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Ryan Bell is an associate with the Ray, Quinney & Nebeker law firm in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ryan received his law training at the Georgetown University Law Center in 2003. He graduated cum laude from Brigham Young University in 1999. His practice areas include commercial litigation, with an emphasis on intellectual property. My major in sociology helped me most by making me grow up intellectually. It challenged my assumptions about people, gave me broader information for understanding them, and provided a range of tools for interpreting social experience. In short, sociology did exactly what a college degree should do by expanding one's framework for understanding the world. But it was unique in that its focus was the most important topic of all- humanity. In my own specific field of law, I have applied that knowledge countless times. The basic understanding I gained from the sociology program about human interactions, systems, and organizations is exactly the framework one needs to understand an institution that is as thoroughly social as the law. That background has been invaluable to me in my career as a lawyer. Ryan Bell |
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Megan Wright graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology in 2003. She is now a graduate student in the University of Arizona Ph.D. program. Her areas of research include gender, health, deviance, and education. She is now a Ph.D. candidate and she has taught courses in Juvenile Delinquency, Sociology of the Body, and Sociology of Sexuality. My undergraduate degree in sociology taught me to problematize the everyday world and closely scrutinize commonsense explanations for individual and group behavior, orientations toward the world that have been crucial for my success in everyday life and as a graduate student in sociology. The undergraduate courses I took at BYU in deviance, gender, the family, contemporary theory, and others helped me to develop my sociological imagination, increased my critical thinking abilities, inspired some of my current research questions, and exposed me to research and philosophy that have been invaluable in my further education in sociology. Furthermore, the individual mentoring and feedback I received from professors and faculty members at BYU aided me in my exploration of the discipline. The BYU sociology department was tremendously helpful in preparing me for pursuit of advanced degrees in sociology, and I feel fortunate to be part of the BYU Sociology heritage. Megan Wright |
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Chris Fosdick works as a vocational rehabilitation counselor for the state of Utah. He provides vocational counseling and guidance to individuals with psychological and physical disabilities. He coordinates medical, psychological, and psychiatric services for his clients and helps them with job preparation and job placement. He is an advocate for his clients to prospective employers. While working full time, he is also enrolled in a Masters of Rehabilitation Counseling program. The coursework in sociology helped prepare me to become a professional—the critical thinking, writing, and problem solving skills I learned as an undergraduate in Sociology helped me with making assessments of my clients’ needs and with finding resources to meet those needs. Report writing and documentation is a significant part of my job. The writing assignments in my sociology classes helped prepare me for this. As a vocational rehabilitation counselor I get to see the “big picture” or the context of my client. Sociology’s emphasis on the individual in the context of other people and institutions has helped me to now how to better serve our clients. I find being a vocational rehabilitation counselor rewarding and I am thankful for the training I received from the professors in the Sociology department. Chris Fosdick |
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Jill Piacitelli is a proud BYU alum with a degree in Sociology. She is currently the Director of a small national nonprofit, which trains college students and staff who run volunteer programs called “alternative breaks.” Here, students use school breaks to do immersion volunteer work around a particular social issue. As a sociology major at BYU, I gained critical intellectual skills, a much more broad understanding of people, hands on practical application, and mentors. Courses on Social Issues, Social Psychology, Gender, the Family, Deviance, and Social Movements all greatly challenged and developed my ability to see beyond my own concrete life experience. This has been an invaluable skill, as my current social justice work serves people whose lives have been shaped and formed by individual action as well as the less visible (but strong) currents of social norms, institutions, structure and history. My particular interest was in social movements and how the world has managed to change in ways that benefit individuals and communities. I couldn’t really understand those world changing stories without learning how to read and conduct research – to get the quotes and the numbers that tell the real tale. My statistics and research classes came to life through participation in a service-learning research project, broadly studying the impact of the closing of the Geneva Steel plant. We learned the necessity of quality research: well developed questions, patient selection, accurate recording and compelling writing. If I am going to make a difference where I work, where I live, and in my world, it will be a combination of well-informed ideas plus the sweat of many. I learned that at BYU. Jill Piacitelli For more information on "alternative breaks," please visit the related link to the left of this page. |
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Eric Kimlinger graduated with a BS in Sociology in 2004. Immediately following graduation, he began employment with the State of Missouri as a claims specialist. After a year he transferred to the private sector, gaining employment with an industry leading HR firm. Within 6 months he was promoted to team leader and within 9 months he was promoted to supervisor. He is currently a member of the MBA class of 2009 at BYU. Choosing to pursue a degree in Sociology was a fairly easy choice for me. I have always enjoyed learning about people, and how they can influence and be influenced by society. My expectations were high entering the program, and I was not disappointed. The classes covered a wide variety of topics, with plenty of elective classes to pursue. The professors’ love for the subject matter was evidenced by the enthusiasm and preparation they put into every class. Along the way, I not only gained knowledge of sociological matters, but I honed skills that proved very useful as I pursued my career after college. As I completed research projects and other coursework, I developed critical reading and reasoning skills, and improved my verbal and written communication. I learned how to evaluate complex information and distill it down to its useful parts. Without the knowledge and skills acquired during my time as a sociology student, I would not have been nearly as successful. Eric Kimlinger |
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Erin Foster Smith graduated with a BS in Sociology in 1996 and an MS in Sociology in 2001. She and her husband now have five children and she is kept unbelievably busy with all the demands of her family, church callings and community service.
