Embedding Career Readiness Throughout the Curriculum: A Case for Explicit, Transparent Connections

Increasingly, students, institutions, and stakeholders emphasize outcome measures tied explicitly to career success. It is not that sociology programs or faculty are not preparing students for meaningful employment, but rather that practical strategies for implementing career readiness skills are often omitted or not explicit. Pike et al. 2017, suggest strategies to bridge this "awareness gap" include "embedding support of student career readiness in program goals; and making effective use of networks on and off-campus" (2017:63). Ciabattari et al. 2018 argue that we must make the "explicit argument that sociology majors are well-positioned for the twenty-first-century labor market" (2018:202). Senter (2020) extends the call for career-centered pedagogy and describes the "college to career" pipeline the many sociology students find themselves disadvantaged. Senter (2020) points out that sociology students and institutions are giving increased attention to career success and finds that sociology students "lack a straightforward pathway to a seamless transition" from career to meaningful career (2020:37). For better or worse, there is an increasing emphasis on career success as the most critical outcome of a college degree (Marcus 2013; Senter 2020, U.S. Department of Education 2019). The American Sociological Association (ASA, 2017) published a series of recommendations for departments, including that departments "Provide curricular structures to help students gain knowledge and apply skills that support them in their post-baccalaureate careers" (Pike et al. 2017). Sociology students often have a great deal of uncertainty of skills they develop as majors and are concerned with their ability to present those skills to future employers (Holtzman 2018; Spalter-Roth et al. 2010). I have been teaching a Career Pathways in Sociology course for the past few years. Our program added the course to address some of the abovementioned concerns. While preparing and teaching the course, I have gathered data from students on their pre-and post-course goals, concerns, and confidence in their ability to transfer their skills from the sociology classroom to the post-graduate workforce (and, in some cases, graduate programs).

Many students report a lack of knowledge of what they can do with a degree in sociology, an inability to identify transferable skills, and a lack of confidence in marketing themselves after graduation. I encourage programs and faculty to continue embedding career readiness outcomes throughout their course learning objectives and curricular development. We must ensure

students understand the direct connections between what they are doing in our courses to highly sought-after skills relevant to their careers. Faculty can be creative in their approach, but transparency and direct connections are critical. We can help make these connections by utilizing resources specific to career readiness (NACE) and college achievement outcomes (VALUE rubrics).

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE, 2021) career readiness competencies are one way to demonstrate the connection between sociological curriculum and careers. Competencies such as equity and inclusion, teamwork, communication, leadership, critical thinking (among others) are cultivated regularly throughout the sociological curriculum. These skills are highly sought after in the workforce, and students with a degree in sociology often lead their counterparts in other disciplines with these skills. As faculty, we can help students see these direct connections. In doing so, we are helping them gain confidence and market themselves for the workforce. We are reinforcing the applicability of the degree. Sociologists should be sought after in a 21st-century labor market, and we have a great deal to offer.

It is also advantageous for faculty and programs to apply the Association of American Colleges and University Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) rubrics. These rubrics can help us examine how our curricular goals and outcomes enhance, align, and contribute towards highly sought-after skills in the labor market. Achievement outcomes such as critical thinking, quantitative literacy, information literacy, problem-solving, teamwork, intercultural knowledge, ethical reasoning, and so much more are fostered and refined in our programs. While sociology faculty and programs are often focused on discipline-specific learning outcomes, our program's marketability and the marketability of our graduates will be enhanced when we can make explicit the connections between our coursework and sought-after skills. Students report greater confidence in their ability to connect what they are doing in the classroom to their careers, and feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. We need to remind students of the importance of sociology. We have the power to ease students' ability to connect the transferability and marketability of highly sought-after skillsets developed in our programs to their future careers.