GREAT BEGINNINGS

Matt Houston, Associated Press Newlyweds Jonathan and Emily Cilley met at Allegheny College, where he studied history and she double-majored in history and literature. They're now living in Germantown, Md., where he works for a computer firm. She is still looking for a job. Click photo for larger image. About the series    The opening of school each year brings new hope for a fresh start. This back-to-school series focuses on students -- from kindergarten through college -- who are starting the school year with dreams and challenges that face students everywhere. Day One: Transitions smoother now for kindergartners Day Two: Tough decisions -- middle schools or K-8? Day Three: Picking up the tools he'll need at vo-tech Day Four: Oakland Catholic star driven to swim Day Five: Special programs for special students Day Six: Helping African Americans get into private high schools Day Seven: Frosh start: RAs greet, guide bewildered first-time collegians

The whole idea of college, after a long hard look, can start to seem like an odd thing. Every year, a bunch of teenagers go off to live together, away from their parents, study whatever interests them, and expect to be shot out roughly four years later with a job and a career goal.

How can they possibly get there, a job, from here, a class on French painting or Flaubert?

Jonathan and Emily Cilley, like most liberal arts students, didn't worry about Life After College at first. They met at Allegheny College, a liberal arts school that offers majors that include art, the environment and women's studies. He studied history; she double-majored in history and literature. They graduated in May and were married in July.

At 22, they're facing the real world and finding that, maybe, all those classes in the Salem witch trials or World War II aren't necessarily going to keep them fed.

It's a realization that many U.S. liberal arts institutions are beginning to focus on, as students and parents begin to think more about employment and salaries in an evolving economy.

As academics battle to keep the sometimes-obscure subjects to which they've devoted lives in the syllabus, administrators are feeling the pressure to make their students more marketable, and thus boost their rankings, by trying to find ways to make a liberal arts degree compatible with a job in the real world.

The purpose? Finding a job
Jonathan Cilley arrived at Allegheny College from his hometown of Concord, N.H., thinking he might want to be a biology major. It was interesting, it was useful and it was supposedly Allegheny's specialty. But he soured on it after a few classes and moved on to computer science, and then, when that didn't interest him academically, to economics.

His parents didn't pressure him into studying something technical though, and he settled on history, with just a little bit of guilt.

"I decided to go with what I liked vs. what I knew might get me a job," he said. "I went with the thing I enjoyed."

At the time, he wasn't thinking about what he planned to do after college, which is becoming more unusual among college students.

In a survey of 1,000 adults done by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at the University of Connecticut, 64 percent said the purpose of a college education was to prepare students for specific careers.

Many study nonliberal arts disciplines, such as business or computer science, to prepare them for the job market.

Finding a job initially can be easier for a biology or business major than it can for a liberal arts major, said Jim Fitch, associate director of the office of career services at Allegheny College. It's a complaint he often hears from parents who want their children to study something sensible.

"It's a hard tightrope to respect and honor the parents. We have a commitment to that," he said. "And to work with the student to hear their inner voice."

While most students know that science or business is more practical, "I talk to students who would rather be philosophers, and it's hard for kids to make these choices," said Christina Straub, an English professor at Carnegie Mellon University and an associate dean. This sometimes translates to more students double-majoring, marrying something they love to study with a more useful subject.

Liberal arts majors certainly are a bit behind salary-wise when they graduate. Nationally, the average starting salary offer for a liberal arts graduate this summer was $31,212, as compared with a starting salary offer of $41,233 for a business major, and $49,636 for an engineering major, according to the summer salary survey released by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Perhaps because of this, many students opt for the more technical disciplines, a trend that started decades ago. The percentage of students getting bachelor's degrees in the arts and sciences has declined from 50 percent to 30 percent since the 1960s, although more bachelor's degrees are being conferred, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Although they discourage it, Fitch said, they see some students going to graduate school because they can't figure out what else to do with a liberal arts degree. About one-third of Allegheny's graduates go right on to graduate school. This number spiked in recent years such as 2003, when, in the face of a tough economy, 46 percent of the graduating class went straight to graduate school.

