Employment Experience of a Political Science and History Major

I graduated from college in the late 1990's with a Bachelor's Degree majoring in Political Science and History. There are two popular schools of thought on choosing a major. One is to major in what you are interested in college. Supporters of this way of thinking state that the money will take care of itself. The other school of thought is to major in something that will train you for employment (or more specifically, to make a lot of money). Supporters of this thought process believe that you should make as much money as possible and use your free time to pursue your personal interests. Obviously, I chose the first.

Political Science was my chosen major in college as I wanted to work in economic development to improve the employment prospects of others. However as I had to go to school for a fifth year to finish my foreign language requirement I went ahead and picked up some extra history classes to finish my degree in that as well. For most of the 5 years I worked two jobs (at times three) and had an athletic scholarship (Division II, but it was fun). I didn't do a lot outside of class related to school work as I was pretty busy. My record as an academic of questionable standing was brought into focus when a History professor told me that I needed to choose between going deer hunting (which meant skipping class) and making something of myself. That year I killed a nice six point.

When I finally learned to speak enough French to make the professor happy (or perhaps the ink in his red pen finally ran out) I was ready to graduate. Even as a young adult I was well aware that a BA in Political Science and History was not going to provide me a high paying salary straight out of college. But it turned out worse than I thought.

When the lease was up on my college house at the end of July, I was still driving a delivery truck as I had been doing for years. To be free to move to wherever I could find a job, I let my lease expire and turned in my notice. With no where to live and no definite plan I moved home.

During this time I had submitted some writing for publication. I was paid $500 for the submission and thought that I had found a possible career path! I would sell nothing else for about 5 years.

After returning home I took a job at a local newspaper doing general office work. The pay wasn't much over minimum wage but the nice old couple that owned the paper brought me lunch everyday and let me off during hunting season or when the fish were biting.

Finally I was offered a job by the state government working for the Department of Health and Human Resources. I recall that my salary offer worked out to $8.30 and hour (the job required a Bachelor's Degree!). I had made more money driving the delivery truck. Nevertheless I packed up and moved 3 hours to take the job. I accepted the job with the hopes of transferring to an Economic Development job with the state. For the next three years I worked in Social Services with an Environmental Science major (who was trying to transfer into Environmental Protection), a Criminal Justice major (who wanted to work in the Tax Department as an investigator), and a Business Management major (who was just weird, but was a good fisherman). Obviously our plans were not working.

After three years I quit and moved back across the state to live with some friends until I figured something out. With two roommates to share the costs I was able to live off of my savings account for a few months. I ended up working at Wal-Mart putting together lawn mowers to pass the time. I then worked for another newspaper for a few months. I was then hired by a Behavioral Health company working with individuals with developmental disabilities. I had virtually no education (Psychology 101 was about it) on the subject and no experience. However, things worked out well and I worked there for about 6 years. During this time I started writing again.

I left one Behavioral Health company for another this time working with families involved with protective services as well as foster kids. While the job is not making me rich, is not related to my degrees, and isn't all that much fun, you do get the chance to occasionally help people which is pretty cool. While I do not work in economic development I have helped some folks to get jobs and some families to find a stable place to live which is close.

So I guess the question is did I make the right decision majoring in Political Science (and picking up History as well). The only way I know to answer the question is to say I can't complain about how things have worked out for me. I'm not rolling in money but for each of the last 8 years I have made more money than I did the year before so I am headed in the right direction. But there is one thing I would have done differently. I would have found a way to have fit in time for internships and related volunteer work and I would highly recommend this to any Political Science major. You should work hard to develop social connections in the field (remember elected officials come and go so you need to develop connections with the elected officials as well as the high level bureaucrats and party officials).