College of Arts and Sciences

Careers in Sociology

Employment Opportunities for Sociology Majors Include:

• Social Services - where skills other than social work are central; in rehabilitation, case management, group work with youth or the elderly, recreation, or administration
• Community Work - community planning and development; in fund-raising for social service
  organizations, nonprofits, child-care or community development agencies, or environmental groups
• Corrections - in probation, parole, or other criminal justice work
• Business - where understanding of human relations is critical; in advertising, marketing, and
  consumer research, insurance, real estate, personnel work, training, or sales; various types of applied research;
• College Settings - in admissions, alumni relations, or placement offices
• Health Services - in family planning, substance abuse, rehabilitation counseling, health planning,
  hospital admissions, and insurance companies
• Publishing, Journalism, and Public Relations - in writing, research, and editing
• Government Services - in federal, state, and local government jobs in such areas as transportation,
  housing, agriculture, and labor
• Teaching - in elementary and secondary schools, in conjunction with appropriate certificate.

Potential Hiring Institutions:

• Firms conducting market research or that evaluate services for themselves or as consultants to
  others;
• Agencies that specialize in recreation;
• Youth development, supervision or instruction;
• Resources-finding for clients, advocacy, etc.;
• Firms that employ sales representatives, interviewers, or spokespersons who need to understand
  varieties of social backgrounds;
• Firms andpublic agencies that gather data for planning throughout the world.

A BA in sociology is an excellent preparation for future graduate work in sociology in order to become a professor, researcher, or applied sociologist. It also serves as a broad liberal arts base for professions such as law, education, medicine, social work, and counseling. Obtaining work experience before applying to graduate school might improve your chances of acceptance and make further education more meaningful. An entry level job might also help you sharpen your interests and decide future directions - continuing to climb the career ladder, changing fields, or furthering your education.

With advanced degrees (an MA or PhD), sociologists become high school teachers, faculty in colleges and universities, advising students, conducting research, and publishing their work. Outside of academia, they enter the corporate, non-profit, and government worlds as directors of research, policy analysts, consultants, human resource managers, and program managers. Practicing sociologists may be called research analysts, survey researchers, gerontologists, statisticians, urban planners, community developers, criminologists, or demographers. Some MA and PhD sociologists obtain specialized training to become counselors, therapists, or program directors in social service agencies. In some sectors, sociologists work closely with economists, political scientists, anthropologists, psychologists, social workers, and others, reflecting a growing appreciation of sociology's contributions to interdisciplinary analysis andaction.

An interesting multidisciplinary graduate program - Master's Degree in Social Sciences (as an example): MAPSS - the University of Chicago.

The future appears bright for sociology. Some of the best employment prospects may be in policy research andadministration, in clinical and applied sociological practice, as well as in the traditional areas of teaching and basic research. The careers in a post-industrial economy require basic sociological skills, such as the ability to take in the big picture, the ability to bring multiple sources of information and data to bear on a problem, the ability to take the role of the other, and the ability to communicate to different audiences.

A liberal arts education and a major in sociology provide the flexibility necessary in today's employment market. Solid training in sociology at the undergraduate (or graduate) level forms a foundation for flexible career development. The better your training and the more skills you have acquired, the better you will be able to take advantage of new opportunities. Sociology offers a rich source of conceptual frameworks into which the most pressing issues of our times can be placed, and a powerful set of methodological tools with which to study them.