Remember, when you are planning your academic program and future career, diversity and flexibility are of prime importance. Seldom will you make a final choice when it comes to careers. Most college graduates will change jobs at least six times during their lifetimes according to the United States Department of Labor. Career planning is, therefore, an on- going process which will continue for most of your student and working life.

Many students in the humanities are unconvinced of the merits of a liberal education and feel they must pursue an engineering or business degree if they are to have a competitive edge in today's labor market. Before you panic and choose a major based on the fear of an unfulfilling and unsuccessful career we would like you to consider several myths about academic program planning and career decision-making.

Myth #1: The major field of study predicts the career of the liberal arts graduate.

Most liberal arts majors are not vocationally specific; hence the greater proportion of liberally educated people find themselves choosing work which is not directly related to their major field of study.

Myth #2: A liberal arts graduate is nothing without a graduate or professional degree.

Many thousands of liberal arts graduates are prominently employed in business, social service, government, publishing, and elsewhere, without having acquired advanced educational credentials. This does not mean that an advanced degree will not enhance your chances. It definitely will.

Myth #3: A liberal arts graduate must have experience to find a job.

As a new college graduate, you are hired primarily for your potential to learn and advance within the organization rather than for your existing work capabilities or experience.

Myth #4: There is little opportunity for a liberal arts student to explore careers.

There are methods which you can use outside of the classroom (during college) to investigate career possibilities, and these methods do not require special vocational knowledge.

Myth #5: Most people start their careers at about age 21 and proceed in a straight line toward their ultimate career objectives.

The career paths of most people are filled with zigs and zags, and sudden changes of direction. People do not reach their ultimate career decisions when they are 21 because the experiences they gather in one type of work change their attitudes about careers and have application to many other kinds of work (e.g., news reporting and interviewing can be adapted to later work in social service, management consulting and public relations). People are seldom aware of the extent to which their past job experiences gave them flexibility in pursuing future jobs and the degree to which these experiences acted to change their career needs. But this versatility is openly expressed in their own career paths. There are social workers who have become city planners, advertising writers who have become management consultants, mortgage loan brokers who are now magazine writers and so forth. Ask people who are 35 what they were doing when they turned 21 and you may be amazed to discover that, in many cases, they are doing work that is worlds apart from their current job. And these people will say, "I just had a lucky break." They are unaware of the inherent fluidity of the career development process, the degree to which their own needs change through experience and the ways in which their past experience is used in their jobs.

Myth #6: Career planning is an irreversible process.

On the contrary, you can change career directions whenever your talents and needs dictate, because these attributes are in a continual state of being changed and reshaped by vocational experience.

Myth #7: A liberal arts student has few talents which are valuable in the world of work.

By the time you are 18 or 20 years old, you have developed identifiable abilities that can be applied successfully to a wide variety of occupations.

Myth #8: There is only one right job for me.

There are numerous job situations in which your talents can be equally applied, and the nature of these possibilities will expand as your work experiences accumulate.

Myth #9: Each and every job requires a particular set of talents.

Most jobs except highly technical and specific talents. These skills can be acquired and utilized in a variety of ways by people who possess different sets of capabilities.

Myth #10: There is a particular set of job responsibilities for every occupation.

People in positions having the same title are very often performing different tasks or performing similar tasks according to very different styles. Very often their job responsibilities differ because of the varying capabilities of the people who inhabit the positions.

(Taken from Howard E. Figler, Path: A Career Workbook for Liberal Arts Students. The Carroll Press Publishers, 43 Squantum St., Cranston R.I., 09290. 1975.)