Humanities-type Jobs

karaokeman

Hi all,

Going into second year of an Arts degree in NUI Maynooth (English & Sociology).

I was wondering does anyone know if I can get any good jobs in something like writing or research in Ireland or will I have to emigrate?

I've looked on jobs.ie and Adverts and they all seem to require something like a business degree or an accounting degree, I can't even find anything for Arts postgrads.

Have no intention of looking for a job straight after my undergrad, as I know I would need more than that.

If there's nothing else I can do, I will look at going into lecturing.

Many thanks,

Michael

djpbarry

karaokeman wrote: »

I was wondering does anyone know if I can get any good jobs in something like writing or research in Ireland or will I have to emigrate?

That depends - what do you want to write about and/or research?

kob29

You will as you can see RARELY find an ad that looks for an arts degree as the desired qualification largely because grads as seen as being generally educated or adept at reading books and writing essays but without job specific skills. Back in the day it was the route for teaching and journalism, but there are a huge scarcity of jobs in these areas now.

For research positions you will almost certainly require a postgrad, most of these would specify that because they would need an advanced level of research skills often to PhD level. Similarly lecturing is virtually impossible to get into in most areas without a good postgrad and in some areas industry experience.

Your subjects are extremely general in terms of the job skill market so you'd probably do well to start thinking about postgrads that actually train you to do something commercial. I think you'd face the same challenges abroad.

karaokeman

djpbarry wrote: »

That depends - what do you want to write about and/or research?

Something about cultural aspects to human life, and perhaps some of the behavioural aspects (coming from a background in Psych with some crossover in that area within Sociology).

I don't know for sure yet, I'm interested in my two subjects anyway so that's always a good start.

djpbarry

karaokeman wrote: »

Something about cultural aspects to human life, and perhaps some of the behavioural aspects...

In a research capacity? Or as an author/journalist?

karaokeman

djpbarry wrote: »

In a research capacity? Or as an author/journalist?

I'm sure, I'll go talk with my lecturers this week and see if I can look around it and decide what works best for me.

Always been good at English, and got good grades for it, and other essay type subjects, like I got an A1 in Honours History for the leaving.

I work at a shop, so I have a slight bit of experience with sales as in knowing how to use a cash register, do pay up etc.

I'd be happy as an author, but might need a lot more professional writing experience before I could start a huge project like a book, so I was thinking of going into journalism first, or lecturing/research whichever I find out works best for me.