Sigma Chi - University of Missouri

The The Tiger Sig Published by the Xi Xi ChaPter alumni assoCiation of sigma Chi fraternity COLUMBIA, MISSOURI FALL 2017 W e who dig for content for the Tiger Sig thought you might find it interesting to see how well the scholarly aspirations of our Chapter align with current projections for career success in the future. You will find that, for the most part, their determinations are generally perceptive of opportunity. One fact that immediately jumped out was that at a university famous for its School of Journalism only four of our members indicate interest in that area. Looking at journalism futures may indicate the reason for this 2-percent-plus of our Chapter assigning themselves a journalism major. Both print and broadcast journalism are listed in the top 10 of depleting career paths. With a culture seeking immediate and abbreviated sources to what's up, newspapers and broadcast news, being more ponderous than the iPhone, do not look sunny. Journalism, obviously, is a sound path to honing writing and analytical skills, but abilities might best be eventually directed down other paths. We do have one advertising major who, although headed for the J School, will, we hope, recognize that deriving strategic marketing skills from his curriculum could serve him best. Although we don't have great numbers indicating a desire for entry into the medical field, specificity of interest indicates our guys know the situation there. Various areas of medical support rank right up there in terms of future growth. Physicians not so much, which is probably a reflection of the currently undetermined future for health care in this country. Whereas we have five members indicating health sciences, from physician assistant to pre-professional as careers, only two are in pre-med. In recognizing the rosy predictions for finance and accounting our Chapter shines. We have 25 undergraduates—that's about 20 percent of the Chapter—headed toward finance and accounting. This general area ranks high among the careers listed as having strong growth and healthful futures. As one would expect, the general category of business and marketing, with some specifying defined areas, ranks tops in the Chapter. It also ranks well as a general opportunity. Forty-three, or one- third of the Chapter, indicate this as their targeted area of endeavor. As might be expected, the younger the member the more prone he is to give merely that general category, whereas juniors and seniors indicate specialties such as sports marketing, international business, manufacturing operations and hospitality. The area with the most categories in the jobs of highest potential belongs to engineering. Of the most propitious are civil, aerospace, mechanical, bio-medical and chemical engineering. Our young men line up well in this regard with two each indicating civil, aerospace and chemical engineering as their interests, while one picked mechanical. One had not made up his mind. What was probably the most surprising was that we had but one young man, a freshman, who indicated a career in information technology. As you might imagine, careers related to almost anything in computer sciences are shown to be of great potential for those entering business. Could it be that some of our skilled technical types are missing the boat? Although teaching gets high ratings as a career—and we had only one indication in that category—the rating is based on teaching at the college level where the average salary is a tad over $70,000. Not so immediate an achievement and sometimes not so pleasant a profession until one is tenured. The above pretty well sops up the career paths indicated. We have a few political science majors who we trust will graduate with some modicum of objectivity. Only two in the Chapter mentioned law, which is perhaps understandable due to the overpopulation of the profession. At least none in our Chapter indicated he wished to be a lumberjack, a man of the cloth, an art teacher or exercise instructor. These are ranked as among the stinkiest of all. D r. Mun Choi, shown proudly posing with his Sigma Chi cap, is a most engaging president of our University Systems. Having heard of our Hall of Fame banquet, he indicated he would very much like to participate. And participate he did. He mingled during the cocktail hour, he spoke to the audience, he stayed for dinner and afterward he collected our attending Chapter members so he could informally talk to them. We have never seen such interest and participation from an MU leader. We have never found such encouragement for our scholastic program at his level. Dr. Choi brings true freshness to his position...and we will be delighted to consider him an honorary Sigma Chi anytime he wishes. You'll find photo coverage of the banquet inside the issue. QUO VADIS XI XI? WHERE IS OUR CHAPTER HEADING CAREER-WISE? XI XI FINDS A FAN IN SYSTEMS PRESIDENT (Our thanks to Annotator Jack Sellenriek '19 and Consul Sam Pottenger '19 for detailing the current courses of study of some 130 of our actives and pledges.)

• Cover