There exists within college culture a certain enmity between those who study the natural sciences and engineering and those who pursue the humanities and social sciences. Each camp has fought over the difficulty of its respective majors, a battle similar to the one waged in high school hallways between the jocks and the nerds. Their cries are short and repeated often – natural science and engineering are more concrete and therefore harder, or the arts and social sciences are more subjective and difficult because of their competitive nature.
Although almost always exaggerated by both sides, the debate contains within it an assumed truth agreed upon by almost all. It is assumed that, disregarding those who attend law school, students who graduate with a bachelor’s degree in a natural science or engineering have a better chance of obtaining a concrete job within their field that pays well enough to live comfortably. The extended argument is that those who graduate with humanities or social sciences degrees will end up following their dreams to a cardboard box by the road or stuck in a job that has little to do with their degree. This fallacy could, in part, be perpetuated by the structure of career development at UCSD.
Such is the dilemma Revelle College alumnus Brian Grassadonia faced during his tenure at UCSD. Grassadonia entered UCSD as a mechanical engineering major, but after studying abroad realized he had no interest in the subject. He decided he would rather pursue the wild world of venture capital and changed his major to management sciences. Because of his interests in venture capital, he found the environment at UCSD to be inadequate for the career networking and job information he desired.
“”In hindsight you see a lot of opportunities that the other schools, like UCLA and Stanford, have,”” he said. “”A lot of students at UCSD don’t understand how under-recruited they are.””
According to Grassadonia, UCSD overemphasizes the career opportunities and resources for the natural sciences and engineering students, leaving the other 60 percent of the undergraduates in the lurch. His qualm lies with the firms that UCSD invites to its career fairs and the relationship the university has with regional and national businesses. To solve his problem, he created an aggressive networking strategy revolving around the job fairs of other college campuses, namely UCLA and Stanford.
“”My whole last year I was flying up to Northern California to attend different conferences and network,”” he said. “”I didn’t have a lot of exposure to careers, but became exposed through seminars and saw how hard it was to break into firms outside of the sciences.””
It was on one of those trips that he met Mareza Larizadeh, one of the co-founders of the career networking Web site Doostang. Grassadonia described the Web site as a great asset to his job search, explaining that it was based upon member invitation and networking, and has been campaigning for it since his graduation in 2006. Members refer jobs to each other and in turn explore the job offers of others. After meeting Larizadeh, Grassadonia became something of a UCSD cheerleader for Doostang, getting the message out about an alternative to the college career fairs he found inadequate. It follows his career motto.
“”I think [developing a career] starts with exposure and having the opportunity, just being aware of the jobs that are out there,”” Grassadonia said.
While it is true that UCSD is a college heavily influenced by the sciences, it also has an impressive theater and performing arts department and just began hosting the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop, the oldest and most prestigious science fiction writing program. There are other opportunities for students at UCSD besides fairs. Craig Schmidt, the assistant director of the Career Development Program, explained why some career fairs at UCSD could be problematic for humanities majors.
“”Attending a science and technical job fair may not be the most efficient job search method for a visual arts or communication major,”” Schmidt stated in an e-mail. “”Depending on their job objective, [students using] a blend of utilizing Port Triton job listings, effective networking with contacts in their field and directly approaching targeting employers may be more effective.””
Schmidt described a course of action similar to what Grassadonia pursued. There are limitations to what a career fair at UCSD can do for those who have chosen the humanities and social sciences, and the Career Development Program attempts to provide alternative methods for finding that dream job. According to Schmidt, things are looking up for UCSD graduates.
“”Over the past few years, we have and continue to see an improving job market for our students with a wide variety of majors, not just engineering and computer science … [UCSD’s] relationship with employers locally, regionally and nationally continues to grow,”” Schmidt stated.
He explained the breakdown of the employment distribution of last year’s graduates: business-related positions composed 30 percent of jobs obtained by graduates, followed by technology with 24 percent and human services and life/health sciences with 19 percent each. Even more comforting, salaries are increasing across the board – the average starting salary for UCSD graduates is at a record high.
