<p>Just wondering if its really that hard to find your career once you've finished college? thanks</p>
<p>Yes. Regardless of the part of the country you live in, your college major, prospective post-college plans, career interests, personality, interview skills, strength of resume, year of graduating, prior work experience, and existing network, all careers are difficult to get started once you are out of college.</p>
<p>Or were you looking for specific advice – the type which might be offered if you provided a more specific query?</p>
<p>Or you could, you know, [Check Google](<a href=“Google Search”>Google Search)</p>
<p>Just like anything, the time in which people find their respective careers varies. </p>
<p>Some know exactly what they want to do, whereas others don’t really have a great idea until they’re a few years out and use an MBA (or some other form of grad school) to change into that career. </p>
<p>The way to look at it is that you’re going to be working for nearly 40 years anyway, so who cares if you take 3-4 years to find the perfect career post-graduation?</p>
<p>@ johnnyham89</p>
<p>They call this period in one’s life “emerging adulthood” (18-30 year olds searching and experimenting with different careers and lifestyles). It’s perfectly normal to feel unsure of what you want to do after college graduation. Yes, some majors are more pre-professional and sets you on a direct path than liberal arts majors. Once you figure out what you want to do, stick to it or seek additional education to increase your skills and lifetime earnings.</p>
<p>Its a real grab-bag how people end up doing what they do. Some people know from the time they are kids what career they want to pursue. Others think they know and end up switching away in college or after a little time out in the working world. Seems like at some schools every 4th frosh starts out pre-med. Nationally the drop-out rate for engineering is 50-65%. Many kids who enter college with some impressive-sounding future career (“I’m going to be a lawyer and become a partner at a big firm”, “I’m going to work on Wall Street”) are making decisions based on teenage impressions of well-paying jobs and have no real knowledge of what the working conditions are like on the job or whether they’d really like it compared to other things they could do. A lot of grads just stumble into something while they’re trying to find a job after college; they accept an offer and follow the twists and turns where it takes them. And so on.</p>
<p>Coupled with all this is preference for risk; some people want jobs that have clearly defined entry requirements and progressions. For example engineer, teacher, doctor, etc. Others are more open to see where life will take them and may have interests in some fields but no particular job in mind. Comparing people pursuing these different tracks is like comparing apples and oranges.</p>
<p>So you can see why it is impossible to answer your question; it’s too general. The difficulty finding a job after graduating college for a teacher or engineer are different for those with less vocational majors, they differ based on where you went to school, they differ significantly based on what you did in college to get started on a career.</p>
<p>Waiting until after college to start searching, if I’m reading your post correctly, is seldom the best choice. A better approach is to take advantage of your career center starting early in college (frosh year isn’t too soon!) to start exploring careers, talking to alums in various fields, getting internships, etc. There are a number of books on the subject you could read; one I’d recommend is “Unlimited Options: Career Strategies to Last a Lifetime”</p>
<p>My dad went to a prestigious petroleum college in China, but decided to come to the US for a better lifestyle. He completely changed career paths, and studied computer science in graduate school. Now he pulls in over 150k a year.</p>
<p>Just to show how some of the advice on this forum transcends not only majors, but also cultures. Life is good.</p>