Featured Alumni

Mariah McGhee

Attorney

McGhee at Law, LLC

What drew you to sociology as a major?
I had dreams of becoming an attorney since childhood, but I was advised against pursuing a pre-law degree or something solely for my resume. Instead, I was encouraged to choose a field that would serve as a valuable tool in my career. Sociology caught my interest because it explores why people behave the way they do and how their actions are influenced by social institutions and interactions.

How has sociology contributed to your career path?
Sociology has played a major role in shaping my career path. In my final year of law school, I served as a legal intern in a Civil Practice Clinic (IU McKinney School of Law), which operated in collaboration with the School of Social Work. Through this clinic, I not only assisted clients facing civil issues or seeking expungements of their criminal records, but I also helped connect them with supportive resources to help maintain the progress they made. This experience provided a full-circle moment for me; it allowed me to integrate the tools I gained from sociology and law school and apply them in a way that achieved more than just a legal outcome but truly supported the “whole” person.

What do you do in your current role, and what feels most meaningful about your work?
Currently, I operate my own solo practice as an attorney, where I have the privilege of serving business owners and entrepreneurs across a range of matters, with a primary focus on real estate and business law. One of the most meaningful aspects of my work is having the opportunity to build a practice that is intentionally designed to bridge the gap between people and the law, empowering individuals to use the law as a tool for advancement in both their personal and professional lives. One of my favorite parts of my practice is assisting individuals in obtaining expungements of their criminal records. Understanding how a criminal record can limit a person’s ability to support themselves and their families and then being able to play a direct role in changing that trajectory, is incredibly fulfilling—especially when considering the broader social factors that shape those experiences.

What skills from sociology have been most valuable to you? Or, looking back, what are you most grateful for about your sociology education?
I believe my sociology degree strengthened my ability to think critically, solve problems, and communicate intentionally with diverse audiences whether in a mediation, during a meeting, or before the court. These are skills I rely on every day in my practice. My sociology background also helps me develop creative resolutions to clients’ issues and work more effectively because it keeps the people and circumstances involved at the forefront.

I am most grateful that my sociology education is as versatile as my law degree. There are countless paths I can pursue with both, and I truly feel I could change careers multiple times and still rely on each in meaningful, effective ways. I was also fortunate to learn from professors who made courses engaging and thought-provoking. I genuinely enjoyed my sociology experience at IU.

Hannah Worton

Qualitative Research Analyst

Numerator

What drew you to sociology as a major?
I originally came into college studying human biology… I quickly realized that I was much more interested in medical sociology than I was in biology, so I switched my major to sociology and the rest is history!

How has sociology contributed to your career path?
I think the critical thinking skills I developed during my BA and MA helped me a ton when I entered the job market. I also had the opportunity to get involved in research with some amazing professors during my time at IU, through which I learned invaluable “hard skills” too, like data analysis, research design, and academic writing. They also introduced me to qualitative research, which is what I do now in my current role!

What do you do in your current role, and what feels most meaningful about your work?
I am a qualitative research analyst for a market research company. My work centers around gaining a holistic view of consumers and what drives them to do the things they do. The goal of a lot of my projects is to make products and brands work better for consumers and enable my clients to better understand the inner workings of their customers' minds.

What skills from sociology have been most valuable to you?
I am immensely grateful for all the people IU Sociology connected me with. The Sociology department at IU is full of so many amazing, passionate, smart people that I had the privilege of learning from during my time there. My involvement in research at IU was also key to me getting my job out of school, and I still use all of those skills I gained from those experiences today!

Tyler Strunk

Labor Relations Consultant

Minnesota Department of Revenue

What drew you to sociology as a major?
I took an introduction to sociology course my freshman year, and the content of the course spoke to me. Analyzing how human behavior, societal structures, and inequality intersect grabbed my attention.

How has sociology contributed to your career path?
My sociology degree helped me realize that I want to work in organizations that help to alleviate societal harm. That led me to the Minnesota Judicial Branch and now the Minnesota Department of Revenue. Sociology provided me with vital critical thinking skills and a framework to view how my work impacts my community and co-workers.

What do you do in your current role, and what feels most meaningful about your work?
I currently work as a Labor Relations Consultant with the Minnesota Department of Revenue. What feels most meaningful about my work is being the voice of reason when situations escalate. I enjoy mediating conflict and finding solutions to complex problems with relationships.

What skills from sociology have been most valuable to you?
I have used my sociology degree very often in my career. In my sociology courses I learned about societal inequities and gender pay gaps, which I use when assisting court users and as a Human Resources coordinator. I really wish more people had an understanding of sociology and social sciences in general. These disciplines are able to explain the intricacies of our world that are often difficult to put into words.

Wisdom Ibikunle

Doctoral Student

Princeton University Department of Sociology

What drew you to sociology as a major?
I’ve always had an interest in the social sciences, and I also appreciated the breadth of sociology as a field compared to other fields like psychology (which I minored in) or political science (which I had considered majoring in, but chose sociology instead).

How has sociology contributed to your career path?
I was a pre-medical student as an undergraduate, but I really didn’t have a deep inclination toward medical practice. I was more drawn to a career in sociological research and this was because I felt inspired by the work being done by sociologists at IU. Bernice Pescosolido’s research on mental illness and stigma was deeply impactful to me, as I had grown up with family members who struggled with mental illness. The fact that there were people like her who were studying issues like stigma and were designing and evaluating interventions to combat them motivated me to pursue a career in sociological research.

What are you up to in graduate school? What feels most meaningful about your continued education in sociology?
The thing that feels most meaningful to me about my continued education in sociology is the ability to design and conduct my own original research (and get paid to do so as a PhD student!).

What skills from your undergraduate sociology work have been most valuable to you?
Studying sociology as an undergraduate provided me with research and critical thinking skills that I was able to use to cultivate my own sociological research and translate into other fields. After I had graduated, this knowledge of diverse methods served me well in my work as a Public Health Research Associate at NORC at the University of Chicago, even as I worked in a field different than the one I studied in.

Featured Alumni

Mariah McGhee

Hannah Worton

Tyler Strunk

Wisdom Ibikunle

Department of Sociology social media channels

The College of Arts & Sciences