As a major in English and history, I am often asked if I plan to be a teacher. Though I am entertaining thoughts of eventually becoming a professor, I am currently hunting for a job, ideally at a publishing company. This hunt recently led me to the annual on-campus career fair at Barton Hall. (See photo at left from the Cornell Daily Sun‘s coverage.)
I remember attending freshmen orientation at Barton when I first arrived to the Hill three years ago. I recall being overwhelmed but excited as I tried to absorb all of the information that would help me in my next four years.
When I returned to Barton for Cornell’s Career Fair Days 2008, it reminded me of orientation. However, instead of anticipating my collegiate career, I was anticipating the “real world.” I was bombarded with the displays of more than two hundred companies—and their free flyers, pens, highlighters, coffee mugs, and even a re-usable grocery bag.
Much to my disappointment, there were no publishing companies. Instead, I walked by multitudes of consulting companies, banking and investing firms, and retail businesses. There were a few exceptions to the corporate rule, such as Cornell Cooperative Extension, the U.S. Army, and Teach for America. Still, I felt lost in a sea of recruiters who had as little interest in me as I had in them. I left feeling flustered and fearing that I would never find a job–and recalling how my father said that I should have majored in economics or business.
But I didn’t come to Cornell to doze in giant lecture halls and learn how to analyze shifts in the stock market. I came to participate in seven-person seminars, receive one-on-one attention from my professors, and learn how to analyze shifts in a writer’s tone and language.
Perhaps no on will actively recruit me or simply hand me a job. But given the recent bankruptcy of the illustrious Lehman Brothers and talks of the financial industry’s $700 billion bailout from Congress, maybe being an English and history major wasn’t such a bad choice after all.