Marketable selves: Making sense of employability as a liberal arts undergraduate

Traditionally holistic liberal arts undergraduates face the challenge of professional branding in the neoliberal ideology of higher education in a competitive knowledge economy. This study explores the storied career-related perceptions of undergraduates in the College of Liberal Arts at a large, state-affiliated university. Thirty-two students participated in in-depth interviews to identify prevalent themes in employability narrative construction. Transcripts were coded and analyzed according to grounded theory methodology. Findings suggest that participants construct and manage employability narratives in an iterative process of exploring, packaging, and distinguishing themselves. Participants' semantic negotiation of “liberal arts” provides a sensitizing lens for consideration of contemporary student perspectives. By ascribing meaning and value to underlying influences on career progress, exploratory student thinking offers insights for practitioners and theorists concerned for the future of liberal arts graduates.