Some history majors go on to further studies in the field, but because of their wide exposure to various times and cultures, they are well prepared for almost any career. Besides providing a background for anyone interested in a truly liberal education, history helps prepare students for the fields of law, business, foreign service, librarianship, museum work, historic preservation, journalism, environmental studies, and teaching from secondary through university levels.聽
In the fall 2016, Ben started his Master's in History at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a focus on economic and labor history.
In her free time, she has been working with her family to write a book on their somewhat disastrous (yet entertaining) climb up Mt.Fuji in the summer of 2013. She also started learning how to play the ukulele and has picked up a digital art hobby. Laurel has been fortunate enough to have time to travel quite a bit as well! She's visited New York City, Philadelphia, Zion National Park, Portugal, and Spain. Her advice to recent graduates/soon-to-be graduates: don't feel pressure to figure everything out right now. Even though we're all the oldest we've ever been, life is not a race. Thank goodness, too, because I am a slow runner. If you have any questions about TAPIF (or anything really!), please feel free to shoot me an email at laurel.c.cox@gmail.com.
Upon graduation, Lauren moved to Portland, OR, as she missed her home state and Portland has many things to offer for young people. The first nine months after graduation, Lauren worked for Nordstrom: first, in their Retail Management Internship program and then as an Assistant Manager. Though not the position she wanted, she gained many skills during her time there, namely conflict resolution skills, leadership acumen, and how to manage people.
For the past year, Lauren has been working at a search engine marketing firm and currently is the operations manager. She is responsible for overseeing multiple facets of the business relating to both the financial and human resources side of the business. This involves everything from billing and managing the overall financial stability of the company to administering employee benefits and being responsible for the hiring process. She is also responsible for instituting new initiatives and processes that she created, including a new employee hiring process and a 401K benefit with company matching.
In her free time, Lauren loves to take cycling classes, explore Portland's amazing food scene and travel as much as her job allows. Since leaving Oxy, she has traveled to Tanzania, Japan, Charleston, SC, and Austin, TX. Her advice to Oxy grads, and especially fellow History majors, is to not let yourself be concerned about obtaining an "ideal" job right after graduation. Though her time at Nordstrom was difficult, much of what she learned there was extremely valuable and are skills she will carry with her no matter where her career takes her. Lauren's second piece of advice is to not let job postings that ask for people with marketing, business, communications, etc., majors scare you away. Be proud of your liberal arts education and don't shy away from it! She had many potential employers grill her about why she chose to become a history major, especially since she has always wanted to be in the business field. She never backed down from those conversations and told them the many reasons why all the skills she learned at Oxy, i.e. critical/analytical thinking and strong writing, were important and necessary skills in the workforce. Though some of them may have disagreed, Lauren found an employer who really valued those skills, and it ended up being a perfect fit.
David is Communications Manager at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica, where he has worked since 2012. The Broad Stage offers theatre, dance, film, opera, jazz, world music, musicals, symphony and chamber orchestras, family programming and more, featuring superlative talent from every generation and around the globe. Past artists include Andr茅 Watts, Anna Netrebko, Sir James Galway, Sutton Foster, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Patti LuPone, Lil Buck, Bobby McFerrin, Helen Hunt, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and many others. His primary duties include implementing marketing plans to increase tickets sales to Broad Stage produced performances, as well as managing the department鈥檚 creative and communications schedules and all PR and advertising.