News

This post is part of a blog series, ‘Adventures in the New Humanities,’ by Judy Kutulas, the Boldt Family Distinguished Teaching Chair in the Humanities.

The title of this post was a childhood chant that none of my sisters or I can quite remember the origin story of. We do, though, remember some quite operatic performances of it that I fear were protests over being dragged to visit elderly relatives or at least wrangled into nice clothes in order to sit bored at someone else’s house while grown-ups talked.

I think of that phrase at the beginning of every school year as I first meet my new advisees, some of whom are very certain of where they are going, what they are doing, and why, why, why they want to do it, but others don’t know and are pretty anxious about it. As an advisor, I worry less about the puzzled ones than the very certain ones since, potentially, drama will ensue when it first occurs to them that maybe they don’t know where they are going, what they are doing, and why, why, why they are doing it. The why, why, why, by the way, deserves the repetition because without it, the going and doing are meaningless.

Still, who can blame young people for the narrow focus on the where and the what? Think about how our society talks about adult life to preschoolers: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Early fantasies of ballerinas, firefighters, and astronauts give way to pre-adolescent fantasies of social media influencers, kid baking champions, and video game designers.

As we age, we are urged to prepare for whats and wheres we don’t yet know via structured activities and enrichments. High school experiences are supposed to help us determine where our aptitudes lie, but, well, 16-year-olds aren’t always known for being reasonable. I scored highest on history on a high school aptitude test, but there was no way I was going to teach history as a career. No, I was going to be a marine biologist … or a potter. At some point, financial realities and actual abilities start to focus your going-and-doing equation. Having grown up in a world of pre-school career fantasies, elderly relatives’ inquiries, and personal statements on college applications, though, it’s trend-bucking to come here — or anywhere else — without a pat answer to that all-important question about your future. But none of us will be one thing and only one thing all our lives. Just like adulthood is a process, so too is vocation.

None of us will be one thing and only one thing all our lives. Just like adulthood is a process, so too is vocation.

It never hurts to remind panicked advisees that almost nobody holds only one or even two jobs in their lifetimes. According to a 2019 Bureau of Labor Statistics longitudinal study, the average American held slightly more than 12 jobs between the ages of 18 and 52. Logically, the bulk of those 12 will occur when someone is younger, but plenty of people switch careers in their 40s as well. I count at least 10 jobs in my past, but I’ve been at St. Olaf for more than 30 years now.

We’ve all had our starter job(s). These pay the bills and help us get a more-refined sense of where to go next.

Never underestimate the value of a starter job, though, because where you are going is a path, not a singular destination. Heather Lawrenz ’00 was a 5^th-year Emerging Artist who also worked in retail at a bead store in Northfield to help pay the bills. There she learned to manage employees, got experience in arts manufacturing, and learned jewelry-making. She uses those management and administrative skills today as the visual arts manager of the Northfield Arts Guild, as well as in the second part of her vocation: jewelry maker.

Ezra Garcia ’19 figured that a starter job was just a means to an evolving end, but got momentarily seduced by the perks: “Big skyscraper. Friendly coworkers. Free gym access. Happy hours. Bottomless coffee.” It took him a while to realize that even though he mastered the job, he didn’t feel like it mattered. It was then that he reflected on his St. Olaf career. That included a raft of experiences on the Hill, including summer internships and a Piper Center Connections Program trip to Washington, D.C., to meet working professionals (more on the Piper Center later), as well as the opportunity to talk to people in fields that interest him. Now he’s ready to follow their advice and get a master’s degree in urban planning because it matters to him that what he’s doing aligns with his values and contributes meaningfully to society.

Kristi Achor Pursell ’03 recalls that straight out of St. Olaf, what she did mattered less than where she did it, so she and St. Olaf friends moved to Hawaii and found their post-college starter jobs there. That was fine for a little while, but not as satisfying as she might have expected, so she listened to a friend — and fellow traveler on a St. Olaf off-campus program in Australia — and applied for an internship at Wolf Ridge in northern Minnesota. There, “I hit my stride and found my calling: environmental education.” Now she uses her degree in English and what was then a concentration in Environmental Studies to run a nonprofit that focuses on clean water, the Cannon River Watershed Partnership.

