What Can I Do With This Major

Regardless of the major you choose, your Dartmouth liberal arts education provides an excellent foundation for your future. Your major alone doesn’t define your career choices. Your skills, strengths and competencies are also fortified by the internships and other activities you pursue outside of your academics!

For pre-major advice, reach out to your Undergraduate Dean. Your dean will discuss your options, and help you gather information to support your decision.

This guide will show you how to find the paths and professions pursued by Dartmouth alumni from all majors. You can explore outcomes in three ways:

Handshake allows you to search students and alumni at Dartmouth and across the U.S. by Major, Employer, or Student Organization.

Through LinkedIn’s Dartmouth College Alumni site, you can search alumni based on what they studied, when they attended Dartmouth, what they do now (position title and industry sector), and where they live. This can help you identify common pathways. For example, Research, Education, and Healthcare Services are the top career choices of recent alumni who majored in Anthropology.

Dartmouth Connect contains contact information for alumni. Search Dartmouth Connect by keyword, major, or by occupation (e.g. lawyer, vet, engineer) and look at the individual alumni descriptions for more information about their Dartmouth Majors. 

Make your Handshake profile visible to employers, students and alumni, to sort, view and message peers at Dartmouth and other Handshake partner institutions. Examining the paths of fellow students can help you get tips on how to manage your own information. You can view profiles by Major, School Year, or Previous Employers or Student Organizations.

There are a variety of ways you can use LinkedIn to expand your understanding of what you can do with your major.

Thousands of members of the Dartmouth community have LinkedIn profiles, so the LinkedIn Alumni Tool is an invaluable resource for  exploring the connections between Dartmouth undergraduate majors, skills and career paths. Most majors prepare you  to work in a range of fields.

Using LinkedIn, you’ll see: 

  • Potential career paths for each academic major 
  • Job titles, employers, and stories of Dartmouth alumni who have graduated in each major
  • Valuable skills and career competencies acquired through each major 

Follow these steps to get the most out of your search: 

  1. Join LinkedIn and create a profile (we recommend the Student Guide to LinkedIn). 
  2. Request to join the Dartmouth College Alumni LinkedIn Group (current students are welcome). Once admitted, you will have access to see more details on profiles of group members. 
  3. Go to the Dartmouth College school page on LinkedIn. 

Select the Alumni menu:

This will pull up a listing of all students and alumni who have reported an affiliation to Dartmouth.

The Show More drop-down menu allows you to see more entries…

The Next Tabs menu allows you to scroll by What They Do (Industry/Function of Work), What They Studied (Major), What They Are Skilled At (Skills), and How You Are Connected (Degree of Networking Connection). Click on any bar of interest and/or use the search bar to filter your search results.

For example, here are Physics majors in San Francisco: 

You can also see what People list as Skills and if you have any Connections with them.

Looking at the Skills section is important, because you can:

  • See the common skills alumni have developed with each Major 
  • Identify common functions that people with this major perform in their work 
  • View the key skills people are highlighting in their individual LinkedIn profiles – this can help you identify skills to develop and list in your own profile.

The Connections menu shows how you are related to others on LinkedIn. 

  • If someone is a 1st degree Connection it means you and this LinkedIn user have agreed to connect directly with one another (similar to a friend on Facebook). 
  • A 2nd degree Connection is connected to someone else you know – you have a common connection. This is often said to be your best networking opportunity, as you can ask your mutual connection for an introduction.
  • A 3rd degree Connection is further removed: You > Connection > Connection > Target Contact.

If you join the Dartmouth College Alumni group on LinkedIn, you’ll be able to see the names and titles of alumni who belong to the group in your search results. 

You can also refine your search by “years attended” to find the most recent alumni. They may be  helpful in providing advice regarding your entry-level job search and relevant skills.

See our networking resources for tips on how to reach out via LinkedIn. For networking assistance, schedule an appointment with a Career & Life Design Coach! For help choosing a major, consult with your Undergraduate Dean.

Dartmouth Connect is a networking platform just for Dartmouth students and alumni. Using the platform, you can

  • Explore different career paths
  • Find Alumni
  • Message Alumni
  • Join communities

For more info on how to make the most out of Dartmouth Connect, check out our short guide!