If you choose to direct your studies to arts and humanities, you have a large number of choices for career planning. The career options in the arts and humanities field are not limited to a specific industry or vocation. As a result, arts and humanities graduates possess transferable skills—skills that can be used in a variety of careers.
How to Apply Your Skills
These skills make it possible for a graduate to do the following:
- Assess information creatively
- Organise his or her work
- Comprehend and assess issues
- Work to a deadline
- Scan pages of text while highlighting the salient points
- Convey precise meanings
- Write proficiently
- Retain a large amount of data
- Perform research
- Lead discussion groups
- Formulate decisions and propose theories or concepts
- Think objectively
- Use the art of persuasion
- Base findings on statistics and research
Subjects in arts and humanities allow students to graduate and work in the fields related to language, religion, art, music, and communication. Therefore, humanities undergraduate courses fall under such classifications as history, journalism, fashion design, visual arts, performing arts, drama, law, modern language, psychology, music, and theology.
Taking an Unconventional Route
Because arts and humanities subjects are varied, you also have to be creative when looking for employment. For example, grads may have to review non-traditional jobs. A music major, for instance, may be able to use his or her knowledge to work as a supervisor at a radio station.
Therefore, before you concentrate on a particular course of study in arts and humanities, you should outline a career plan. In order to find the right school for you, you need to determine whether the institution is focused more on the arts or careers. The most popular degree in this area of study is the bachelor’s degree—a degree that can be used for such pursuits as psychology, photography, interior design, and fashion design.
When picking a subject area in arts and humanities, keep in mind that employment opportunities in the field are competitive. To gain a footing in your chosen field, you need to make contacts in the field to further your chances for gaining employment. While most degrees in arts and humanities lead to entry level positions, you can usually gain work as a teacher if you work toward a master’s degree.
If you are working toward a degree, for example, in psychology, a bachelor’s degree will prepare you to either assist a psychologist, or find work in business management, sales, or service jobs. You may also be able to find work as an administrative assistant in the field of psychology.
Regardless of what you eventually choose, make sure you are committed to the pursuit. When you take this approach, you can more easily open the door to opportunity in your chosen field.
