Alumni Profiles: Sarah Jacobson

Philosophy majors pursue a wide variety of career paths after graduation, including but not limited to law, business, and higher education. Every few weeks, we will be featuring one of our department’s alumni, highlighting how their studies in philosophy have helped them in their post-graduate careers.

Sarah Jacobson graduated in 2005 with a degree in Philosophy. She now works as a Transit Control Supervisor for the Minneapolis Metro Transit. When asked how studying philosophy has helped her in her career, she said:

“My philosophy degree helped me transition into management positions easily, since I have superior critical thinking and problem solving skills and excellent written and oral communication. My career didn’t turn out as planned, but even so, I think my degree set me up to succeed.”

Alumni Profiles: Holli Fillbach Simcoe ’95

Philosophy majors pursue a wide variety of career paths after graduation, including but not limited to law, business, and higher education. Every few weeks, we will be featuring one of our department’s alumni, highlighting how their studies in philosophy have helped them in their post-graduate careers.

Holli Fillbach Simcoe graduated in 1995 with a degree in Philosophy. She now works as an Assistant General Counsel at Huron Consulting Group, which is a global management consulting group. When asked how studying philosophy has helped her in her career, she said:

“It’s hard to put a finger on exactly how philosophy studies have contributed to my career. It certainly helps me to be a critical thinker but also to be open-minded and creative.  I usually have more than one solution to a problem which most people find refreshing(…) in our many class discussions, I often took the minority viewpoint for the sake of argument. For example, if you were stuck on a boat in the ocean would you fend for yourself or cooperate for the greater good.  I found it more interesting to consider fending for myself than the more “sane” concept of working together.  This “thinking skill” or perhaps, “objectivity,” allows me to consider many angles of an issue or problem.  I tend not to dismiss something that may seem less rational than other solutions.”

 

Alumni Profiles: Roger Valdez ’90

Philosophy majors pursue a wide variety of career paths after graduation, including but not limited to law, business, and higher education. Every few weeks, we will be featuring one of our department’s alumni, highlighting how their studies in philosophy have helped them in their post-graduate careers.

Roger Valdez graduated from Puget Sound in 1990 with a major in philosophy. He is now the director of Smart Growth Seattle, an advocacy group that works with the City of Seattle to manage neighborhood growth. He has been profiled in The Stranger, Seattle Met Magazine, and Seattle Times, and also contributes to Forbes Magazine. We asked him how studying philosophy has helped him in his career, and he had this to say:

“Throughout my career in public policy, I have relied on my study of philosophy in four important ways. First, I learned how to argue in philosophy – and I don’t mean just shouting louder than someone on the other side. Philosophy trains the mind to organize ideas and find flaws, inconsistencies, and errors in the other sides arguments. Second, I started to learn how to write in my philosophy classes. Many of the things I learned in my years in the program formed the foundation for the writing I do today. Third, the history of ideas matters; who’d have thought that I’d be quoting from Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program (“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce”) on the local radio station more than 25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union (…) Finally, my philosophy education, and more broadly my liberal arts education, has given me a rich context in ideas and culture from which to draw when both understanding where our current world came from and where it might be going.”

 

Job Opportunity for University of Puget Sound Students

Frog Tutoring, a local tutoring company that provides personalized private tutoring at an affordable rate, is looking to hire students to work not just as tutors, but also as mentors to students in the Tacoma community.

Benefits:

Great pay- Minimum of $30 per session, tutor chooses which grade level and subjects to tutor, as well as having the opportunity to create their own schedule, get driving compensation, periodic bonus and referral bonus.

Those interested in learning more can visit: FrogTutoring Tacoma Tutors

Those interested in applying should visit: Tacoma Tutoring Jobs

Green Corps Extended Application Deadline

Extended Application Deadline: March 4th

Click here to request more information about Green Corps

Green Corps is looking for college graduates who are ready to take on the biggest environmental challenges of our day. At Green Corps, we believe there are actually plenty of solutions to these problems, but what’s lacking is political will on behalf of decision makers.  That’s why right now, what we really need is more Organizers – people who understand the power of public support and know how to mobilize it.

In Green Corps’ yearlong paid program, you’ll get intensive training in the skills you need to make a difference in the world. You’ll get hands-on experience fighting to solve urgent environmental problems — climate change, deforestation, water pollution, factory farming and many others — with groups like Sierra Club and Food & Water Watch. And when you graduate from Green Corps, we’ll help you find a career with one of the nation’s leading environmental and social change groups.

For more information, read on or visit www.greencorps.org/apply

In your year with Green Corps:

Be trained by the best: Green Corps organizers take part in trainings with leading figures in the environmental and social change movements: people like Adam Ruben, former political director and current board president of MoveOn.org, and Bill McKibben, author and founder of 350.org.

