Career Resources and Outcomes
Work in American Studies can lead to and enrich a wide variety of careers. The majority of our students become teachers and scholars at the college and university level, but significant numbers have gone into journalism, radio, TV and film work, museum curating, law, public relations, editing, advertising, government service, secondary school teaching and administration, and creative writing.
In a recent graduating cohort, American Studies PhD graduates found placements as Assistant Professors, Visiting Professors, Post Doctoral Fellows, and Museum Curators. Click on the tab above to read profiles of some of our alumni.
Career Paths for American Studies Graduates:
- University Research, Teaching, and Administration
- Curation / Administration for Museums, Galleries, and Cultural Institutions
- Public History positions with Historical Sites, Archives, Cultural Centers
- Creative / Non-Fiction Writing, Editing, and Publishing
- Journalism, Social Media, and Digital Humanities Publishing
- Marketing and Public Relations
- Corporate Researchers, Consultants, and Project Managers
- Government Research, Service, and Policy Studies
- Nonprofit Service, Community Organizing, and Grant Writing
- Secondary School Teaching and Administration
- Radio, TV, and Film Work
Click on the alumni's name to read an interview about their graduate school and career path, and how their American Studies degree has shaped their work.
Gaila Sims, PhD 2022
Curator of African American History and Special Projects at the Fredericksburg Area Museum
Andi T. Remoquillo, PhD 2022
Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Asian American Studies at Wellesley College
Zoya Brumberg-Kraus, PhD 2022
Lecturer, Department of American Studies at UT Austin
Carrie Andersen, PhD 2017
Senior Content Strategist in the Experience Design department at Wayfair
Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa, PhD 2015
Associate Director for Preservation and Conservation at the Harry Ransom Center
Andrew Friedenthal, PhD 2014
Copywriter at IBM and freelance writer
Rebecca Onion, PhD 2012
Journalist, staff writer at Slate.com
Jessica Grogan, PhD 2008
Psychotherapist and author of Encountering America: Humanistic Psychology, Sixties Culture, and the Shaping of the Modern Self
Erin McClelland, MA 2005
Museum Consultant
Nate Blakeslee, MA 1996
Journalist and author of American Wolf
Graduate Student Career & Professional Development
Texas Career Engagement’s Graduate Career and Professional Development Team is dedicated to empowering graduate students and postdoctoral scholars to explore, connect, and build communities to pursue professional fulfillment in industry, academia, nonprofit, business, and government.
Resumes, CVs & Cover Letters
Learn how to best highlight your graduate experience and skills and impress a prospective employer in job application documents. To demonstrate your fit for a job and increase your chances of securing an interview, adapt your application materials to match the job description. Review our materials below to learn how to write and format resumes, CVs, and cover letters as well as tailor them to specific job descriptions for academia, industry, nonprofit, government, and business.
Liberal Arts Career Services
COLA Career Services is there to help you with every step of your job search - whether you need to write a resume, interview for a job, apply to law school, or figure out how to best use your liberal arts degree.
Imagine PhD
ImaginePhD is a free online career exploration and planning tool for PhD students and postdoctoral scholars in the humanities and social sciences. ImaginePhD helps users assess their career-related skills, interests, and values, explore careers paths appropriate to their disciplines, create self-defined goals, and map out next steps for career and professional development success.
PhD Career Pathways
Launched in 2020, Ph.D. Career Pathways is a collaborative initiative by the Graduate School and Texas Career Engagement that helps PhD students in the arts, humanities, and social sciences prepare for a broader range of careers within, alongside, and outside of the academy.
Versatile PhD
The Versatile Ph.D. is a tool that helps graduate students interested in non-academic careers explore the extensive range of available options. It offers assistance to students in the humanities, social sciences and STEM disciplines, and contains free content available to anyone and premium content available by institutional subscription. The University of Texas at Austin’s institutional subscription makes available premium content to all current students, faculty and staff with valid UT EIDs.
American Studies Assocation Jobs & Opportunities
Job postings, fellowship opportunities, and calls for papers.
H-Net Jobs Guide
The H-Net Job Guide covers positions in History, the Humanities, and Social Sciences, as well as listings in rhetoric, composition.
Chronicle of Higher Education
Job board for positions at institutions of higher education.
American Association of University Professors
AAUP'S mission is to advance academic freedom and shared governance; to define fundamental professional values and standards for higher education; and to ensure higher education's contribution to the common good. Membership is open to college and university faculty members, administrators, graduate students, and the general public.
National Adjunct Faculty Guild
The National Professional Association for Adjunct, Part-Time, Full-Time Temporary & Visiting College Faculty.
Imagining America
Imagining America is a national movement to connect universities and the communities they serve through the arts and the humanities. Through joint inquiry and projects conceived as true partnerships between town and gown, we seek to bridge the gap that has separated artists and intellectuals from the general public. Imagining America supports campus-community projects and seeks structural changes within colleges and universities that promote - and reward - new levels of engagement by artists and scholars.
National Council on Public History
The National Council on Public History (NCPH) works to advance the professionalism of public history and to advocate enhanced public and governmental support for historical programs. The NCPH includes museum professionals, government historians, historical consultants and employees in consulting, archivists, professors and students with public history interests, and many others.
AHA Resources for Public Historians
The American Historical Association has long been an advocate of public history and has regularly expressed a strong commitment to its practice. This site contains papers and reports on the state of the profession and links to sites advertising public history positions and additional advice on finding a public history job.
Career Development and Support
The American Studies department fully supports career development of our graduate students pursuing both academic and alternative ("alt-ac") career paths. Through training our students to develop and teach their own courses as Assistant Instructors and providing professional development awards to present at professional conferences, academia continues to be a primary career path for many of our graduates.
Through the University resources of the Texas Career Engagement office and the Graduate School, opportunities also exist for our students to pursue diverse careers in museums, archives, government agencies, non-profits, private industry, and writing. Career development workshops are held throughout the year and programs like PhD Career Pathways can help students broaden their expertise and grow their CV.
AAU PhD Education Initiative
The University of Texas at Austin and the Department of American Studies is one of eight pilot campuses participating in the Association of American Universities PhD Education Initiative that aims to make the full range of PhD career pathways visible, valued, and viable for all students.
