Trinity University students walk into the Fiesta Room, past the jazz band’s soothing notes, and take their seats, a parent or loved one beside them. One question on their collective mind: “What can I do with my humanities degree?”
Four Trinity alumni who majored in the humanities sit at the front of the room, eager to share their postgraduate experiences and answer this question.
It’s Fall Family Weekend, and alumni Victoria Walsh ’09, Joshua Pedrick ’13, Jennifer Pedrick ’14, and Jocelyn Suarez ’20 are back on campus as panelists for Arts and Humanities Day, hosted by the Arts and Humanities Collective. To an audience of current Tiger families and faculty who helped them on their own journeys, the alumni discuss the benefits of a humanities education and how they overcame postgraduate challenges.
Walsh and the Pedricks knew that they wanted to pursue the humanities before coming to Trinity.
Walsh wanted to be a speech pathologist, so as an undergrad, she took speech pathology and linguistics. After graduation, she realized her love for linguistics aligned more with her growing interest in public policy.
Joshua Pedrick loved English and history in high school, so at Trinity it felt natural to take as many humanities classes as he could. In the spring of his first-year, he took a New Testament class and then found himself enrolling in more and more religion classes, which led him to study ancient Greek and make it his minor.
“Life is not linear, and I ended up in the religion department just because I said yes to that opportunity,” Joshua says.
Jennifer Pedrick’s parents are a mechanical engineer and a molecular biologist, but as a student she wanted to take classes that would fuel her love of reading. She gravitated toward English but became intrigued by religion after taking a course on the Hebrew Bible. These two interests combined, sparking her curiosity.
“I'm not good at math. I'm not good at science, but I really love books. I love language. I love different interpretations of text and how words look on a page,” Jennifer says. “If you're somebody who has a really sciency family, you're just as smart as them. You just like different things.”
For Suarez, the decision to major in philosophy came later in her Trinity career.
She initially majored in biology, “because that's what my parents told me to do,” but because she could explore courses in other departments, Suarez became increasingly interested in philosophy. Faculty supported her as she realized she wanted to pursue the humanities and gave her the confidence to change paths.
After explaining why the alumni loved their humanities majors, they discuss how the majors helped them after graduating.
Suarez is a research manager at the Central Texas Food Bank, where she helps underserved communities. She interacts directly with members of the community, using the communication skills she gained from her humanities degree to reach different groups.
Jennifer Pedrick, who leads integrated communications at ExxonMobil, says her curiosity about why people do what they do and believe what they believe helps her to connect with as many people as possible.
“There's a lot of stuff that the humanities give you,” Jennifer says. “This ability to think critically, this ability to ask really good questions, can get you really far and open doors into places where it's not enough to just put numbers on a spreadsheet or to answer a question.”
Walsh, who owns a consulting firm, says, “Writing is a muscle.” By practicing writing, she got better and better at it, which helped her build her form. She flexes that writing muscle when connecting with people on a human level.
Joshua Pedrick, a credit trader at Neste US Inc., says that during his job search, he learned how to market his broad degree effectively to interviewers.
“The humanities degree set me on a path of how to evaluate information, how to research, and how to think about the world around me, which filters what I'm seeing at work. And this is what I am; this is the skill that I'm bringing to every employer that I've been with,” he says.
Joshua sees this clearly when he talks with friends who have technical degrees. Being able to chew on topics without a clear answer gives him an edge as he works to understand problems at a deeper level.
Each of these alumni walked a winding path, with detours and struggles along the way. However, they have all realized that in pursuing their humanities degree, they were able to not only study topics they were passionate about, but also to build skills that are invaluable no matter the career path they choose.
Editor's Notes: In the top image, four Trinity alumni discussed their journey after graduating with a humanities degree during Fall Family Weekend.