Below is a list of Sociology graduates. Click on their name to see what they have been doing with their Sociology major since graduation.
I am currently working for New York Insurance as a financial service representative.
I am currently participating in the AmeriCorps Residency In Social Enterprise (RISE) program through New Sector Alliance, a non-profit consulting firm based in Boston and San Francisco. The program selects about 20 recent grads interested in learning about social change and non-profit management and places them at non-profit organizations to complete capacity-building projects. Additionally, the RISE program offers a social change leadership curriculum that provides residents with the skills and knowledge needed to address the many challenges within the non-profit sector.
I am in my first year of law school at Suffolk University Law School right now, having graduated from Dartmouth this past June. My major in Sociology has inspired me to pursue some sort of social justice-related cause within the field of law and hopefully work in policy at some point in the future!
Return to Top
I have continued my work with male inmates--researching reform and reentry services, and exploring the effects of incarceration on families. I also will be attending law school this fall, and intend to concentrate on criminal defense, but am still awaiting admissions decisions.
I currently am working in advertising at Google and use a lot of critical analysis skills I practiced in my classes as well as some material proper. In my day-to-day work, I spend a lot of time researching various advertisers online and offline marketing strategies, comparing it to the market trends, and then thinking how we can target users online. Understanding user behavior online and being able to segment it by social divisions helps me offer my advertisers the most effective targeting and messaging for particular customers. It is not simply that we were educated on what social divides exist and power dynamics of various groups at Dartmouth, but my Socy classes more taught me how to think from the actual "end user" perspective and understand the root causes of where sociological differences arise. That is a way of thinking that I can apply when working with advertisers in any industry.
I pull a lot from my classes on trust with Professor Anthony as advertisers often want to create more trust in their brand with their ads. I also think a lot in terms of social norms, classes etc. for targeting customers beyond just their demographic profiles. Advertisers need to reach out to different social groups in different ways; sociology teaches you to understand how and why these different groups exist, which then allows you as an advertiser to make sure you send messages that appeal to the groups' values and needs.
My Sociology degree has taken me to Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where I am pursuing a masters in Communication, Culture and Technology--a program that is a blend of humanities and science in much the same way that Sociology is!
I am a Tuition Advisory Services Compliance Administrator, working with Adult Learners who are trying to go back to school to get their degrees.
In the fall of 2009, I enrolled in law school in NYC. Although at times the work seems overwhelming, I am enjoying school. Currently, I am interning at a non-profit to see what it is like, and I really like the work I do there.
One year out, I'm living in the New York City area, working for John Wiley & Sons, a nonfiction publishing house. I'm a Production Assistant, which means I assist in overseeing copyediting, proofreading, and typesetting of manuscripts. I work on Business and Psychology titles- and am currently working on a two-volume tome on Social Psychology (which is fascinating). I'm looking to stay in publishing, either in production or editorial, and eventually to get into fiction or social sciences (maybe I'll even get lucky and get to do sociology books).
I am currently in the San Francisco Bay Area doing brand management/marketing at Clorox. I've been here for about a year and I'm really enjoying it. I love the tangible aspects of the job - every time I go into a grocery store I can see the label I helped design or the price rollback I recommended.
I am working for a boutique management consulting firm in New York City that works exclusively with advertising agencies and advertisers. We focus on workload management and resource allocation -- pretty classic consulting, but with a twist since the advertising industry is different than most other business industries. There are only 5 people at my company so I have a lot of responsibility, which is sometimes wonderful and sometimes rather stressful. I've only been working for a year but I am running my own projects and work consistently with top management, and at the end of the day, I can usually say that I've played an important role and what I've done "actually matters." I don't particularly have a standard day-to-day routine -- in many ways, consultants have to be jacks-of-all-trades, which is why it's helpful to have had the liberal arts education that lets me step back a bit, see the big picture, and then call on a wide range of skills. There are some days I spend entirely working in Excel, others during which I'm writing reports, and still others where I spend the day interviewing account managers. The fun part is that I get to travel -- some of our biggest clients are global agencies, so I have been all over Europe, in South America, and perhaps soon in Asia.
Upon graduation in 2007, I became a law student at Franklin Pierce Law in Concord, NH. After my first year, I completed a six week program at the Florence School of Law in Florence, Italy. Currently, I work as an intern for the Honorable Gary Hicks of the New Hampshire Supreme Court. In the fall of 2008, I will be sworn in as a Daniel Webster Scholar, and upon completion of the two-year program, will be certified as having passed the New Hampshire bar.