Learn new skills: Green Corps will teach you to recruit and train activists and volunteers, build coalitions, organize events and gain media coverage, and much more—all of the skills it takes to build public support for our environment.Gain experience across the country: Green Corps sends organizers to jumpstart campaigns for groups such as Food & Water Watch, Corporate Accountability International, and The Wilderness Society, in major cities to small towns across the country.

Make an impact on today’s environmental challenges: A team of Green Corps organizers helped run a publicity campaign that persuaded Kellogg’s Cereal to pressure its supplier of palm oil to stop destroying tropical forests. Other Green Corps organizers have played critical roles in the retirement of over a dozen coal-fired power plants on the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.

Get paid! Green Corps organizers earn a salary of $25,500. We also offer a generous benefits package.

Launch your career: Green Corps will help connect you to environmental and progressive groups that are looking for full-time staff to build their organizations and help them create social change and protect our environment.

The Application Process: In the next few months, we‘ll invite 35 college graduates to join Green Corps in 2016 -2017. We’re looking for people who are serious about saving the planet, people who have taken initiative on their campus or community, and people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and work for change over the long haul.

If you think you’re one of those people, visit www.greencorps.org to apply.

Green Corps’ yearlong program begins in August 2016 with Introductory Classroom Training and continues with field placements in multiple locations across the U.S. Candidates must be willing to relocate.

For more information, visit www.greencorps.org or contact Amanda Becker, Recruitment Director of Green Corps at jobs@greencorps.org.

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Green Corps is an equal opportunity employer and will not discriminate against any employee or applicant on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, age, sex, handicap, pregnancy, sexual orientation, or veteran status.

Perspectives in Education – Teach for America Info Session

On Wednesday, February 10th, the Vice President of Recruitment of Teach for America, Jessica Cordova Kramer, will be visiting UPS to meet informally with student leaders to discuss post graduate opportunities. While she’s on campus, her goal is to spread the word to graduating seniors and leaders about the mission of Teach for America, as well as discuss the upcoming application deadline on March 4^th. 

RSVP for the event

Summer Teaching Opportunities

Summer Teaching Positions Available: 

Teach Reading to Students of All Ages This Summer

• Earn more than $6,000 during the summer. Teachers typically earn between $500 and $800 per week while teaching.
• Gain over 500 hours of teacher-training and teaching experience with a variety of age groups.
• Help students of all ages develop their reading skills and ability to become imaginatively absorbed in books.

 

The Instituteof Reading Development is seeking candidates for summer 2016 teaching positions.We seek applicants with an undergraduate degree or higher from any discipline. We provide a paid training program and comprehensive on-going support.

We hire people who:

• Have strong reading skills and read for pleasure
• Are responsible, hardworking, and have good communication and organizational skills
• Will be patient and supportive with students

The Institute teaches developmental reading programs in partnership with the continuing education departments of more than 100 colleges and universities across the United States. Our classes for students of all ages improve their reading skills and teach them to experience absorption in literature.

We invite you to submit an online application and learn more about teaching for the Institute at: http://instituteofreadingdevelopmentteachingjobs.com/

Philosophy degree pays off

A philosophy degree pays off in many ways but it also pays off in terms of earnings.  There have been many articles pointing this out but check out this recent one.  Here is a brief excerpt:

 A philosophy degree earns more than an accounting degree

We talk a lot about the need for good jobs in America, but good-paying jobs often require certain skills. Engineering, science and technical degrees are seen as highly prized, and not without merit. However, you don’t necessary need to major in software development or computer science to go far in this world. You can make a good living with a philosophy degree…

…

AND HERE’S THE ZINGER …

No. 1—PHILOSOPHY

I think, therefore I … make money! Graduates with philosophy degrees have “higher earnings potential than many other arts and humanities-related fields,” said TheRichest. Payscale reports midcareer median salaries are $84,000 for your modern day Kant or Descartes. Why? Well, let’s be logical. Which is exactly what philosophy programs require of students … logic. Thinking is hard, it requires analysis, and those who can do it well can get a good job … which is a good philosophy to have.

Career Services Philosophy Open House

CES Philosophy Open House

Wednesday, February 25 @ 4pm

Howarth 101

 The office of Career and Employment Services is having a special session for philosophy majors, minors, or students considering a philosophy major or minor.

 Come learn about what philosophy students have done after graduation, how to present the skills you acquire in your classes to employers, how to prepare a resume, where to search for internships and summer jobs, how to prepare for the career fair, and much more.

 If you have any questions, please contact:

Jennifer Allen-Ayres,
Career Advisor, Office of Career and Employment Services

Prof. Ariela Tubert,
Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy

Writing Advisor Positions

The deadline for applying to be a writing advisor at the Center for Writing, Learning, and Teaching is 2/14/14.  It’s a great job that can help you improve your own writing while also helping other students with their writing.  You can find the information on how to apply here.