As kids, we're told we can be anything we want to be, but this sentiment often goes away once someone gets older and begins pursuing a liberal arts degree. That's the stereotype that UFV professor Dr. Linda Pardy is trying to fight with the help of the school's new career mapping tool.
"Look up who鈥檚 running many of our largest companies, and they have liberal arts degrees in disciplines such as English, philosophy, history, psychology, geography, sociology or art history," Pardy said. "We need to tell our students and the community that story and not contribute to the misconception."
Through a combined effort of Pardy, UFV's Community Health and Social Innovation Hub, and fellow UFV professors Dr. Michael Batu and Dr. Michael Maschek, the group was able to research all of the future career possibilities related to many different types of liberal arts degrees and break them down into an interactive career mapping program.
With the help of this new tool, current and future students are now able to see how something like a history degree might translate into nearly 150 different types of career roles, rather than just stuck being a history teacher or working in customer service.
"The finance industry loves history grads," Pardy said.
"They can train them on all the investment packages and things like that, but history grads have knowledge of what鈥檚 happened in the past that helps them understand what鈥檚 likely to happen in the future. While a business grad might get overly excited about a spike in the financial market, and depressed when it comes back down, a history grad brings stability and global thinking to decision-making. They work well as collaborators with business teams."
Pardy and the rest of the career mapping team said that they hope that students will use this tool to open up their eyes about all of the possibilities that exist in the job market for individuals with liberal arts degrees.
This is also just the start of what the career mapping program will be able to do, with the team announcing that an economic dashboard is currently in development, which will show people Fraser Valley-centric data regarding cost of living, housing market trends, and number of job openings.
"We want to get at the granular data for what鈥檚 happening in Abbotsford, Mission, and Chilliwack," Pardy said.
"Dr. Batu and Dr. Mascheck want people to see for themselves what鈥檚 growing and what鈥檚 not growing, and how this data can help them make informed decisions. They hope to give people, business owners, local government, and policymakers better decision-making tools."
Anyone wanting to access the career mapping tool can do so at .