My experience in the sociology department was incredible. After completing the sociology course, Prisons: American Way of Punishment, I knew I wanted to learn more about the interactions and relationships that develop within that environment. I spent my entire senior year at the Family Connections Center at the Lakes Region Facility in Laconia, NH interviewing incarcerated fathers, working with administrators, and observing the parent-child relationships. My research at this prison opened my eyes to a new world and reaffirmed my desire to get involved in the legal system. I am grateful that I had a dedicated and flexible department to support me through the way.
I worked as a Research Assistant for Professor Denise Anthony after graduating in 2007. The research on rural health care evolved from an Independent Study project I worked on my senior year, and examined health care preferences of Medicare patients by regions of health care intensity and rurality. In addition, I also coached the Upper Valley collegiate women's rowing team.
In August 2007, I began working at the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making in Boston, MA as a Research Assistant. Here I have had the opportunity to work with researchers around the country on patient decision quality and decision making, as well as how to implement models for involving patients in medical decision making. I will be attending Dartmouth Medical School in August 2008.
I've finally submitted all my applications and find myself waiting for responses. If all goes as planned, I'll be starting a Master of Public Policy program in the fall of 2010, specializing in Social Policy.
I am currently working as an Associate for German-based international communications consultancy in New York City. We work with Fortune 500-level clients providing communications services including brand management, crisis communications, financial communications (M&As, IPOs) and cross-border communications. Personally, I have been enjoying all New York has to offer, namely the restaurants, attending Dartmouth alumni events, travelling and I just recently finished my first marathon.
I graduated in 2006 and immediately went to work for a law firm as a Legal Assistant. After two years, I pulled an about-face and headed for the non-profit world of the performing arts. I am now the Development Coordinator for Boston Ballet.
I'm currently attending Harvard Law School and going in to my 3L year. I've taken some interesting classes in law school including Law and the Political Process and Con Law First Amendment where my background in Sociology at Dartmouth gave me a unique perspective allowing me to bring a more real world approach to some of the most important areas of law in our country and the world. This summer I am working at a law firm in NYC. I will be president of the Black Law Students Association at HLS and a class marshal for the class of 2009 next year.
After graduation I served in the Peace Corps in a small rural town in the Western highlands of Guatemala. I lived in a mostly indigenous community and worked in 18 neighboring village schools. My official title was Healthy Schools Municipal Coordinator. The healthy schools program aims to promote health and hygiene in elementary schools as a way to combat hygiene deficiencies and malnutrition by implementing healthy habits (washing hands, brushing teeth) and health lessons into the school curriculum. Because I was working with a large number of schools, all the rural elementary schools of the town, I concentrated most of my efforts on training teachers to execute the program and networking with administrators and NGOs to help complete sanitation projects. There was never a typical day's work- sometimes I had to hike 5km to teach two teachers fun health songs and other days I hosted a workshop for the entire faculty (over a hundred teachers) on HIV/AIDS education. Although my major in Sociology did not directly help me be a health administrator, it did help me transition into the culture, understand its differences and be aware of societal norms. While in Guatemala I also studied Kaqchikel, the Mayan language spoken in my region.
After I graduated from Dartmouth, I headed to Washington DC to work for a global organization called Ashoka, which supports the field of social entrepreneurship. They invest in high-potential innovators for social change around the world, tackling issues like girl's education, employment generation, eco-tourism, HIV/AIDS, microfinance, etc with new ideas that can be replicated for further impact. This past year I returned to graduate school at the London School of Economics for my Masters in Development, with a focus in Population and Health, to explore the very issues these entrepreneurs were tackling. When I finish my program, I hope to continue working at the intersection of business-social partnerships to foster sustainable change in developing countries.
The summer after graduation, I joined the Peace Corps, living in Kyrgyzstan for two years teaching English and working on various community development projects. I am currently working at a non-profit in Boston that does social science research on reproductive health. Currently, I am attending the University of Wisconsin - Madison graduate school in Public Affairs.
This past June, I graduated from Harvard Graduate School of Education with an Ed.M. in higher Education. Recently, I started a new position in Student Services at Loyola University Chicago. I work with students as a Hub Advisor with regards to Academic Advising, Financial Assistance, Admissions, and Residential Life.
