other things — getting Safeway to put locks on carts to mitigate how many were in our neighborhood, establishing a community resource center, and bringing in a new fire station. Being a leader in my neighborhood made me reach out to others, listen to their shared concerns, and come up with solutions. It led me to the decision to take a larger role in helping my community and run for office.
When the election came in 2010, I was the first to beat an incumbent council member in 20 years. In 2014, when my first term was up, I was the first council member in nearly a decade to not have a challenger. When I started in 2010, I was one of three women on the nine-person council. In four years, the women have disappeared. I am the sole female remaining.
I have twice served as vice mayor, a city first. Then I was voted, again by my colleagues, to serve as the city's first full-term mayor pro tem. This means that I have the responsibilities of the mayor when he is unavailable. I am most proud of a different first. I am the only sitting council member to have given birth while in office. I ran the council meeting May 7, 2013, and gave birth May 9.
I have had tremendous support along the way, but it's always come down to this question for me: What keeps you up at night, and makes you want to get out of bed in the morning and get involved?
Kirstin Kelley
Age: 23
Degrees: B.A. in sociology and psychology, Green Mountain College (2013); M.A. in nonproliferation and terrorism studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies (2014)
Current job: Social media strategist
During my undergraduate years, I interned at the Rutland County Women's Network and Shelter where I did a lot of outreach and a lot of educating myself on the obstacles facing survivors of domestic violence, regardless of gender. That experience more than any other was my introduction to examining policy with a gender lens.
My first job out of college was a work-study position at the Women's International Perspective (the WIP), an online news publication at my graduate school. It publishes fact-checked articles by women from around the world.
For the first several months I worked on site migration from an old platform to the new one. After that, I started reading news headlines from the top publications and syndicating the best and most relevant to our site. I also combed top publications for solid analysis written by women to syndicate with us. I now produce my own content in addition to the other responsibilities. It's the first time I've felt like I have a voice that matters.
I also have a side job managing the social media accounts for scholar and activist Riane Eisler and her organization, Center for Partnership Studies. She works on economic gender equality, which is one of the things my internship taught me was most important for helping survivors get out of their abusive situations.
I plan to continue at the WIP while I figure out where I want to go for a Ph.D. in social or political psychology. If I want to work for economic justice, I need to learn as much as I can about solutions to what I view as some of the biggest problems facing the world today.
Original article and pictures take www.cosmopolitan.com site
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