What Can I Do With a Women’s Studies Major?

After graduating with your degree in Women’s Studies, many employers will welcome the skills you’ve developed during your rigorous undergraduate training in Women’s Studies. Analytical thinking, creative problem solving, organizing and synthesizing material in new ways, solid writing and oral communication skills are some of the strengths developed in this major.

Graduates of Women’s Studies Programs nationally hold positions in business, government, and the non-profit sector, where they are actively working to create positive changes in our society. Our majors are well prepared to enter their particular chosen field with open minds about the challenges of the workplace as well as to train the next generations with a better understanding and appreciation of our diverse and multicultural world.

Benefits of a Women’s Studies Major

• With backgrounds in women’s and “minorities’” histories, graduates are well suited for work with advocacy groups, human rights organizations, environmental and consumer groups, health care, youth/elderly/women/children centered groups, reproductive rights groups and social services.

• Because a Women’s Studies degree emphasizes understanding differences and discovering the multiple intersections among racism, sexism, heterosexism and homophobia, classism, and other forms of oppression, graduates are also suited to enter policy and lobbying organizations, research centers, trade and international associations, and union/labor organizing.

• Our graduates' knowledge about power relationships and injustice often leads to careers in government and politics or academia, due to a drive to utilize their knowledge to change the world in positive, life-affirming ways.

• The interdisciplinary nature of Women’s Studies is excellent preparation for careers in research, education and librarianship—careers that require expertise in finding and using information on contemporary social issues.

• The integration of race, class, and gender issues provides a strong preparation for advanced graduate degrees.

• Majors also can be well prepared to enter the medical professions, where their expanded insight and sensitivity to social concerns provides a deeper connection to their patients and their mission.

• A degree in Women’s Studies is also increasing relevant and cutting-edge in issues facing the legal profession.

  
  
  

  see what Ms Magazine has to say!

  http://www.msmagazine.com/spring2007/womensstudies_letters.asp

For more information see:
Luebke, Barbara F. and Mary Ellen Reilly. Women’s Studies Graduates: The First Generation. New
York: Teachers College Press, 1995.
This book contains interviews with Women’s Studies graduates.