I graduated in 2005 with a major in Sociology modified with Women's & Gender Studies and a minor in Education and Human Development. Following graduation, I worked as an Assistant Director of Admissions at Dartmouth for two years. After my time at Dartmouth, I worked as the Associate Director of College Counseling at Greenhills School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, returning to Dartmouth as a Senior Assistant Director of Admissions in 2008. I plan to pursue a master's in higher education administration. I found that my background in Sociology and WGST helped me enormously in my work in admissions and education. My Sociology courses exposed me to ideas about systems, organizations, the experiences of the individual within broader groups - all of which pertain to my work in higher education. I think many people assume that you won't apply your liberal arts education directly in your professional life, but I've found that each element of my major and minor combination has directly impacted my pursuits after graduation.
Return to Top
Diane Kim '05
I am currently in my Labor, Delivery and Pediatric rotations at the University of Washington Nursing School in Seattle.
After graduating from Dartmouth I received a Fulbright Scholarship to Indonesia for one year where I was a school teacher at a local high school and served as a volunteer at an Indonesian NGO seeking to assist street children and sex workers in Surabaya. I have just completed my first year of my PhD in Sociology at Yale University and will be attaining a joint JD from UC Berkeley-Boalt Hall this fall. This summer I have returned to Indonesia where I am working for the William J. Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative in Jakarta where we are working to provide high quality and effective HIV/AIDS care and treatment to resource poor settings of the country. I loved studying Sociology at Dartmouth and believe my Sociology professors and courses instilled in me the foundation and inspiration to pursue my current course of study and work.
Since 2005, I have worked as a Publicity Assistant at The Random House Publishing Group for two years before working as a Program Associate at an educational non-profit called The National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship. Both of these jobs were located in New York City. In February of 2008, I moved to Helsinki, Finland to work at the American Chamber of Commerce in Finland, which is where I am currently located. Starting in the fall of 2008, I will begin the one year Masters program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, focusing on Higher Education.
After my graduation from Dartmouth, I returned to Vietnam and have since worked for the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development. The Institute is the think tank of Vietnam's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Together with my colleagues, I conduct research regarding the effectiveness of policies in the rural area, provide policy recommendations, and thus, have the chance to make a real difference. Here at the Institute, I have benefited not only from the numerous capacity building courses but also from the opportunity to work with well-known scholars from renowned institutions across the world. More importantly, the work enables me to have significant traveling experience in Vietnam and exposes me to various actors in the society, from local government officers to destitute ethnic minorities. As the only sociologist at my Institute, my research projects focus around social issues targeting from the working mechanism of governance institutions to rural households' daily life. My stance challenges many assumptions of my economist colleagues, though it has been increasingly appreciated. In the future, I plan to attend graduate school in Social Policy and Development in the hope that my work can contribute to the betterment of rural Vietnam.
Upon graduation from Dartmouth in 2005, I worked for 2 years as a Business Analyst with McKinsey and Company, a global consulting company. I then moved to Africa to work with TechnoServe, an economic development organization that uses business solutions to combat rural poverty. In this role, I've been helping to organize a regional coffee project that will reach farmers in four East African countries. In September, I'm starting an MBA program at Harvard Business School.
I graduated in 2004 and since then have been working as a product manager on the Office team at Microsoft (I got my job through on-campus recruiting). I've had incredible experiences at Microsoft, including acting as the worldwide marketer for Outlook, getting to meet with Steve Ballmer, the CEO and travel all around the world doing presentations for customers and press. In September of 2008, I started at the Tuck School, hoping to continue to deepen my marketing skills through research and working with a professor. Sociology gave me the foundation to analyze different sides of an issue and take into account people's cultural, historical and generational differences when developing the best marketing message for each target audience. -
Since graduation in 2004, I worked in Washington, DC for three years and then began law school at the University of Virginia in fall 2007. While in Washington, DC, I worked as a research assistant at a health policy organization and as a Legislative Aide to Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), focusing on health, education, and welfare issues.
I've been working as the Donor Relations Manager at a large Seattle nonprofit (FareStart - a culinary job training and placement program for homeless men and women. See www.farestart.org for information on the program) for nearly three years, and look forward to pursuing a masters degree in this field that I've come to love so much. My work has focused on donor relations, but has also included special events, capital campaign, strategic planning, marketing, volunteer coordination, along with significant work surrounding the issue of homelessness in the King County/Seattle area. Prior to my work at FareStart, I was an Account Coordinator at a Public Relations firm.
