The University of California - Davis

Date: Mar 08 2009
Major: Political Science (This Major's Salary over time)
I've been combing through all the reviews for UC Davis, 90% of them are of people who have no idea what they are talking about, are still in the process of graduating or are extremely biased or skewed. I will be as fair and non-biased as possible. I will not rate Davis in a positive or negative manner; rather, I will try to dish out some real world advice upon graduation so other students do not go experience some of the hardships I've gone through. I am only referring to the social sciences department and my political science major. Any other major will most likely have a different result/experience so do not use this review as a blanket statement for the entire school.

First and foremost, UC Davis has a great campus, school facilities and the teachers are semi-competent, if not moreso. I have nothing to really complain about the services provided by the school. There is the Arc recreation facilities which is very nice, the school bus system is usually efficient and on time, so on and so forth. I've taken a few community college and state university courses and the teachers there are complete rubbish compared to the ones at Davis. Overall, academic wise UC Davis is pretty decent.

However, I came here to talk about post-graduation life. I am the first to admit that I am not a great student, have squandered many classes and opportunities while at my 4.5 year tenure at UC Davis and I do not have the greatest GPA. These are my faults and I completely accept that. I also accept the fact that I did not take advantage of some of the career fairs and some of the counseling provided for careers after graduation. HOWEVER, the times I did get counseling with the Political Science department and the Social Studies/humanities, the staff didn't really give much advice on how to find jobs, write up resumes, or provide good links for career sites / job listings/ internships. Keep in mind I graduated with a Political Science major; I already knew the jobs related to the field were slim. I thought it was purely my fault for not working as hard as I should have. I thought it was because of my failings as a student and me not knowing what to do with the major or wanted to do with my life caused me to be in the position that I am in today.

I started talking to numerous people who were non-technical, med/computer engineering majors. My friends all have majors in political science, english, arts, dance, etc. Most of them also felt that UC Davis did very little in assisting you with finding a job after graduation. More importantly, the things that I have learned while at UC Davis have had almost ZERO real world application. All the political theories, law, the constitution, history courses, so on and so forth had nothing to do with my first job as an inside sales/marketing rep for a cellphone carrier. Basically, this argument can be used for almost every college, where your major you graduate with have no application or relevance to your first, second and your final job.

I accept blame on my behalf for not being a great student, but the lack of career focus at UC Davis really upset me. Luckily, at the last year of Davis I realized I really enjoyed video editing and post production and have been dabbling in that. I'm now shifting focus from the traditional 4 year colleges to a more career oriented 2-3 year technical college (art institute, etc). I'm now at a crossroads in my life where I decide to continue searching for a job with my UC Davis BS degree in Political Science (which has yielded very few results, and the companies that I have gotten interviews with were not related to my major at all) or to attend a school that emphasizes and teaches me real world job experience/technical know how.

So I guess my point here is to figure out what you will enjoy doing as a CAREER. Too many students come into colleges these days, expecting they will learn real life/world experience in the job market while studying in college. This might be true for some majors, but for the majority this simply is not the case. This couldnt be anymore true for the Social Sciences department at UC Davis. So figure out what you are good at or what you enjoy and stick to it. I would recommend shopping around at technical 2-3 year colleges that are extremely career oriented and focused. A lot of those colleges have classes on resume building, public speaking, interview practices, demo-reel sessions for graphic designers/ art/video post production majors, and a whole slew of practical classes that will help your future career.

All in all, my experience at Davis is one of mixed feelings. I enjoyed the campus life, the facilities and the friends I met, but the major that I chose (because I was undecided for the longest time and chose one out of convenience) did not prepare me for the job market after graduation.