College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

• High job placement shows up in annual report

  
  Steve Kravinsky, director of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Office of Career Services, likes to tell students and their parents that if a student majors in liberal arts and the sciences they have an opportunity to grow professionally.
  
  "We want people to know that an LAS major is a good career choice," Kravinsky said.
  
  And he has the figures to back that statement up.
  
  For the 2006-07 academic year, 96% of the LAS bachelor-level graduates were professionally occupied or were in temporary jobs while seeking permanent employment. This includes individuals who have gone on to graduate school, those entering the military, and graduates who are professionally employed in business, industry, non-profits and government work.
  
  The reported numbers are slightly up from a year ago.
  The report, which covers almost 1300 LAS graduates from December 2006, May 2007 and August 2007, shows that just over a quarter of the LAS graduates (27%) are attending graduate school. A vast majority (55%) are employed professionally. Wells Fargo, Iowa State University and the Principal Financial Group are the top employers of recent LAS graduates.
  
  Majors that had more than 90% of their graduates professionally occupied include biological/pre-medical illustration, biophysics, botany, communication studies, computer science, classical studies, linguistics, meteorology, music, political science, sociology, Spanish, statistics, women's studies and the Bachelor of Liberal Studies program.
  
  "What makes LAS majors unique is that they have so many options after they graduate from Iowa State," Kravinsky said. "What they have to do during their time at Iowa State is narrow those options down a little to help them find their first career field.
  
  "In this report, our majors are faring as well as any business or engineering major. They made a sound decision to go into a liberal arts or sciences degree program."
  
  Kravinsky and his staff encourage students to create a four-year "career plan" while at Iowa State. The plan includes attending career fairs offered by the office, participating in an internship, enrolling in the university's Career Management System and "start thinking where your major will take you.
  
  "By the time a student is a sophomore, they should have a more formulated plan than they did as a freshman," he said.
  
  Data for the survey was taken from the Iowa State records graduation questionnaire, direct responses from graduating students and phone calls made directly to graduates or their families six months after their graduating semester.
  
  The figures for masters- and doctorate-level LAS graduates are also similar. Ninety-six percent of the masters-level graduates in the 2006-07 academic year are professionally occupied. At the doctorate level, 98% of the graduates have found employment.

Ames, Iowa 50011, (515) 294-4111. Published by: University Relations, online@iastate.edu. Copyright © 1995-2004, Iowa State University of Science and Technology. All rights reserved.

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College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Ames, Iowa 50011-1302

General Information: (515) 294-7740

Academic Advising: (515) 294-4831

Email: las@iastate.edu

Michael Whiteford - Dean

Bret Larwick - Director of Technology

Dave Gieseke - Director of Communications