I'm currently the Chief of Staff to Boston City Councilor-At Large John R. Connolly. Previous to that, I was the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Caucus of Women Legislators.
I received a Reynolds Scholarship from Dartmouth during my senior year and spent the year after graduation doing research on fair trade and organic coffee cooperatives in El Salvador. Specifically, I was collecting data (through interviews) on gender dynamics within 3 coffee cooperatives in the western part of the country. During my time in El
Salvador, I audited classes at the Universidad de Centroamerica in a Masters program for local development, and worked with a local NGO on an environmental project in San Salvador. I spent an additional 3 months working in California with TransFair USA (the NGO that certifies Fair Trade products for the US market). I then traveled to Sri Lanka (where I was born) and worked for 4 months with a human rights organization. Most of the work consisted of interviewing people in northeastern coastal villages who had suffered abuses at the hands of government forces. After Sri Lanka I worked with a financial research organization called Innovest Strategic Value Advisors in Manhattan which specializes in analyzing companies' performance on environmental, social, and strategic governance issues, with a particular focus on their impact on competitiveness, profitability, and share price performance. In August 2006, I started law school at the Georgetown University Law Center, and have been focusing on international trade law. I will be graduating in May 2009. During the summers, I worked with The Asia Foundation in the Philippines and the Office of Evaluation and Suspension at the World Bank (anti-corruption/sanctions) in Washington, DC. I am hoping to continue working in the international arena after graduation.
After graduating in 2003, I conducted independent research focused on health care systems and response to HIV positive patients in Salvador, Brazil. Since returning from Brazil, I was employed at Abt Associates, Inc., working as an Analyst on a number HIV/AIDS, mental health, substance abuse and other public health related projects. I received my master's in Public Health, focusing on Health Policy and Management at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. I joined the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in 2007, providing administrative and programatic support to the African Health Research strategies. Additionally, I serve as Co-founder of Boys Speak Out, Inc., a newly established non-profit agency dedicated to the development of middle-school aged boys in rural and urban communities around the country and Co-founder of Health Initiatives International, Inc., a health education firm linked with the Vanuatu health system. Of course, studying Sociology as an undergrad at Dartmouth gave me the foundation needed to allow me to successfully pursue all of these activities.
I majored in Sociology and Studio Art at Dartmouth and graduated in 2003. I graduated from Columbia Law School in May 2006 and am now working for the New York Mets baseball team in the position of Legal Counsel. Learning about social relationships is important for any profession and the sociology major at Dartmouth lays a good foundation for a career in law.
I am a 2003 double major in Economics and Sociology. My related coursework at Dartmouth focused on economic sociology, social psychology, and organizational sociology, with focus on digital/internet trust research. The sociology department was for me a great place to grow in terms of scientific curiosity and knowledge, and to learn about myself as a person and about what I expect from a career - if not necessarily in terms of job title, at least in terms of topics I am interested in, and environments and outcomes that motivate me in work and life. Following graduation, I worked on intellectual property and antitrust expert testimonies in economic consulting for NERA, and in strategy and operations consulting for Deloitte Consulting. After gaining some work experience, I returned to school for a joint Sociology-Business Ph.D. degree in Organizational Behavior from Harvard Business School. The sociological theory knowledge I acquired during my undergraduate years, and which I am currently improving upon at Harvard will inform my interests, and will help apply my work experience to academic research on social networks, knowledge management, and organizational behavior.
Presently, I work in a Sales Operations Management position, and am looking to pursue an entrepreneurial venture. After graduating from Dartmouth, I attended graduate school at the University of North Carolina, receiving my MA in Sociology. Areas of interest at UNC were culture, public memory, and identity. I co-authored a few publications, and presented one at an American Sociological Association annual meeting. Due in part to my fantastic training in urban issues related to the field of Sociology, I servied as a Weiss Urban Livability FellowHowever, even though the department prepared me well for a life within Sociology, the greatest personal gains came from the critical thinking skills and awareness of larger society garnered through my curricular activities.
Well I am working in Documentary film right now as well as doing some part time work as a research assistant for the Sociology department at NYU. In the fall I will be heading down to Durham to get my PhD in Sociology at Duke. I am now into visual sociology, documentary film and culture. So I guess I am still saturated in the world of Sociology.