Here’s what a very wise former student of mine, Claire Cummins ’15, said about her St. Olaf experience: “I realized pretty early on that I wasn’t going to get a job because of my degree; I was going to get a job because of who I am and what I can do.” That realization empowered her to be bold about her choices while here. She dropped the certainty of a nursing major for the uncertainty of her own private why, why, why (although plenty of her peers did find their why, why, whys in nursing) and started taking Women’s and Gender Studies courses. Today she blends what she learned from a year of nursing and science classes with the interdisciplinarity of her wonderfully interdisciplinary Women’s and Gender Studies major as a community education manager at Planned Parenthood.

And she’s right. Our career consultants — in fact, any career consultants — will tell you that while there might be particular classes you need for particular careers, employers would rather hire people who are able to learn new things, and are flexible, creative, and resilient. Emily McNee ’10 recalls that her very first assignment in law school was to write the instructions for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a seemingly simple exercise until you stop to consider who those instructions are for. Emily says she had a leg up on a lot of her colleagues from day one because her three majors — English, French, and American Studies, along with the American Conversations program — taught her to think creatively and see other perspectives, absolutely critical now that she’s an attorney with Littler Mendelson.

Our career consultants — in fact, any career consultants — will tell you that while there might be particular classes you need for particular careers, employers would rather hire people who are able to learn new things, and are flexible, creative, and resilient.

Nicholas Gonnerman ’19 was a classic St. Olaf overachiever who, like Emily, joined American Conversations for that immersive interdisciplinarity into American culture and society. He interned for a state senator, published four of his papers in journals for undergraduate work, led our debate team, and through the Institute for Freedom and Community founded Rebuttal, a journal that offered point-and-counterpoint analyses of major issues. You can learn more about Nick on the Institute’s website here.

After he graduated, he spent part of a summer in New York City as one of 15 national History Scholars at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Did I mention he also spent a semester at the University of Alabama, where he was a paid research assistant for my husband, Professor of History Michael Fitzgerald, as well as a TV show called Who Do You Think You Are? Currently he’s working for the Campus Free Expression Project that is part of the Bipartisan Policy Center, writing on subjects like this piece on women’s suffrage. Ironically, all this is build-up to the next phase of his career: law school next fall. It was a goal Nick had coming into St. Olaf, but one he always saw as a step to a career in public service. His resume is dazzling, but it isn’t the most impressive thing about Nick — his dedication is. He, by the way, was a history and American Studies major.

Just like at any other college in the U.S., there are majors at St. Olaf that take you directly to certain careers. There are more, however, that don’t, that encourage you to figure out how to get where you want to go.

Just like at any other college in the U.S., there are majors at St. Olaf that take you directly to certain careers. There are more, however, that don’t, that encourage you to figure out how to get where you want to go. I love it when students take quirky paths through college or pair unexpected majors and concentrations together because they couldn’t quite decide where they were going and hoped they might be able to combine their interests. That strategy works surprisingly well, and not just with humanities and marketing combos as Kristi’s English and environmental studies pairing demonstrates. I’ve seen more than one humanities major get into medical school provided they have the basic science courses and a good MCAT score. In fact, the American Medical Association thinks that humanities majors can make “better” medical students than those too-narrowly focused in their undergraduate work. I use that information a lot while advising.

The liberal arts may not funnel you directly into a career as quickly as going the more vocation-centric way, but prepare you far better for the inevitable switches and refinements that are bound to occur because, to quote the song, “life is a highway.”

The liberal arts may not funnel you directly into a career as quickly as going the more vocation-centric way, but prepare you far better for the inevitable switches and refinements that are bound to occur because, to quote the song, “life is a highway.”

