The First Five Years After College
What happens in those years?
- Many of our alumni pursue advanced work in graduate or professional school.
- An unusually high percentage of our seniors and recent graduates win major scholarships and fellowships—Fulbright, Gates, Goldwater, Rhodes, Watson—that fund research, creative projects and professional work around the world.
- Many new graduates build on experience they’ve gained at Amherst—an internship at the Federal Reserve Bank, a summer science research project with a professor, a service program with an NGO in Sierra Leone. They use our Career Center to find opportunities they hadn’t imagined, or to connect with alumni.
Jobs
Our education is designed to build multiple intelligences, so you can adapt to the job you want, or invent the job that doesn’t exist but that the world urgently needs. Here are some of the many jobs taken by recent graduates:
- Associate Consultant, Bain & Co.
- Business Analyst, Deloitte
- Software Developer, Epic Systems
- Account Strategist, Google
- Investment Banking Analyst, J.P. Morgan
- Clinical Research Coordinator, Massachusetts General Hospital
- Legislative Assistant, Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism
- Solar Development Analyst, SunEdison
- Teacher, Teach For America
Alumni
Taken as a whole, our alumni population is an example of the lasting impact that a relatively small group of people can have. Taken individually, our alumni are an endlessly expanding list of people you would want to talk to, work with and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with as you embark on your life after Amherst.
While certainly not comprehensive, Wikipedia has an interesting list of Amherst alumni.
Pathways Mentoring Program
Pathways, an alumni-student mentoring program sponsored by our Career Center, connects hundreds of active, accomplished alumni to current students. Alumni serve as mentors—experienced adults who can talk to students about academic, professional and life goals.
The results: Alumni leverage their experience to help new generations of Amherst students; students think critically, strategically and deeply about their futures; and good work—often in the form of an internship and or a long-term job—gets done.
Career Center
Our Career Center is ready for use as soon as you step on campus. It’s a place to reflect on what’s important to you and where you want to go. It’s a place with the resources (databases and human networks for internships and jobs), the professionals and the programs (career fairs, alumni networking events, skills workshops) to get you there. It’s a lifelong benefit.