From ginlindzey@austin.rr.com Sat Feb 23 19:29:36 2002 Received: from mailscan1.cac.washington.edu (mailscan1.cac.washington.edu [140.142.32.16]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with SMTP id g1O3TZnJ091322 for ; Sat, 23 Feb 2002 19:29:35 -0800 Received: FROM mxu3.u.washington.edu BY mailscan1.cac.washington.edu ; Sat Feb 23 19:29:34 2002 -0800 Received: from sm10.texas.rr.com (sm10.texas.rr.com [24.93.35.222]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with ESMTP id g1O3TXek006143 for ; Sat, 23 Feb 2002 19:29:34 -0800 Received: from Ginnyhome (cs6625160-42.austin.rr.com [66.25.160.42]) by sm10.texas.rr.com (8.12.0.Beta16/8.12.0.Beta16) with ESMTP id g1O3TT16010178 for ; Sat, 23 Feb 2002 21:29:32 -0600 From: "Ginny Lindzey" To: Subject: RE: persistence data? Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 21:29:58 -0600 Message-ID: <001f01c1bce3$89181720$6601a8c0@Ginnyhome> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.3416 In-Reply-To: <200202240103.g1O13et19197@darwin.helios.nd.edu> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 > > Does there exist persistence research for classics -- studies > of how many undergraduates who declare a classics or similar > major continue in it, etc. -- like that done for scientific > fields in, for example, Seymour and Hewitt: _Talking About Leaving_? > I don't know about that, but I do know that although many people say and have said to me in the past that you can do a lot with a classics degree, undergraduate advisors don't know really how to advise for anything other than teaching or graduate school. What I mean is that I found that when I wasn't teaching, that I had a difficult time getting a job and was told repeatedly that my Latin degree didn't qualify me to do anything! I was naive, granted, and perhaps didn't know how to go about finding a job or persuading people that I had lots of great skills. For instance, UTexas would NOT approve me for an editing position on campus, because I didn't hold a degree in journalism or English. I tried to explain that my background in LATIN (with a second teaching field of English, but that didn't *count* as a major) made me better at grammar, spelling and editing than most English majors (no offense). Nope. (I ended up getting a degree check and found that requirements had been lowered in English so I was granted my second major on the spot and got the editing position I was pursuing, and it was really more of a desktop publishing position anyway.) Here's my point. If we have TOO MANY individuals at the graduate level compared to the number of teaching posts available at universities, what kind of advice are the advisors giving these people about jobs and are the advisors doing anything to help market these people in other fields? OR, what if you have a student at the undergrad level who is preparing to teach and discovers during student teaching or even sooner that it is NOT something he/she wants to do after all (or is good at doing), what do you advise then? Probably nothing. In each case the person is on his/her own. And yet, we have seen articles in the paper in recent years that big business is interested in liberal arts majors, esp classicists, because of their communication and writing skills. But how are they finding these classicists? I mentioned this, probably not quite in this way, on a survey done by UTexas' classics department probably 10 years ago (when I was not teaching and really kind of "out" of classics in general). I'm sure I was dismissed as a whiner. And I didn't want to be; I wanted it to be acknowledged that as far as occupational advising, if it wasn't teaching at some level, it was nothing and that perhaps this should be addressed. So, out of curiosity, is this the same all over or do other universities help their graduates find positions in fields outside of classics? ginnyL .