Dear Alumni and Friends,

Contrary to what you may read in the news, majoring in the humanities is not a death knell for gainful employment and good careers. As you already know, UChicago undergraduate students majoring in the humanities are finding jobs shortly after graduation in multiple fields, including gaming design, scriptwriting for TV and movies, and software engineering. Their first jobs build the foundation for them to enjoy prosperous, fulfilling careers.

Here’s how our current undergraduates are faring. Within three months of graduating, nearly all UChicago College alumni have either received offers of employment—77 percent—or decided to pursue graduate school or other postgraduate academic opportunities—22 percent.

Nationally and internationally, our undergraduates have multiple opportunities for internships, jobs on campus, and career treks, which bring small groups of students to meet with potential employers. In the coming months, the division’s career treks are expanding to include companies hiring in London, Paris, and Berlin. Through career treks and internships, students gain interviewing skills, practical job experience, and ready access to good organizations, allowing them to find jobs more easily after graduation.

Recently, we launched Humanities Advantage, a new initiative to highlight the distinctive skill sets our students develop when they double major in a humanities discipline and another area of interest. Humanities Advantage brings visibility to the 71 percent of our majors who are doubled up. I hope it brings us more.

Oscar Taub, AB’23, majored in Art History and Economics. At UChicago, he was orientation leader and curator of the Art in Public Spaces initiative overseeing campus art collections. He is now an associate at Sotheby’s.

Elaine Wan, AB’22, majored in East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Computer Science. At UChicago, she was a graphic design assistant at the Regenstein Library and spent a summer as a software engineering intern for Nordstrom. Currently, Wan is a software engineer at Microsoft.

Nicholas Coyle, AB’17, majored in Philosophy and Economics. While attending UChicago, he founded and was the president of Rockefeller Business Management and served as an intern in corporate finance at Dycom Industries. Now he is manager of growth at Netflix.

Finally, as you will read in this issue of Tableau, Jane Tunde Kelleher, AB’20, SM’21, built on her studies in Classics and Physics to become an MD student in a medical research program jointly run by Harvard and MIT.

Thank you for your devotion to the humanities. We hope you will spread the word that our alumni are thriving in the workplace. From the College to our master’s and PhD degree programs, students are taught by our excellent faculty and strengthened through career training at UChicago. With our recent graduates launching fascinating careers, we thank you—our extraordinary alumni, donors, and advocates—for your strong support.

Deborah L. Nelson
Dean, Division of the Humanities
Helen B. and Frank L. Sulzberger Professor, Department of English Language and Literature