by KC Jones
In hiring practices and career development, humanities students historically begin their academic journeys behind the proverbial eight ball. Anthropology students in particular are at a disadvantage, with 12,000 recent graduates as of 2016 fighting for only a few hundred jobs in their field. 1
For three consecutive years, both Kiplinger Business Forecast and Forbes have ranked Anthropology and Archaeology as the worst choice of college majors, with a sustained unemployment rate of 10.5% for recent college graduates. 2, 3 So how do we prepare our students in a way that distinguishes them from the pack of recent grads looking for work in a flooded job market? In the humanities and social sciences, strong technical writing skills set students apart from the rest of their cohort.
With the development of technical writing skills in mind, the WIP syllabus I set out to design this semester focused on training in technical writing that students will realistically be expected to master in the workforce, such as project budgeting, formal petitioning, and archaeological reporting. The inspiration for a syllabus that introduces a range of scientific and technical writing skills comes from my own experiences on the archaeological job market fresh out of college.
My undergraduate training did not include the technical report writing or analytical writing that employers were looking for, and as a result, I bounced from job to job and never experienced real job security for the first year I was out of school. Therefore, I wanted to design a course that would ease that transition for future students, and enhance their chances of finding gainful employment within the discipline.
I structured the class in three separate ‘acts’ or units of study, which I formatted to train students in different aspects of the writing process in anthropology. I used the acts to familiarize students with the types of writing they will encounter in the professional world as ways to build up their writing skills, introducing them to technical writing, archaeological reporting, petitioning, budgeting, and finally, ethical vulnerabilities in archaeological practice.
In constructing the syllabus, I had to factor in assignments and exercises that address major weaknesses in student writing within the humanities in general: thesis construction, rambling body paragraphs, structure of arguments, fact versus opinion, and any number of issues with in-text citations. My ‘to-do’ list became so overwhelming that I had to step back from all the issues I wanted to fix, and instead focus on all the positives I’ve encountered with student writing.
I had to adjust my mindset and expectations, and understand that writing is both a process and a journey, and the students are just starting theirs.
This adjustment to my own attitude toward the writing process completely transformed the way I approached my syllabus design. Instead of thinking, “these students should really keep track of what is their opinion and what the literature says,” I thought, “hey, these students are great at constructing arguments, and they take firm stances on certain topics.” I had to adjust my mindset and expectations, and understand that writing is both a process and a journey, and the students are just starting theirs.
Approaching this WIP syllabus design positively helped me reconcile with my own frustrations and shortcomings as an undergrad on the job market, and prepared me to help cultivate the next crop of job-seekers in anthropology who have strongly-developed skills in the writing and research that is required to be the most competitive candidate in the field today.
References
1. https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/college/T012-S001-worst-college-majors-for-your-career-2017-2018/index.html
2. Dewey, Caitlin (2012). Worst College Majors for Your Career. Electronic document, https://www.yahoo.com/news/worst-college-majors-for-your-career.html, accessed November 17, 2017.
3. Goudreau, Jenna (2012). The 10 Worst College Majors. Electronic document, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2012/10/11/the-10-worst-college-majors/#5b4e7c6e53c9, accessed November 17, 2017.