Consider the trajectory of Melissa Henning Martinson ’16. She graduated from St. Olaf with a degree in social work, one of those majors with a pretty clear career arc to it. Indeed, she is currently a Children’s Mental Health Case Manager for Rice County Minnesota. She took a ceramics class while at St. Olaf to satisfy a general education credit, loved it, and became a work-study assistant in the clay studio. Love of clay stayed on a parallel track to her social work career for a while, as she made and sold ceramics on the side and taught clay classes for children and teens. At some point, she decided to combine her interests and began a master’s program in art therapy, a meaningful, helping career that also enables her to blend her artist self into the equation.

So, as you can see, accepting that career is always in the process of being is a lesson worth learning and holding in your heart, through starter jobs and finding-oneself detours. Today’s passion might not last or you might see another way to fulfill it. It’s unrealistic to expect that what you think you want to do at 22 is enough to sustain you through what I hope are decades and decades of life. Some careers that today’s students might later want haven’t even been invented yet.

It’s unrealistic to expect that what you think you want to do at 22 is enough to sustain you through what I hope are decades and decades of life. Some careers that today’s students might later want haven’t even been invented yet.

And that’s where advising and advisors come in. While we may not have crystal balls able to predict the future, we do have the experience and the detachment that can help our students find their passions in realistic ways full of possibilities. In short, we know stuff and we’ve been around the block a time or two — and because we are academics, we are annoyingly analytic about any of those circuits, so are prepared to pontificate about what we know.

Personally, I love the challenge of pushing a determined student off-track a little bit, especially if I hear too much about where they want to go and what they want to do, but not a lot of why, why, why. Shake the certainty just a teeny bit and it tips the balance in the direction of trying something new. Or it doesn’t, and that’s useful self-knowledge as well.

Advisors, however, can’t do it alone. We would be derelict in our duties if we didn’t encourage our advisees to take full advantage of the range of services provided by the Piper Center for Vocation and Career. The staff there know about graduate schools, have internship listings, civic engagement options, as well as help people connect to jobs, to incredibly helpful alumni, to mentors, or even inventories to point them in some possible career directions if they are totally unsure and uncomfortable about it. Several of our majors or concentrations these days require some hands-on experience in the form of an internship and I am, frankly, quite jealous of some that I’ve seen. Internships, for a lot of our students, are the pivotal moment of clarity, when the where, the what, and the why all start to come together. So too are off-campus programs, on-campus jobs, and seemingly-ordinary St. Olaf classes that spark engagement, joy, or clarity of purpose enough to help point someone on their way, just like Melissa’s ceramics class did for her.

It’s the season of reckoning for our seniors. They are applying to graduate and professional programs, looking for internships, and their starter jobs. They are nervous and scared, particularly this year.

Right now, my senior advisees are all about the graduate programs. This is a common destination for Oles, who tend to have high career aspirations. Academics understand the attraction of graduate school, but we also know a lot of the pitfalls. But having just written about my undergraduate days in a glow of typewritten nostalgia, I am very aware of the vast span of time since I went to graduate school. Things are different. Things are different from field to field, degree to degree. That’s why it’s important to send anyone interested in graduate school to the Piper Center, but also to be there to listen as students ponder the why, why, why of what feel like momentous choices.

As advisors and professors at a liberal arts college, we offer one important quality often missing when a school is bigger and more focused on career-training or graduate programs: our students are our main events.

As advisors and professors at a liberal arts college, we offer one important quality often missing when a school is bigger and more focused on career-training or graduate programs: our students are our main events. The combination of small classes, professors as advisors, and so many programs like American Conversations or Collaborative Undergraduate Research and Inquiry (CURI) means we know our students well. When I write a letter of recommendation, it’s not generic or short. There’s a reason why we rank high in the business of Fulbright scholars: we have an industrial-strength program to help applicants prepare. When the government calls looking for a security clearance, we can all speak with confidence about the ethics of our charges. It’s not just because it’s part of our job; it’s our mission to help our students find and pursue their vocations.

