Alumni Discuss Wide Range of Careers for History Majors
From left to right: Mike Gogoj '05, Andrew Cassidy-Amstutz '05, Margot Cardamone '14, Alli Schell '11 and Jo Phillips '09; moderator Lillian Freundlich '18. Photo by Zoe Kiefreider '20.
What can you do with a history major?
by Kandace Kohr
It's a question that many college students receive—what can you do with that major? Well in the case of history, as several Dickinson College alumni recently revealed, everything from becoming a successful novelist to making it big in real-estate development.
The Department of History invited several alumni to campus this semester to speak to current students, faculty and staff about the breadth of career paths Dickinson opened. The forum-style program was split into two groups.
- Margot Cardamone '14: Once a double major in history and Italian studies, she is now an academic advisor at Tufts University.
- Andrew Cassidy-Amstutz '05: As a student, he worked with the Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections. Now, he serves as digital collections specialist in the Library of Congress's Digital Content Management Section.
- Mike Gogoj '05: After graduating from Dickinson, he taught middle school social studies, but quickly moved into a role as assistant principal at Lamberton Middle School in the Carlisle Area School District.
- Jo Phillips '09: She currently works in Washington, D.C., as an attorney for the Department of the Treasury, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, focusing on banking regulatory issues and technological innovation in banking.
- Alli Schell '11: Having spent 14 years working with various museums from the Smithsonian to historic houses, she is currently serving as the programs and development manager at the Chadds Ford Historical Society.
The second group included alumni working in the private sector of government and for-profit fields:
- Claire Brawdy '16: Doing what she calls "knowledge management," she is a senior analyst at Enterprise Knowledge, LLC, a firm that provides actionable consulting services to help organizations capture, manage and leverage their information assets.
- Laura Kamoie '92: She's worked as an archaeologist, museum curator, public history graduate program director, academic journal editor and professor at the U.S. Naval Academy. Now, she is a full-time fiction writer.
- David Talton '07: In addition to his duties as chair of the Alumni Council Leadership Committee at Dickinson, he works in an executive capacity for a number of companies operating in the military contracting, real-estate development, energy and technology industries.
- Greg Zimmerman '83: He is the executive vice president at Washington Prime Group, a New York Stock Exchange-traded shopping center real-estate investment trust based on Columbus, Ohio.
While some of their paths were more linear than others, all of the alumni echoed common themes about the value of Dickinson's liberal-arts education, noting they felt well prepared to move forward in their fields because of the strong foundation they built here. The college's ability to develop critical-thinking, communication, writing and problem-solving skills, they noted, helped them market themselves to employers and higher-education institutions.
Photo by Zoe Kiefreider '20.
Alumni from both groups also spoke to the real-world value of a liberal-arts education. "I was a history major because I wanted to change history rather than just teach it," said Phillips, whose experiences at Dickinson helped her navigate Yale Law School, where she received her J.D.
"Honestly, I think less about the content learned and more about the tools with which we engage the content," says Gogoj, noting that Dickinson's program excels at teaching history majors how to be lifelong learners.
Talton agreed. "I use my history major every day," he said, drawing enough nods from the panel of accomplished alums to maybe change the question from "what can you do with a history major" to "what can't you do with a history major?"
TAKE THE NEXT STEPS
Published February 23, 2018