(2006) Right now I'm in the midst of my third year of medical school at Loyola University in Chicago. I spend most of my time in the hospital - calculating drug doses, generating differential diagnoses, and learning how to take care of patients. My sociology background has helped me tremendously - both in my work after college as a Child Advocate at a homeless shelter, and in my current role as a medical student. Each day I see examples of the larger societal trends I learned about at Dartmouth played out in the lives of my patients. It's been a tremendous help to step back and realize that my patients are living their lives in the context of a complex and changing world, and the society they exist in dramatically influences their ability to access healthcare and follow their physicians' advice. As I progress in my training as a physician, I'm hopeful that my sociology background will continue to help me understand my patients not just as victims of random disease, but as people who health is inexorably linked to health of society.
After college I went to Australia to see the country, work a little, play some rugby, and of course, live on the beach, I guess we could say that by studying social systems it peaked my curiosity to learn about new cultures. I attended Law School at NYU, graduating in 2006. The most pleasant surprise about law school was the friendliness and lack of competitiveness from the other students. After hearing all of the horror stories I was greatly relieved to find such a pleasant atmosphere. Sociology is about understanding human behavior in a social context and in many ways the law is also. Examples are: how people interact when forming a contract or litigating a property dispute. Also, studying economic class distinctions in sociology leads to a greater understanding of the social ramifications of court decisions. Finally, I found sociology extremely useful in studying criminal law. While criminal law is mostly about the effects of crime and the treatment of offenders, sociology gives a baseline understanding of the incentives and disincentives to commit crimes based on one's experience and economic status. Currently, I am working for a law firm in New York City as a Real Estate lawyer.
I am currently working as a Research/Faculty Assistant for the Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Center, which is directed by William Julius Wilson at the Kennedy School of Government. We are working on a longitudinal qualitative study that explores the impact of the 1996 welfare reforms on low-income families and adolescents in three cities. It is very interesting and important work, and I am very grateful that my sociology background enabled me to continue working in this field. I recently received notice of early acceptance into Cornell's PhD program in Sociology and will be heading there in the fall.
I graduated from the University Notre Dame with my M.A. in Sociology in December 2003. The experience and lessons learned at the Dartmouth Sociology Department helped tremendously, as did staff recommendations. I currently work in Houston, Texas at DePelchin Children's Center, a large non-profit agency helping children and families. A MA in Social Science as well as statistics and research experience were all requirements for the job. I have loved both experiences, and would not have been able to do either without the degree in Sociology from Dartmouth.
I want to let the sociology department know that I have just accepted a position as a grievance representative with SEIU Local 1984 in Concord, NH. After spending some time living and traveling abroad, I am excited to return to my work in the labor movement. I am particularly enthusiastic about the opportunity to have a position in which I will be able to work so closely with the membership and help them exercise their rights. I love rural New England so I am also very happy about returning to New Hampshire.
I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the sociology department. I am very grateful for the quality education I received and the relationships I developed with my professors. My sociology studies combined with my experiences as a working class student at such a wealthy university had a tremendous impact on me and strongly contributed to my decision to pursue a graduate degree in labor studies and a subsequent career in the labor movement. Thanks again.
"After great experiences writing a thesis and doing research under the Presidential Scholars Research Program in Sociology, I decided to look for a job in research after graduation. I now work as a Senior Research Assistant at Murray Research Center at Harvard, a social science data archive and research center with a focus on the lives of American women. I'm involved in many aspects of the archiving and research process including corresponding with researchers about acquiring new studies, publicizing grant information, conducting literature reviews, processing quantitative datasets, and de-identifying interview transcripts. I really enjoy my job - it's exciting to be part of the research process."
I would say that my Sociology background has informed all the work I've done since graduation: 1st as an AmeriCorps member working with families in subsidized housing, then as a graduate student at Harvard's School of Education, from which I received an M.Ed. I now work as the Coordinator of an initiative called "Choosing to Participate: Facing History and Ourselves," which includes a multimedia exhibit about the effects individual choices have on the course of history. Sociology gave me a context to think about the interactions between individuals and groups in society and the ways those interactions effect all aspects of our daily lives. It also helped me to define the way that I myself want to participate.
"My sociology degree has truly affected my everyday experience of the world, especially in Pittsburgh, where the 'across-the-tracks' phenomenon is quite apparent and where 74% of black children live in poverty. My sociology degree has given me an understanding of the societal arrangements from which inequity develops."
