As a senior, thinking about the future is unavoidable. As a English and Spanish major looking for employment after graduation, it is also quite uncertain. Trying to think through my options and learn more about what to do with my degree, I enrolled in LILAC’s intensive course, Humanities at Work: Using the Humanities to Open Doors to a Satisfying Life. LILAC is Bryn Mawr’s Leadership, Innovation, and Liberal Arts Center. I’ve utilized LILAC in the past for help with job-searching, but this is the first time I’ve taken one of their intensives, courses focusing in a specific area relating to the professional world. This course meets once a week, and is funded through a Mellon grant. LILAC brings in guest speakers, many of them Bryn Mawr alums, to talk to us about life after college. After just a few weeks of the semester I have come to really enjoy these sessions.

Four very recent graduates visited a few weeks ago, to talk about their journeys just three years after leaving Bryn Mawr: Syona Arora ’15, Lauren Buckheit, ’15, Iliana Dominguez-Franco ’16, and Maryam Elarbi ’15.  All of them now have interesting careers in nonprofit and advocacy, but they also all spoke about feeling fear, confusion, anxiety, and imposter syndrome as they spent time in unfulfilling jobs, dead ends, and periods of unemployment. Although these young grads are only a few years older than me, looking and speaking like my peers, they have clearly gained so much valuable experience and insight since venturing out into the world. I found it inspiring to hear their stories, because they have all weathered really difficult times that helped them discover wonderful career paths that suit their strengths and talents.

This week, we heard from two women who are further along in their careers. Sarah Schenck, an independent filmmaker, showed us a clip from a documentary in progress. I appreciated hearing some of her honest thoughts on how she has managed to support herself as an artist, as well as practical tips about project management and fundraising. Our other speaker was Sarah Bidgood (actually a Wellesley alum, but with strong Bryn Mawr connections), a Senior Research Associate at the James Martin Center for Proliferation Studies. She had trouble finding a practical application for her Russian major, but then learned about Non-Proliferation Studies and has found the work very meaningful. Both of our speakers gave eloquent and personable talks about their work, and the paths that led them there, including the role that the liberal arts played in developing their skills and perspectives.