Wandering...wisely, by Katharine Brooks:

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Back when I was conceptualizing my book, You Majored in What? Mapping Your Path from Chaos to Career,  I struggled to find the best word to describe how my liberal arts students (and I) had found jobs over the years. Job search books seemed to fall into two basic camps: the "business" type books which are all about steps and linear models, and the "creative soul" type books which focus on "finding one's self" through the career process.  No book seemed to bridge the gap sufficiently and no book described how the process really worked.  My students (and I) didn't fit neatly into either of those categories.

Everything started to fall together when I stumbled on an article about the creative process.  The author quoted Nobel Laureate Herb Simon who essentially created the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI).  When asked how he developed the concept of AI, Dr. Simon described what he called his "network of possible wanderings."  He said that his degrees in computer science, psychology, and economics allowed his mind to "wander" into undiscovered places.  This "network of possible wanderings" becomes the mental space that can be combined in infinite numbers of ways resulting in creative discoveries.

I realized that ultimately that was the strength behind a liberal arts degree: that ability to "wander" into and find the connections between a variety of areas of knowledge and experience.  A student doing an internship at a news station could apply a film clip of "High Noon" studied in a freshman seminar to a current news story on the Middle East.  The skill of persistence and discipline could be gleaned from a summer spent riding a stubborn pony.  A Latin major could apply her knowledge of Greek mythology to the corporate leadership role she plays. 

Everything is connected and everything can be used to create a latticework of wanderings deeply individual to each person.  Can you imagine discovering your own network of wanderings?  And even better, imagine telling an employer just why you are the perfect hire because of your unique network of possible wanderings. 

To learn more, check out Chapter Two of my book and start wandering...wisely, of course. 

Katharine Brooks, You Majored in What, careers, college, graduation, Penguin Books