<p>I am a senior at UCSD who was planning on graduating Spring 2013 and working right after, if I could find a job of course. However, my course load at the moment is becoming a bit difficult (I'm taking the last courses of my major upper division core series all at once in addition to another class) and I might have to drop (with a W) one of the classes if I do poorly on a midterm that I'm taking tomorrow. If I do that, I will have to take one course in summer after I walk. </p>
<p>Basically, I'm just wondering how this will affect job prospects/the job hunt? Is this a common occurrence? Or will taking a class in summer doom me to missing the Fall 2013 job season?</p>
<p>Any insight or experience will be most appreciated.</p>
<p>That is the most crucial thing. A lot of my friends’ jobs didn’t start until August or September, so you could absolutely do a summer session to finish up without impacting that kind of job prospect… but a company that starts in June would not be pleased if they found out you needed consistent time off during your first few months of work.</p>
<p>There are two pieces of advice I have to you: 1) If you can avoid it, do NOT put yourself in the position of needing an extra class to graduate; and 2) if you haven’t started applying for jobs, START TODAY.</p>
<p>I’m an econ major with an accounting minor. Not 100% sure which industry I want to go into, so I’m applying to jobs all over. Accounting, consulting, corp finance, everything. </p>
<p>I really don’t want to finish that one class in summer, it just might have to happen though depending on how I do on this midterm later today (really shouldn’t have taken the most difficult classes of my major all at once).</p>
<p>I can’t speak to accounting, but I know that the nationally recognized consultancies and banks are already done recruiting for the class of 2013. Right now, you are left with smaller and niche firms that are doing late fall recruiting (I didn’t interview for my job until November, but that was extremely late in the game for fall recruiting). What this means is that if you are to land a job at a smaller or niche firm, it is likely that you will not start as part of a recruiting class, and that means that they are going to want to get you going as soon as possible. While I wish I could say that taking a summer class wouldn’t hurt you, that is simply not the case.</p>
<p>Keep this in mind… even if you do badly in a course this fall, if you are putting in your resumes now, you aren’t including the fall’s grades, so it will have no impact on your job prospects. However, as soon as your grades appear on your transcript at the end of the semester, you must update your GPA. Get to applying now, and as long as you pass your difficult class, it may have no impact on your job prospects.</p>