The OSU College of Humanities did a short profile of me in the Humanities Express newsletter.
When I was home last month, I participated in a College of Humanities 10th Annual Career Night as an alumni panelist. Despite nasty weather, a good number of undergraduate students in a variety of majors joined us at the Faculty Club. For the first hour, we panelists responded to questions from the students, sharing our experience and perspectives on the value of a humanities degree. Then we split up into “theme groups”, and spoke with small groups of students. I was in the “foreign language” group, having majored in Russian at OSU.
I talked to five or six students majoring in foreign languages, several of them with a second major in the works as well. They all seemed so nervous about what they could do with a foreign language major. One of the other alumni panelists had majored in Spanish and ended up with a career in business. She talked about how her Spanish ability had been invaluable at her first job, with a small company that had some oeprations in Latin America. Having someone with whom they communicate in their own language was a huge boost for the Latin American affiliates, she said, and the business started booming there.
It took me nearly ten years to put my Russian skills to regular use. But my Humanities skills have been invaluable from the start – critical thinking, cultural understanding, analytical skills, writing skills, communication skills. These skills seem so intangible, yet they are so very important. I, too, struggled with trying to understand what I would do with a Russian degree, and perhaps it’s an understanding that only comes with experience and context. The career path for a Humanities major is not as clear-cut as for an engineer, or a marketing major, or an architect. What once seemed like an overwhelmingly vague career trajectory now seems to me like an amazingly rich and diverse array of career opportunities.
Anka in Kyiv 