Entrepreneur Jeremy Schifeling '03 Charts Path from Liberal Arts to Tech
Forbes: 5 Surprising College Majors that Can Win You a Job in Tech
Jeremy Schifeling '03 doesn't have a degree in computer science, but that hasn't stopped him from building a strong career in Silicon Valley. Now, as founder and CEO of Break Into Tech, Schifeling is championing career-advisory services for liberal arts graduates who want to thrive in the tech sector anyway.
Schifeling's own journey is a case in point. When he graduated from Swarthmore College in 2003 with a B.A. in political science and education, he started out as a kindergarten teacher. Brave try; bad fit. Dissatisfied with his classroom presence, he regrouped with an MBA from Michigan's Ross School and then won a marketing internship at Apple. That led to more senior marketing positions at LinkedIn and Fidelis Education — and a chance to start Break Into Tech in 2015.
Such journeys aren't a fluke, Schifeling finds. ...
What majors can get you a job at an Internet company? Schifeling's analysis of LinkedIn data is quite fascinating. Computer-science graduates do predictably well, he finds, with a total of 27,737 jobs. But look which other majors are in the running:
- Economics: 15,948
- Psychology: 9,729
- English: 9,216
- Political science: 9,029
- History: 6,155
Add them all up, and those five liberal-arts majors account for more than 50,000 jobs, nearly double the total for computer-science graduates. Schifeling's key point: the opportunities in tech are much wider than many people realize, especially if job hunters start thinking about all the non-technical needs that fast-growing start-ups face.
Jeremy Schifeling '03 graduated from Swarthmore College with honors in political science and educational studies.
