After Vassar

What can one do after graduation with a degree in STS? Prospectives, Vassar students, parents, and curious friends are always asking that question. The answer in short is, “Anything you want!” We recently asked our STS alums to tell us what they had been doing since graduation and what (if anything) had been special about their having majored in STS. The list of particular professions is almost as long as the number of respondents (145). Among our alums, there are several folks involved in medicine, public health, law, environmental regulation, business and academics. There are career military officers, policy analysts, a professional acupuncturist, a rape counselor, city planners, and a landscape architect. STS alums have served in VISTA, Teach for America, and the Peace Corps. Others have stayed home to raise children or care for elderly parents, often becoming active volunteers in their communities. The variety of options goes on and on.

Regardless of what our alums are doing, many spoke of the importance of critical thinking and multidisciplinary perspectives, the cornerstones of the STS Program, as having been and continuing to be, the key lessons taken from their time as STS majors. Almost all commented on the importance of their work at Vassar as having laid the groundwork for a lifetime of appreciating complexity and integrating information and processes across fields.