I sometimes joke to my husband that the main thing studying Sociology has done for me is to make me a sucker for a survey—I don’t want to add to someone’s non-response problem! But in all seriousness, my Sociology degree gave me so many amazing learning experiences. All these experiences made me a more analytical thinker, improved my written and oral communication skills, gave me stellar research abilities and made me a critical consumer of information. These skills help me to do everything in my life better, from buying a new car, to evaluating the latest “it” parenting philosophy, to speaking my mind at a school board meeting, to attempting to talk my twelve-year-old into practicing piano. However, I think the most compelling effect of my degree in Sociology has been to increase my general level of confidence in myself. Sometimes full-time homemakers feel or are made to feel like they aren’t as capable or intelligent as other people, which leads to dissatisfaction and resentment in their role. Because of how and what I learned through my Sociology degree, I feel intellectually equal to all the people I interact with, which has helped me not only to be more effective in my role but to be happier in it, as well. Erin Smith |
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Dallan Flake graduated from BYU with a BS in Sociology in 2002 and an MS in Sociology in 2003. He currently practices as a labor and employment attorney at Winstead PC in Dallas, Texas. Dallan received his legal education at the University of Michigan, where he was fortunate to pay his way through law school by teaching undergraduate sociology courses in the areas of criminology, demography, and marriage and family.
As a lawyer, I draw upon the skill set I acquired through BYU’s undergraduate and graduate sociology programs on a daily basis. Sociology taught me to think critically, analyze objectively, and argue persuasively — skills which serve me well in my practice of the law. From statistics to stratification, BYU's sociology courses equipped me with unique, scientifically-grounded perspective on how to approach and make sense of complex social phenomena. I find myself constantly relying on such perspective when called upon to analyze and resolve complicated legal issues. Additionally, as both an undergraduate and graduate student, I had unique opportunities to work closely with a number of my professors, who enabled me to hone my research, writing, and presentation skills through our one-on-one interactions. The ability I developed to conduct thorough, reliable research and present my findings in a concise, logical manner greatly facilitated my transition from sociology to the law. I would recommend BYU's sociology program without reservation to anyone contemplating a career that requires any of the aforementioned skills. Dallan Flake |
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Jessica Davis graduated from BYU with a MS in Sociology in 2002. She and her husband live in Washington, D.C. with their twin boys, and she works for the United States Census Bureau. The statistics and methodology courses I took at BYU gave me the education I needed to qualify as a statistician at the Census Bureau. Above all, working with Renata Forste and Tim Heaton on demographic issues gave me the necessary background to work on population issues at the Census Bureau. I feel very fortunate to have a job that reflects both my education and my interests. I am the school enrollment analyst for the Census Bureau working primarily with the Current Population Survey and the American Community Survey. My duties include subject matter input on questionnaire/instrument content, wording, and functionality. I perform annual school enrollment and educational attainment data review and analysis using SAS, Excel, and other statistical review tools. My duties also include conducting analytical research on education issues and I maintain an expertise on these issues, particularly school enrollment, by preparing reports, table packages, and preparing presentations at professional conferences. Studying sociology at BYU gave me the knowledge, skills, and abilities to think, research, and write well, all of which have allowed me comfortable federal career as a sociologist. Jessica Davis |
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Joe Vance is partner with the law firm of Miller Nash. He is the chair of Miller Nash's Vancouver litigation team. He represents clients in a wide variety of complex litigation in both state and federal court in Washington and Oregon. Joe graduated from BYU in sociology in 1992 and from law school at the University of Washington in 1995. My sociology degree helped me a lot in preparing for the LSAT and for law school. It strengthened my analytical and critical thinking which were essential skills for both the LSAT and law school. My favorite part of sociology was the sociological experiments. I was, and continue to be, fascinated by the study of why people act the way that they do. Joe Vance |