{"id":10796,"date":"2022-03-31T10:55:48","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T10:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1383601"},"modified":"2022-03-31T10:55:48","modified_gmt":"2022-03-31T10:55:48","slug":"yes-you-can-build-a-successful-career-in-tech-with-a-liberal-arts-degree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=10796","title":{"rendered":"Yes, you can build a successful career in tech with a liberal arts degree"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/tnw?filter_last=1&amp;fit=1280%2C640&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn0.tnwcdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F1%2Ffiles%2F2022%2F03%2FUntitled-design-4-1.jpg&amp;signature=b855b496282b2b9b6d0ad9dadd865f6d\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><em><span>This&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/builtin.com\/career-development\/liberal-arts-tech-careers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">article<\/a>&nbsp;was originally published on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/builtin.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Built In<\/a>&nbsp;by Jamie De Langhe.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>History, art, English, the humanities: These are the backgrounds of approximately half the people I\u2019ve worked with at both Etsy and Slack.<\/p>\n<p>My co-workers have been creators, analytical thinkers and researchers. They look at complex problems and find novel solutions, taking products to a whole new level. Even Stewart Butterfield, Slack\u2019s founder, was a philosophy major with aspirations to one day become a professor.<\/p>\n<p>But something has changed. Only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/show\/how-these-humanities-graduates-are-finding-jobs-in-silicon-valley\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">5 percent of college graduates earned liberal arts degrees<\/a> in 2018, according to PBS. It\u2019s clear why: Young people want a degree that will lead to a high-paying job, and nowadays, everyone tells them that you can\u2019t make money or build a future with a liberal arts degree.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a shame, too, because there are many of us who have done just that. We make the tech industry so much richer, and you can too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How to bridge your non-stem background into a job in tech<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Seek out new knowledge<\/li>\n<li>Work with smart people<\/li>\n<li>Align yourself with quality<\/li>\n<li>Advocate for yourself<\/li>\n<li>Find allies<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>My pivot from liberal arts to tech<\/h2>\n<p>I arrived in New York City in September 2008, freshly graduated with an honors degree from Wesleyan University. I majored in English literature and, like Stewart, was sure I was destined to eventually become a professor. Knowing the professorial life had its own drawbacks, I looked to publishing and media companies for my first real job out of school.<\/p>\n<p>The Great Recession was in full swing, and paid entry-level jobs were becoming unpaid internships. I landed myself one of these illustrious positions at a small circular where I was responsible for finding the best nightlife in NYC and writing regular listicles. I worked at a coffee shop in Cobble Hill to pay the bills.<\/p>\n<p>By November, writers for Slate and Cond\u00e9 Nast were covering their morning coffees with unemployment cards and joking that they\u2019d be happy to take my job. The economic fallout accelerated huge shifts in the publishing industry, and my stop-gap plan was no longer viable. I spent the next year applying to graduate programs and slinging lattes \u2014 completely unsure of what the future held.<\/p>\n<p>Then a dear friend pitched me on applying for a job at Etsy, a small <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/latest\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tech<\/a> company chock-full of creative people with full-time benefits.<\/p>\n<h2>From barista to product manager<\/h2>\n<p>I was Etsy\u2019s 120th employee. We were a small team \u2014 roughly half customer support and half engineering \u2014 working to scale a website and a business that was rapidly outgrowing our existing systems. As a customer service representative, I dealt with all parts of the business that didn\u2019t yet have a software solution: legal, billing, policy enforcement, and even closing accounts. I knew how to serve customers from my restaurant days, but instead of running tables, I was now fielding an endless queue of emails and chats, helping people deal with software that I didn\u2019t fully understand.<\/p>\n<p>I have always been deeply uncomfortable in situations where I don\u2019t understand what\u2019s happening around me and unreasonably confident in my ability to learn even the most complex things. So I started taking online computer science classes, listened to business, design, and stats books on my walks, spoke with engineers and designers and started to build a mental map of how everything around me actually worked.<\/p>\n<p>It became clear to me that there was one particular job that fit both my skills and interests: <a href=\"https:\/\/builtin.com\/product\/defining-product-management\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">product management<\/a>. Product managers perform in-depth research, pull ideas together into a coherent narrative and influence the people around them to see the same way forward. Thanks to my years of writing essays and research papers, these were things I was uniquely adept at.