Majors & Careers

By utilizing counselors and resources in the Center's Goldberg Career Library, students investigate multiple options before focusing on major, internship and post-baccalaureate goals. We regularly facilitate goal identification, assist with the development of resumes and cover letters, and inspire effective internship and post baccalaureate search. Counselors work with students focusing on academic as well as career interests, seeking ways to strategically link majors, clusters, careers, and internships, yielding "career focus."

The Goldberg Library contains one of the nation's best on-line and printed collections of Career and Job Search Publications, Employer Directories, Graduate School Guides, and Graduate School Testing Information. This library also offers access to internet resources, as well phones and faxes for job seekers to use. It is the place where students begin to find answers to questions like "What can I do with a major in...?" We also encourage them to answer this question via information electronically accessible on our webpage, via www.rochester.edu/careercenter/students.

What are the majors and career fields of most interest to rochester students?

Popular Majors: The distinctive Rochester Curriculum, via majors, minors, and “clusters” of thematically linked courses produces students well versed in a variety of subjects who are eager to learn more and trained to blend research, analysis and communication skills and be curiosity driven (Data from degrees conferred to the Class of 2006).

• Biology and Biological Sciences - 13%
• Economics -12%
• Engineering and Applied Sciences – 11%
• Political Science - 9%
• Psychology - 9%
• English - 6%
• Mathematics - 6%
• History - 5%
• Computer Science - 3%
• About 20 percent of our students graduate with double majors.

Translating Majors into Career Fields for the Liberal Arts

Names of majors – whether English, history, political science, psychology or sociology, to cite a few – do not project to employers the breadth of skills that the liberal arts graduate has to offer, nor do they clearly project career goals.  It is the responsibility of the liberal arts student to identify the fields they wish to explore or enter as well as the qualifications they possess to perform specific job functions.  By utilizing broad-based skills, especially those related to research, analysis, communication, and project management, liberal arts graduates are able to respond to and meet all the challenges associated with job search and, ultimately, with lifelong career development.  (Excerpt from Peterson’s Guides’ Liberal Arts Jobs 3rd edition, by Burton Jay Nadler, Assistant Dean and Career Center Director, University of Rochester)

An amazingly diverse listings of post-baccalaureate goals are of interest to students with varied majors, minors, clusters and certificates. Senior Survey results indicate fields focused upon by recent graduates included . .

• Advertising/Marketing/PR
• Banking/Financial Services
• Biotechnology
• Communications/Media
• Consulting
• Engineering Fields
• Health Care/Public Health
• Human Services/Teaching/Counseling
• Information Technology
• Law/Government/Policy

What services are offered students who are deciding their major?

• The Rochester curriculum allows us to reinforce student exploration of majors, minors as well as clusters, while linking internship and post-baccalaureate strategies to academic and experiential criteria.
• The UR VIPS (Values, Interests, Personality and Skills) Search Program, which includes vocational inventories, and academically linked counseling, is flexible and facilitates a step-by-step process that helps students and alumni(ae) develop short and long-term educational and career objectives.
• Our Goldberg Career Library contains numerous publications addressing “majors-and-careers” issues, and our website, www.rochester.edu/careercenter/students, links students to some of the most up-to-date information available, including our own “Opportunities In” series of majors-and-career publications. 
• Those exploring majors are strongly encouraged to speak with faculty, College Center for Academic Support counselors, and current undergraduates within varied major fields.