For students in the humanities and social sciences, finding a job remains a major concern. Since the connection between their majors and specific job roles is often unclear, it is becoming increasingly important for them to define their career paths and gain practical experience while still in school.
 
Kookmin University (President Jeong Seung Ryul) is expanding its job-focused career support programs in response to these changes, enabling students in the humanities and social sciences to break down the boundaries of their majors and enter a variety of industries and job roles. This approach supports students not only in demonstrating what they have learned in their major but also in concretely showing how those skills connect to the competencies required by actual companies.
 
As part of this initiative, the university held a “Portfolio for Personal Branding” program for students in the College of Social Sciences on Tuesday, September 15. The program was designed in response to the growing use of portfolios in key career paths for humanities and social sciences students, such as marketing, advertising planning, service planning, and program directing (PD). A practicing marketing designer participated in the session, covering practical content applicable to the job search process—from how to structure one’s experiences and competencies into a cohesive narrative to portfolio planning, storytelling, and visual strategies for enhancing communication effectiveness.
  
In particular, the focus is on designing programs tailored to students’ majors and desired career paths, rather than offering generic job-search seminars. The Kookmin University Career Plus Center shares student needs—identified through one-on-one career and job counseling—with the respective colleges, which are then translated into customized extracurricular programs.
  
The fields of sales and sales management are also being presented as new career paths for students in the humanities. The introductory course in sales and sales management, organized by Kookmin University’s University Job Plus Center for the second half of the 2026 academic year, is structured to cover topics step-by-step, ranging from an understanding of the roles to real-world case studies, customer management, and job-hunting strategies. The program connects science and engineering students to technical sales roles and arts and physical education students to sales positions in industries related to their majors. Meanwhile, it provides humanities students with job-specific employment strategies and roadmaps so they can apply for sales and sales management positions across various industries, transcending the limitations of their majors.
  
Practical training in online marketing is also being strengthened. During the summer of the 2026 academic year, the university ran a specialized program in collaboration with practicing online marketing experts, where students learned about the characteristics and usage of social media platforms, as well as advertising and branding strategies. The goal is to go beyond mere theoretical instruction and focus on enhancing the practical skills necessary for aspiring marketers.
 
There are already examples of how this support has led to actual job placements. Shin Hyo-jin, an alumna who graduated from the Department of Korean Language and Literature and now works at A-Sung Daiso, decided early in her academic career that she wanted to pursue a career in sales. Through the bank’s student ambassador program and Kookmin University’s hands-on career support program, CoREP, she participated in projects where she sold actual products and achieved tangible results. These experiences became key assets during her job search. Her ability to specifically demonstrate what experiences she had gained and how she had prepared for her desired career—rather than simply citing her major—proved to be a key competitive advantage. 
 
Kookmin University supports students in the humanities and social sciences in expanding the competencies they have acquired in their majors into various career fields, such as sales, marketing, and planning. A key feature of the university’s approach is its operation of diverse programs that allow students to select the necessary education and practical experience based on their individual interests and strengths.
 
Meanwhile, Kookmin University, which is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year, plans to expand this job-focused career and employment support by linking it to the university’s pragmatic educational philosophy of entrepreneurship. The university’s policy is to break down the barriers between academic, co-curricular, and industry-academia collaboration programs so that students do not merely acquire major-specific knowledge but can apply it to real-world problems in industry and society.
 
Kookmin University President Jeong Seung Ryul stated, “As the boundaries between industries and job roles are blurring, what students need is not to limit their potential to a single major, but the ability to connect their strengths to a variety of job roles.” He added, “We will continue to strengthen field-oriented education and career and employment support so that all students, including those in the humanities and social sciences, can build their own competitive edge based on their majors and successfully enter society.”

Photo caption: Kookmin University students majoring in the Humanities and Social Sciences attending a special lecture titled “A Portfolio for Personal Branding”