NOT ACCORDING TO PLAN: FROM COLLEGE MAJOR TO CAREER PATH By Nikkala Kovacevic | Staff Writer
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TANDON SENIOR PHOEBE TAN. IMAGE COURTESY OF PHOEBE TAN
CAS SENIOR LAURA DERBONNE. PHOTO BY KIRAN KOMANDURI
“I just think it’s really difficult to know what you want,” lamented Phoebe Tan, a Tandon senior. Many college seniors can relate to this. For most American college students, their careers begin the day they fill out their college applications. While there are other driving forces that push a student toward a certain career path, there is nothing quite as daunting or humbling as clicking the button to and decide on a major. Now, this is usually not the be-all-end-all decision in one’s career trajectory, but it is certainly a monumental step. Such a discussion could easily devolve into a criticism of capitalistic structures and the pressure to be thinking about a lifelong career at the ripe age of 18. But acknowledging those pressures doesn’t erase the fact that for many college students, major means career, and career means life. At least, that’s what it feels like everyone is saying. In reality, only 27% of graduates have a job related to their major. This number contradicts the popularized notion that changing paths post-major declaration, or even post-graduation, is almost impossible. Toward the end of her college career, Tan switched from the pre-med track to the entirely different world of finance and is now working in equity research for biotech companies at an investment bank. The jump from studying chemical and biomolecular engineering to working in finance might seem big for some, but for Tan, it happened naturally. During her junior year, Tan began looking for in-
ternships with the eventual goal of becoming a dermatologist. Feeling the pressure as her peers secured science-related internships, Tan started having doubts about her selected career path and decided to branch out with her internship search into other scientific fields. “I definitely didn’t think I was going to get a job in finance,” Tan said. “I was just trying it out.” After landing an internship at a biotech company doing sales, Tan was able to find a balance between her skills in science and the corporate world, which she was less familiar with. “If you ask me something about science or something about engineering, I could do it, but if you ask me something about finance, literally the most basic thing, it would not have worked,” Tan said. “So the places that I ended up getting interviews for were workplaces that were merged between finance and science.” In many ways, Tan’s hesitation to decide on a clearcut career path left room for her to explore interests she wouldn’t have pursued otherwise. Tan described how she decided on engineering only as a result of her apprehension toward going to medical school. “I don’t really know what I want, but obviously I’m gonna start working when I graduate,” Tan said. “So there is a path that I’m heading down and I’m very lucky.” Tan said. For others, like CAS senior Laura Derbonne, the college-to-career path is determined by external factors. Derbonne discovered that a key aspect in identifying what she’s passionate about lies in finding a place within
