I was riding the bus home from the university the other day and…[true confession]…eavesdropping on a conversation four young men were having. One of them said, “What can you do with a degree in psychology?”   There was silence for a moment as they considered the question. Then “Work at Wal-Mart” was the reply, followed by snorting and laughter.

As someone with a psychology degree I wanted to turn around and say “some of us with psychology degrees have gone on to live useful lives and found meaningful employment”.   But I restrained myself.

After all how were they to know what jobs/careers a psych major can do? Or with any degree for that matter? We often have limited views of what’s possible.

It’s not always easy to see where your education could take you. Many post-secondary institutions have incredibly useful information on “what can you do with a degree or major in…[fill in the blank]”.

Recently, LinkedIn created a new suite of products for students. These products are aimed at prospective & current students, alumni, schools and employers.   There are University rankings, University Finders, a Field of Study Explorer and you can create a Decision Board. You can find them at https://www.linkedin.com/edu/ . In order to have a look at these you do have to have a LinkedIn account.

If you have a profile on LinkedIn the Field of Study Explorer will start with your field of study. For example, my profile shows that my field of study is Psychology. I can view over 2 million people who have studied psychology. I can see where they work, what they do and where they went to school. Cool!

I didn’t find anyone who worked at WalMart though I did find people who worked at Target…in a wide range of fascinating jobs that I would never have thought about.

You can click on the ‘explore more’ button to widen the options.

Imagine you have a student who wants to study history.   Quite quickly you can find over 1 million people who have studied history. A glance through the job titles gives a wealth of information that you wouldn’t be able to find any other way.

I will be using this feature a lot!

 

Dawn M. Schell, MA, CCC, CCDP is an affiliate of Worldwide Therapy Online Inc. http://www.therapyonline.ca

 

 

*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA