The CQ Press Career Guide for American Politics Students. Peter Ubertaccio
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are many more outcomes for students interested in American politics and government. Remember that your future will be highly mobile. “Job hopping”—moving from one job to another in a relatively short time frame, say moving on or moving up every 2 years—is increasingly common among younger workers. Not only will you move around, but you expect to move around. Sometimes this movement will be within a defined career path, say marketing.
For example, a young worker interested in social media might begin a career as an intern for a local nonprofit that wants to strengthen its social media presence. This could lead to an entry-level position as a communications coordinator, which might lead to a copywriter position, then an editorial position, then a social media strategist position for a large multinational corporation.
But it is also just as plausible that this young person interested in social media could find her way into multimedia design or sales, or become a technical writer who then becomes an operations analyst. That person might start in the corporate world but end up doing social media outreach for a nongovernmental organization focused on immigration.
Yes, there are traditional and excellent outcomes for students in American politics—law, advocacy, research and writing, staff positions on Capitol Hill or in your state capital, public administration—and your major choice will make these paths more likely.
Beyond these examples, it is important to remember that some of the jobs and opportunities that you might pursue in answering your question (What problem do I want to solve?) may not even exist today or are part of a field that is rather small but growing. Data analytics, for example, continues to grow as an employment field with a lot of opportunities. And there are other paths that might seem far-fetched to you today as a student of American politics—careers in management, data analysis, IT networking, marketing, or sales. But these are also good possibilities.
Conclusion
The following chapters will help you navigate your curriculum and co-curriculum with an eye on translating your experiences into successful outcomes when you’re finished with college.
It goes without saying that the success of this advice is predicated on you successfully pursuing your coursework. Naturally, if you’ve chosen political science and American politics as your major or minor because that is where your interests lie, you are more likely to demonstrate strength and success in those courses. This book will also help you translate your interests, and the skills you are developing in your classes, into language that employers want to see on resumes and in cover letters. It will also introduce you to a few alumni in the field who are successfully navigating life after college. Finally, it will give you a series of Action Items to pursue to help you think about essential items on your agenda over the next few years.
Action Item
Social Media
Over 88% of millennials use one or more social media platforms. There are many reasons why, but consistently, the most important one is to see what your friends are talking about online.
Social media is a powerful and persistent part of your life. But as you move toward your first career or competitive postgraduate outcome, it is important to remember that the social media can provide you with an expanded network beyond your close friends and associates for learning. It can also be used by others seeking to find more about you. As an action item, let’s think about our social media use.
1 Which platforms do you use on social media?
2 If a prospective employer looked at your social media postings right now, what is the first thing they’d see?
Things to consider: Do you use some social media just for friends and others to gather information/learn new things? If so, which social media platforms? Have you started a professional profile on LinkedIn? If not, the resume that you will be developing in later chapters can be easily used on that platform. If you have, you can update your LinkedIn profile in tandem with the resume you’re working on there!
Chapter 2 Coursework and Internships
This chapter focuses on helping students align their interests in American politics with the appropriate coursework and internship or work opportunities. It presents professional development during your college years.
Here you will consider how to link your coursework to your professional aspirations in ways you might not have yet imagined. The chapter discusses the importance of internships and offers tips on how to manage multiple internships, navigating unpaid and paid internship opportunities, and building a network from your experiential opportunities.
Chapter Objectives
To introduce you to the primary curriculum for students of American politics and link that curriculum to career objectives
To encourage you to consider the goals of a double major and/or minor course of studies
To develop a list of curricular and co-curricular opportunities for students in American politics
To link curricular and co-curricular choices and those choices to skill sets valued in the marketplace
To discover the importance of internships and other experiential opportunities
To develop a professional resume reflecting your major, minor, and co-curricular accomplishments
Your coursework and curricular decisions start to tell the story of who you are and where your interests lie. This developing story will help you navigate life when you’re done with college.
This chapter also discusses how to translate the skills you’re acquiring in your courses, your co-curricular choices, and your experiential learning opportunities such as internships in a way that employers, professional and graduate schools, and postgraduate service providers will understand. You’re developing three types of skills:
1 Knowledge of substantive content. Your courses are expanding your knowledge base of the critical theories, facts, and analyses of the contours of American politics.
2 Soft skills. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) calls these transferable, meaning they transfer nicely into any workplace. They’re “people skills,” and NACE offers a useful guidepost: Transferrable or soft skills are the skills necessary regardless of the field or sector of the workforce.
3 Technical or hard skills. These types of skills are far more job specific, but you are likely encountering them in your curriculum: for example, formatting an Excel spreadsheet to lay out data in a visual presentation, designing a website, writing a policy memo, navigating research databases, and working with datasets.
You may not realize it at first, but you are developing all three of these types of skills as soon as you enter college. We’ll refer back to these throughout this guide.
What is your curriculum?
Your curriculum is a combination of required courses for your major, any courses needed for your college’s general education or core program, and elective choices that you make over your 4 years in college. Ideally, you craft your curriculum to your interests. If you’ve decided to major in political science, you’ve primarily chosen a curriculum that fits your goals and aspirations. Your college or university and your specific academic department probably has its own mission and learning objectives. These are useful to understand as you prepare for curricular choices each year. These objectives help us all stay on track toward the larger goal of understanding what it is we should know as students of American politics. They also provide us with guideposts for your future.
Defined broadly, a focus on American politics as part of a political science major should have the following learning outcomes:
Introductory knowledge of the main theories