How does a liberal arts education benefit students in the long run?

Southwestern’s Career Services office has always had some anecdotal evidence, but it never had any concrete data – until now.

With the assistance of two students, the office recently completed its first-ever survey of Southwestern graduates 10 years later. The survey was done on students who were in the Class of 2003.

Career Services used social media such as LinkedIn and Facebook to help find the graduates.

“Social media, not to mention Internet searching and browsing, allowed us to research and connect with alumni in ways we could never have done in the past,” said Alexandra Anderson, associate director of career services. Anderson conducted the survey with the assistance of senior Joanna Hawkins and 2014 graduate Brooke Chatterton.

Of the 312 students who graduated from August 2002 through May 2003, Career Services was able to obtain responses from 89, which represented 29 percent of the class.

In addition to quantitative data, the office obtained some more qualitative data on the graduates through a new project called the Southwestern University Alumni Oral History Project. Seventeen members of the Class of 2003 volunteered to participate in longer interviews in which they reflected on the impact their Southwestern education had on their careers.

Although Career Services has been conducting a postgraduate survey for more than 25 years, that survey only captures what alumni are doing the first year after graduation.

“A one-year time horizon does not adequately tell the career story of liberal arts graduates,” said Daniel Orozco, director of career services.

For example, while most new graduates who are employed full-time earn between $30,000 and $50,000 annually, the new survey found that after 10 years of employment and continuing education, salaries rise dramatically. The mean annual salary of survey respondents was $67,591, and 20 percent of those surveyed earn more than $100,000 a year.

And when they were interviewed within a year of graduation, about 26 percent of members of the class said they planned to continue their education. But 10 years later, nearly 71 percent had done so, with some earning multiple graduate degrees. Members of the class attended some of the most prestigious graduate schools in the country, including Harvard Law School, UCLA and UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

Aaron Rohre was among the members of the class who attended graduate school. He earned a master of divinity degree from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University.

“Southwestern almost over-prepares you for grad school,” Rohre said. “The high requirements for writing, reading and participation put me in a place that almost seemed a little bit unfair in a field that has a lot of second-career people who are coming back to academics.”

Eighty-eight percent of those who responded to the survey said they were either “very happy” or “satisfied” with how Southwestern prepared them for their current job or graduate school program.

The 10-year-out survey also asked alumni to reflect on how satisfied they are with their career journey. Forty-six percent said “very happy” and 39 percent said “satisfied.”

Whitney Griffin Randolph, who is now Senior Vice President in the Energy Finance group at OneWest Bank in Dallas, was among the members of the Class of 2003 who agreed to be interviewed for the oral history project.

“Because of my liberal arts education, I guess my mind was trained to think outside of the box, so rather than thinking ‘I don’t have the qualifications for that, I didn’t take all those classes that these people that I’m competing against for jobs took,’ I used my resources and taught myself what I needed to learn,” Randolph said. “In the long run I do feel like it (a Southwestern education) serves us very well, and we’re able to move ahead of our peers who didn’t have that experience that we had, and who weren’t necessarily forced outside of their comfort zones, or forced to market themselves a little bit more, or to use the resources that they have available.”

Fernando Garcia, who is now a captain in the U.S. Army, is another 2003 graduate who agreed to be interviewed for the project.

“I’ve seen a lot of arguments nowadays that pit a liberal arts and a more vocational or business education against each other, and I don’t think a liberal arts education excludes either of the other two,” Garcia said. “I think it actually enhances the two. And if anything, I think that focus on making sure that students think critically, see all sides of an issue, makes them adaptable. And I think that’s really what’s most key in today’s world.”

Orozco said the information Career Services received from the graduates will help them connect current students with potential employers.

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