Fitch said this wasn't necessary. A liberal arts education should give students marketable skills such as learning to express themselves and write critically.

Some students, such as Emily Cilley, choose to study what interests them, and worry about the career part later. But this has its disadvantages, which she sees sometimes when she looks at her younger brother, Peter LaRue, who is starting at the University of Maryland this fall as one of 10 freshmen studying material science and engineering.

"I almost envy that," she said. "You come out of college with this ready-made set of skills that lend themselves directly to a job."

Finding a career in college
The Cilleys chose to do internships and activities outside of the classroom, she at the college newspaper, he as a Web developer, to hone skills that would more easily translate to a job, even though many of these internships did not pay.

"That was the one thing I knew I had to do, especially with a liberal arts degree," he said. "I knew that if I really wanted to make myself marketable, I needed to continue my interest with computers."

More colleges are trying to encourage students to think about finding internships and developing technical skills, and this renewed focus on employment is changing the way colleges function.

"There are more and more institutions that are preparing students to do internships in areas related to their majors," said Michael Baer, a senior vice president at the American Council on Education. "A lot of schools have integrated professional experience with the liberal arts."

Some, such as Northeastern University, have offered professional opportunities as part of college for decades, while others, such as the University of Cincinnati, are retooling their goals for the relatively new millennium.

At New York University, undergraduates are allowed to sign up for vocational courses at NYU's School of Continuing and Professional Studies. Colgate University offers career-oriented courses during winter and summer breaks.

Allegheny College tries to remind students that they have to think about what they want to do after college by offering sample career options to students in various majors and workshops for freshmen. They bring back students who have graduated and found jobs to talk about their career paths.

But there's still some tension there, Fitch said.

"The faculty would tend to encourage students to study for the sake of studying. That's what the liberal arts tradition is all about," he said. "But we help the students take that learning and build some cognitive hooks."

The value of liberal arts?
Even if parents and some students are starting to focus more on the job market, proponents of a liberal arts education still emphasize that learning for the sake of learning has its place in college.

"Any course that teaches you to think analytically about any subject matter is preferable if you're smart," CMU's Straub said.

Liberal arts defenders cite a survey that asked Harvard graduates what they were looking for in a potential employee. The respondents said that 85 percent of what someone needs to know for a job will be learned on the job, said Jeff Martineau, director of higher education at the American Academy for Liberal Education.

A general education is useful for students because it allows them to step into any profession and succeed, which is important in a shrinking marketplace. This is especially true in a job market where today's college graduates will have four to five careers, he said.

"To make those transitions across fields does not require a specialist," he said. "It requires people who can adapt."

Even as American schools strive to prepare their students for the job market, the trend in other areas of the world is often to do the opposite, Martineau said.

Martineau's organization accredits liberal arts colleges and programs around the world, and he has spent the past few years traveling to countries such as Kuwait and Germany, where liberal arts programs are becoming more popular. Schools in the Middle East, in particular, are bringing in a more Western-style education, to help their students think in the global marketplace.

The Cilleys' short tenure in the job market, though, might support the view that the value of a liberal arts degree is not apparent for recent college graduates, at least at first. Emily Cilley still is looking for employment, and Jonathan Cilley is employed, but his job did not stem from his degree, but rather from his computer experience.

He works for a small company in Maryland that markets and develops Web applications for companies in the hospitality industry; and while he said the liberal arts degree was important in honing his communication skills, it's unlikely he would have gotten the job without his previous internship experience.

"This is one of those things that really hits home with liberal arts majors," he said. "Interests and side interests will play a key role in getting a job in a more technical discipline."

His wife also appreciates the value of a liberal arts education, although she's still looking for work from their new home in Germantown, Md. She had considered going to school to become a teacher, but elected to study broader subjects while she figured out what she wanted to do.

While she didn't find a career at Allegheny, she said, she found other things that were important to her, such as the opportunity to take fascinating classes, and the chance to find friends and even a spouse.

"The outside activities at school help a lot. I don't think I can directly point to my classes and say this course makes me a better candidate for this position," she said. "Maybe I could have found a job sooner if I had training in one particular field, but I don't regret going to Allegheny instead."