Southwestern Magazine | Fall 2019

Anderson notes, may be that class conversations about careers are spotty, based on her undergrad experience in the 1990s as a Spanish major at a different university. She adds that at the CCPD, “We talk a lot about early engagement with career and professional development with [humanities and other majors].” A career-readiness focus could appear counterintuitive because of the historical mission of humanities departments: to cultivate scholars who can view the world through an analytical lens and who are skilled at thinking abstractly. Meyers agrees with the emphasis of such training in general. “I believe that people who care about democracy understand the necessity and value of the humanities and a life of letters and imagination,” says Meyers, who holds the McManis University Chair. But she adds that “college is an extraordinary investment, and people are often going into debt [to attend] and need to think about what comes after. So, as educators, we also have a responsibility to be attentive to those issues.” Writing their own storylines To help students learn how to use their critical-thinking skills to chart their own career development, Meyers developed the Novel English Majors course. In it, students from various disciplines start to consider their careers in the larger scheme of their lives as they read novels that focus on literary types as well as vocational texts that assist in parsing out their passions and career options. Rachel Kadish’s Tolstoy Lied , one of the novels discussed, covers the challenges of attending graduate school and landing an academic position. Zozobrado says reading the book brought her relief because most of her close classmates wanted academic careers. “I [initially] thought I was making a terrible decision by not having applied,” she admits, “but reading that book showed there are some real stressors to face in grad school that I didn’t think I was cut out for.” Twoothernovelsshowcasecharacterswhoconsideralternative careers, such as a professor who shadows an industrialist on the job and vice versa. Patterson notes that through discussing books like this, the class broadened her thinking. “I was so concerned about making the right choice for myself—or not making the wrong one,” says the honors student from Katy, Texas, who spent eight months in Europe at different positions before landing the Zulily job in September 2018. “A class like that helps you to see that, no matter what you ended up doing, it would lead to somewhere great one way or another.” Meyers helps students polish the presentation of their professional abilities by pointing out in class specific skills used while doing assignments. Zozobrado remarks, “That really helped me hook the skills that I have, such as writing papers and accessing information, into the keywords that employers look for in résumés.” The extensive list of skills Meyers recaps includes flexibility, attention to detail, an ability to collaborate and to do research, reflectiveness, a deep appreciation of diversity, tolerance of ambiguity, and an ability to draw connections. Early on in the Novel English Majors course, students also interview or shadow a career professional. For Marissa Morin ’19, the assignment confirmed that one of her minors, marketing, was a promising job option. In addition, “[The assignment] forced us to investigate and contact professionals and started my initial networking process,” says Morin, who landed a position in July as the content marketing manager for a Manor company that sells refurbished steel containers. Two career-development books are also required readings; one has exercises the students use to plot out what matters to them, personally and professionally. The course requires “a real reflection on who they are and what they want, to help them to articulate the role of the major in their [future] plans,” Meyers says. In effect, she adds, the students are viewing themselves like a character in a novel: “They are the character, and they need to think about what motivates them and how they want to plot their post-SU life." The course has been so popular that Katie Rouse ’18 and others who’ve taken it mention having friends in other majors who have envied them for the opportunity. “It’s kind of the crown jewel at helping translate your skills by developing a holistic view of them, career-wise,” says Rouse, who contracts with an Austin-based company on artificial-intelligence soft- ware geared toward broadcast and publishing-house content. Meyers, meanwhile, has written a column on the course for The Chronicle of Higher Education . And, this December, she will discuss elements of Novel English Majors at the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association, the principal professional organization for literature and language scholars. 36 SOUTHWESTERN