One of the most interesting questions of a liberal arts college is: What happens to its graduates? Nowhere is this question more raised than with students electing to major in psychology within a liberal arts curriculum, since employment opportunities and professional career planning are poorly understood by prospective students, their parents, and, indeed, the public at large.

Over the past quarter of a century, about 400 Hanover students have graduated with a psychology major. These graduates have been tracked collectively by formal surveys conducted periodically by the department of Psychology and individually by personal contacts maintained through the years. A wealth of data has been collected on what happens to psychology majors after they graduate from Hanover. Given the large number of majors, the wide range of individual differences in talents and interests, and the flexibility and breadth of the psychology curriculum, it is impossible to describe completely the variety of activities the graduates have been or are engaged in, but their postbaccalaureate careers can be briefly summarized. It should be kept in mind however, that general figures can be misleading, because they do not take into account changes that have occurred over time. Nevertheless, the following summary is informative.

About half of the majors have gone directly on to graduate or professional school following graduation. (This figure has been decreasing in recent years.) The percent of graduates ultimately pursuing graduate or professional schooling sometime in their lives is about 67% About half of the people continuing their education have done so in areas of psychology (e.g., school, clinical, counseling, experimental psychology; psychometry), and about half have pursued other areas (e.g., medicine, law, education, social work, business). These students have attended universities of every size and calibre and in virtually every state. About 25% of the graduates in graduate or professional school have earned a master's degree (M.A./M.S., M.Ed., M.S.W., M.B.A.) or specialist's degree.

About half of the graduates immediately entered vocational positions upon graduation, or, by their choice, they are unemployed. Less than 1% of the graduates report being unable to locate employment after three months of searching. Both of these figures seem to be on the rise in recent years. Most of the B.A. positions were in the business field (merchandising, banking, administration), the medical and ancillary health services fields, and in education. Significant numbers of graduates found positions also in social work and the corrections field. The range of job titles is enormous, attesting to the breadth of students' interests and to students' ability to adapt to a variety of career placements.

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