Many Oles will go forth in the spring who are not going to graduate school, or at least not right away, who are about to start transitioning to a new phase of adulthood. I contacted a lot of alumni in all sorts of careers for this post. In answer to my questions about what they got from their St. Olaf education, they all said more or less the same thing, so I’ll quote from Claire again, who I hope you remember said it was how college helped to shape her as a human being and not a specific major that would get her a job. She said, “I feel like I benefitted from learning how to write well, how to think critically, how to manage my time, and how to care about other people. I also learned how to interact with people professionally and how to connect intimately with people over shared values.”

Claire Cummins ’15I feel like I benefitted from learning how to write well, how to think critically, how to manage my time, and how to care about other people. I also learned how to interact with people professionally and how to connect intimately with people over shared values.

Nick and Emily mentioned learning to write well — not surprising since both use writing at their jobs — and critical thinking, and Ezra confirms that it’s the ability to think in values-forward ways that was a central piece of his St. Olaf education. Every last person I talked to gave me 110 percent of their time and 120 percent of their thoughtfulness, evidence that we are helping to produce some really quality human beings and, equally, proof that our former students regard their time here as an important and positive part of their adult-ing stories.

Many also remembered little things about their time here that suggest that so much of what we provide as educators is personal connections. When I bump into Katie Mitchell Arnold ’98, for example, she always reminds me that I wrote her a note that she carried in her backpack promising to help her if she struggled during her first semester at the college. Carlye Proescholdt ’12 remembers crying in my office over a difficult roommate. Katie Barnes ’13 says that studying Black comics in my American comedy seminar “helped me understand my father and my own childhood.” Nick loved “learning on a whim” in classes like forensic science, ceramics, and Zen Buddhism, and appreciated Associate Professor Emerita of History Dolores Peters’ tough but “endearing” grading. I’m not sure what that means exactly. I’m also really going to check out ceramics, since Kristi also mentioned it.

These St. Olaf graduates remembered faculty members, advisors, classes, and moments in classes where they felt affirmed, valued, helped, engaged, or inspired to be more than they were before. My scholarly contributions to my discipline are tiny, but I find incredible personal satisfaction being part of all these wonderful lives.

These St. Olaf graduates remembered faculty members, advisors, classes, and moments in classes where they felt affirmed, valued, helped, engaged, or inspired to be more than they were before. My scholarly contributions to my discipline are tiny, but I find incredible personal satisfaction being part of all these wonderful lives.

One day, about five years ago, I walked into a Women’s and Gender Studies seminar I was teaching and who did I find sitting in my class but Katie Barnes, who had graduated several years before. A writer now for ESPN, Katie was tackling an important writing project and had come back to the Hill seeking some St. Olaf inspiration and a place to write that felt like home. Katie talked to my class, telling their personal story while listening to the stories of current students. Looking for inspiration, Katie inspired others. It’s that generosity of spirit that is everywhere at Olaf, including our alumni, who don’t just talk to their old professors, but share their expertise, their experiences, and their careers with those who come after them.

Our students are going many places and doing many things, and there are as many reasons why as there are students. Just as it takes a village to raise a child in the old African proverb, so too at St. Olaf does a whole community pitch in to help students become their best selves, a community that includes alumni, peers, professors, and people from places like the Piper Center, the libraries, IT, College Ministry, the Academic Support Center, the Taylor Center for Equity and Inclusion, and about a billion other places on campus. It’s our vocations to help; it’s our why, why, why.

Colleagues: On a day when you’ve sat through one too many Zoom meetings and you are staring at a pile of grading, an over-flowing hamper of dirty clothes, and some member of your household (be they human, canine, feline, or something else) is registering their discontent with something you have failed to do, I strongly recommend contacting an old student or two and asking how they are doing. You will be renewed.

Judy Kutulas is a professor of history at St. Olaf College, where she teaches in the History Department and the American Studies program, along with American Conversations. She is the Boldt Family Distinguished Teaching Chair in the Humanities, charged with helping to revitalize humanities teaching and learning at the college. Read her inaugural ‘Adventures in the New Humanities’ blog post here.