<\/p>\n<p>As my career grew, I found a second love: search and <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/topic\/machine-learning\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">machine learning<\/a>. This, too, was deeply connected to my collegiate years. I have always been fascinated by how language works (and doesn\u2019t work) to communicate, translate meaning, and develop new ideas. Building a good search product is rooted in resolving all of the same linguistic and semiotic challenges \u2014 just at a much larger scale.<\/p>\n<p>It was this last skill that helped me transition into my first role at Slack as the product lead for search and machine learning.<\/p>\n<h2>Tech needs more than STEM majors<\/h2>\n<p>The technology industry requires many of the skills the STEM fields teach us: analytical thinking, quantitative reasoning, attention to detail and the drive to find clear, repeatable answers. But it also requires people who are fascinated by how we look at the world and why we see it that way.<\/p>\n<p>Liberal arts students learn how to approach problems from many different perspectives \u2014 whether that\u2019s a sociological point of view, a historical view or a more nebulous human perspective. By considering these different lenses, you gain a much rounder understanding of a problem and can find solutions that take into account the various needs of all your constituents. The tech industry benefits from the inclusion of people from all academic, professional, and life backgrounds, so lean into what you already know and consider getting your foot in the door with a non-technical role first.<\/p>\n<p>If you are looking for a bigger shift than just changing your place of work, consider finding a role that leverages the subjects that you already carry considerable expertise in. Technology exists to solve challenges, and challenges exist in every imaginable field. Whether it\u2019s community management, education, healthcare or marketing, you probably understand a specific subject that someone, somewhere is trying to build a technical solution around.<\/p>\n<p>They would be elated to find you. Find a company you admire, show them what you have to offer, and then get serious about learning the technical side of things.<\/p>\n<h2>Build a tech career that lights you up<\/h2>\n<p>In order to grow that first gig in tech into a successful career, here\u2019s my best advice:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Seek out new knowledge.<\/strong> Become friends with the people who know what you don\u2019t, learn the language, take courses. Lean into the things that feel foreign to you so that you can speak intelligently about the work your company does.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Work with smart people.<\/strong> Seek out teams who are smarter than you are and work with the people you have the most to learn from. If you ever feel like you\u2019re the smartest person in the room at the beginning of your career, find a new room to be in.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Align yourself to the quality of your product and the quality of your business outcomes.<\/strong> Your career, if you do it well, will be defined by the quality of the products you ship.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Advocate for yourself.<\/strong> Get really comfortable standing up for yourself and the career you want to build. You can\u2019t show up for your team if you don\u2019t have the resources you need.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Find allies.<\/strong> As someone who builds software, the work you do will require help or approval from nearly every other team at some point, whether it\u2019s legal or customer experience. The earlier you get their input, the smoother the development process will be. An excellent byproduct of demonstrating that you understand people\u2019s value is that they value you as well, and they\u2019ll be in your corner as you build your career.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Just like in 2008 when the economy\u2019s bottom suddenly fell out, the pandemic has reshuffled our priorities. Many people are switching jobs and career paths, and \u201cnon-tech\u201d people are considering a career in tech.<\/p>\n<p>Forbes recently shared my own story and those of other women who have successfully and happily pivoted to careers in tech. I\u2019m celebrating this. I\u2019m certainly technical now (though I still don\u2019t write code), and I\u2019ve seen how this diversity of thought contributes to the tech industry\u2019s advancement.<\/p>\n<p>This is all to say: If turn-of-the-century literature enthrals you and you want to spend your college years doing extensive research and writing essays, do it! You will find your way \u2014 even if it\u2019s completely unpredictable to you now.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/build-successful-career-in-tech-with-liberal-arts-degree\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This&nbsp;article&nbsp;was originally published on&nbsp;Built In&nbsp;by Jamie De Langhe. History, art, English, the humanities: These are the backgrounds of approximately half the people I\u2019ve worked with at both Etsy and Slack. My co-workers&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10796"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}