Career Education

Allegheny College graduates historically enter the workforce with jobs at graduation at rates that are significantly higher than the national average with early and mid-career earnings that place Allegheny in the top 20% of colleges and universities in the nation. Those who question the value of the Liberal Arts, fearing that they do not provide students with job skills, should take heart. The hallmarks of a liberal arts education – critical and analytical thinking, adapting to change, life-long learning, communicating clearly and persuasively in speaking and writing, to name just four – are necessary to the existence of a successful society, including the workforce.

Interactive Chart: Major-to-Career Paths

Instructions: Hover over the arcs representing the majors to isolate the major-to-career pathways for those particular majors. While there are clearly patterns please note that all industries have representatives from all majors.

Major to Career Paths for Allegheny College Bachelor’s Degree Recipients 1985-2011

About this Visualization

Using data gathered on the outcomes of Allegheny College alumni, one of our computer science majors created the chart below which provides a marvelous visual representation of the variety of fields in which our alumni work and the majors that ‘led’ them to those fields. The population includes those graduating with Bachelor’s degrees from 1986 through 2011. Presenting the data this way very quickly and forcefully shows the diverse pathways our alumni take and how the major is not necessarily a predictor of those pathways; graphically representing the old adage that Liberal Arts do not prepare you for one career, rather for many. While post-baccalaureate education is in many cases part of the path, learning at Allegheny prepared alumni well for those experiences (our alumni consistently report that in graduate school they were better prepared than most others in their chosen program).

Underlying Data: Major-to-Career Paths