Читать книгу The CQ Press Career Guide for American Politics Students - Peter Ubertaccio - Страница 10

 Introduce the concept of telling the story

 Discuss why this text focuses on the job market within American politics and the universe of career options that exist

 Learn what to do with one’s interests and how to leverage such interests and academic work for employment after college

 Develop those first few steps toward professional readiness after graduation

You chose this course in American politics for any number of reasons.

Perhaps you’re interested in American national elections and political parties. Maybe you’ve been moved by a social movement or how institutions of government respond—or don’t respond—to natural disasters. You might take in current events voraciously and want to match that interest with an academic subject. Perhaps you wonder why the policy preferences of your friends and colleagues don’t seem to find an appropriate outlet in your state legislature or Congress. Or you notice every year how local elections in your city or town seem to draw the interests of relatively few people.

It could be that you enter this course with plenty of questions: How do American political institutions work? How does the United States economy impact its politics? How can nongovernmental agencies in the United States impact poverty, illness, or social injustice? Or, why didn’t my candidate win the last election in my state?

These are just a few questions or concerns that you might have considered before taking an introductory course in American politics. For some of you, these issues and your interests will grow, and you’ll major in political science and, if you can, concentrate in American government or politics. For many others, you’ll major in something else because of other interests, but you find this course or this area to be fascinating. Perhaps you’ll minor or take a few more classes as electives. Regardless of what you choose, there’s another question you might have considered: What am I going to do with my passion for American politics?

This book will help you answer this question and will help match your interest in politics with postgraduate outcomes.

So, what does the future hold for a student in American politics? Well, to begin with, there are more opportunities than you might even be aware of right now. If this area is a passion of yours, how can you make a career out of it?

The answers are here. There are many rewarding, and varied, career options and postgraduate opportunities that await you at the completion of your degree. This book will guide you through the remainder of your undergraduate work and offer tips for navigating your life and the world beyond.

Your success beyond your undergraduate years begins with you and the story about yourself you will be able to tell. Do not get bogged down with the question, “What am I going to be?” Rather, spend some time following the advice of Google’s Education Evangelist, Jaime Casap, and ask the question, “What problem do I want to solve?”

When you redirect yourself away from a narrow focus (“I want to be a lawyer.”) to a broader focus on a problem or set of problems (“I want to reduce inequality in America.”), then you open a broader range of possibilities for the outcomes you’ll encounter when you’re done with college. It is also reasonable to believe that you will become a lawyer! But a broader focus on your studies will make you better prepared for your future career path even if you come full circle.

Focusing on a problem or set of problems you wish to solve also makes sense given the job market you will enter when college is over. Today’s job market is continually churning with rapid advances in technology changing the basic contours of our economy. Somewhere in your family history is a story of a person who worked for one company or one entity his or her entire life and retired, perhaps with a pension.

That world no longer exists. Your world will be one of many jobs and multiple career paths. A rigorous and robust college education is the critical first step to navigating an ever-changing job market. This guide exists, in part, to help you find the right path. One key to successfully doing so starts in this course in American politics.

Telling your story.

“The question used to be ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ Now it should be ‘What problem do you want to solve?’”

—Jaime Casap

The first step to a successful outcome is knowing who you are. Follow Casap’s advice above and think about the types of problems in American politics you hope to solve.

Take a moment here to jot then down. Don’t hold back! Worried about low voter turnout? Concerned about money in politics? Think taxes are too high and regulations too burdensome? Jot it all down.