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Let Sociology Majors Dream Bigger
A few months ago, I walked into a HomeGoods and saw one of my brightest former students behind the cashier counter. She greeted me with a warm smile and an enthusiastic hug. This was a student who had earned a 4.0 GPA, graduated with honors, and regularly contributed thoughtful insights in class discussions. I asked how she’d been and what she was doing post-graduation. She said, somewhat sheepishly, “I’m just working here for now. I didn’t really know what to do after I graduated.”
That moment stayed with me—not because working retail is inherently bad, but because I knew how capable this student was and how she once envisioned using her sociology degree to enter the world of machine learning. She had shared with me that she dreamed of designing algorithms to make city planning more equitable, from mapping park access in underserved neighborhoods to predicting environmental risks in real time. Now, her response to my innocuous question was capturing dynamics I’ve observed among many sociology majors over the years: uncertainty, hesitation, and a quiet sense that they’re supposed to “figure it out” on their own.
In sociology departments, we often accept this uncertainty as typical. We reassure ourselves—and our students—that liberal arts graduates need time to find their paths. But it’s worth asking: why is that narrative so widely accepted in sociology, while fields like engineering or business support more linear, ambitious career trajectories? In those disciplines, students are assumed to be job-ready by graduation. In ours, the assumption often seems to be that meaningful employment will come… eventually.
This isn’t just about job placement. It’s about how we, as a discipline, frame the value of sociological training and the futures we imagine for our students. Sociology majors learn to analyze complex systems, interpret qualitative and quantitative data, navigate ethical dilemmas, and understand how inequality is structured and reproduced. These are highly transferable skills—relevant not only to academia or nonprofit work, but to public policy, user experience research, human factors engineering, data science, machine learning, data ethics, civic design, finance, marketing, business, and more. And yet, when students express interest in these broader arenas, they’re often met with hesitation, if not outright silence, from faculty.The disconnect between sociological training and the diverse career paths students now pursue is, in part, structural. Many departments lack strong ties to career centers or to alumni working outside of academia and direct service. Faculty trained in traditional research careers may not know how to support students pursuing non-academic paths. But without clear guidance, students interpret our omissions as disapproval. Maybe their career interests are not “real” sociology, they think.
But the issue is also cultural. In many sociology programs, there is an implicit hierarchy of career paths in which graduate school is seen as the gold standard. Nonprofit work is also respected. However, industry jobs, particularly in tech, business, or consulting, are often treated as compromises—or worse, signs of selling out. The unspoken value judgments passed on to our students are not only limiting, they’re classed, racialized, and gendered. They presume a safety net. They presume time and flexibility. They overlook that, for many first-generation students, low-income students, and students of color, “figuring it out” after graduation is not always a viable option.
If we truly believe sociology is a valuable tool for making sense of the world, then we should trust that it can thrive beyond traditional academic spaces. We need to create structures that support a wider range of futures and speak about those possibilities as legitimate—not exceptional.Doing so will require practical changes. We need more intentional career development within departments. Alumni panels should include graduates working in civic tech or public-sector innovation, not just PhD students. Courses should include assignments that translate sociological thinking into public-facing work: policy briefs, design critiques, or user personas. And we should build relationships with employers who need critical thinkers but don’t yet know that sociology offers them.
We also need to interrogate our own disciplinary identity. Why do we sometimes define success so narrowly? Why are we still so reluctant to claim power in spaces that aren’t explicitly academic or activist?
In a world facing overlapping crises—climate change, algorithmic surveillance, disinformation, deepening inequality—we need more people who can ask critical questions, think relationally, and understand the stakes of social change. That’s what our students are trained to do. Our responsibility is to help them (and potential employers) understand that those skills matter—everywhere.
The student I saw at HomeGoods? She’s still figuring it out. But I wonder how different her trajectory might have been if we, as a discipline, had done more to prepare her for diverse career possibilities—and to make sure she knew that sociology could go with her, wherever she chose to go.
Yolanda Wiggins is in the Department of Sociology at San José State University, and she is a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project. She studies higher education, STEM pipelines, racial and social class inequality, and the family.
