<p>From your article:
Among Class of 2010 respondents, 67.5 percent reported plans to enter the work force after graduation, but less than half (45.5 percent) had actually applied for a job at the time the survey closed</p>
<p>it’s hard to have more people get job offers before graduating than the amount of people that actually apply for a job…</p>
<p>
I’ll take a guess and say that you do not know much about engineering graduate programs. The vast majority of engineering grad students receive assistantships or fellowships that cover all of books and fees, plus a living stipend that is often not far below what a janitor makes. In other words, your issues are not in fact issues at all.</p>
<p>Now, if you only want a masters degree you might not get all of that, but it still suggests that he would rather be a janitor than try for a PhD.</p>
<p>
It would be alarming, if it was happening. It’s not even close to that, no matter how much alarmists like to cry out.</p>
<p>Regardless, someone with a 3.6GPA in an engineering major should be able to find a job even IF only 50% were doing so. Which is the point I was making earlier - an engineering degree with a 3.60 GPA leads to unemployment only becuase there are other more dominant factors present.</p>
<p>This guy (if he exists) is trying to make it seem like his failure to find a job is not his fault. In his case, I would find that very hard to believe.</p>
<p>
The figures I’ve seen from Iowa State CoE indicate an average of around 60% placement at the time of graduation. If that many are placed when they graduate, there is no reason this guy shouldn’t have been able to find a job with a 3.6 and plenty of time spent looking.</p>
<p>i have recently graduated (class of 2010) from environmental engineering which is under the department of civil and had a few job offers. I had good grades and internship experience BUT even the people with bad grades and no experience have jobs. It just them them a couple months extra to find them.</p>
<p>Here’s an article from Bloomberg for those of you who were questioning whether the article in the first post of this thread was true:</p>
<p>[College</a> Grads Flood Labor Market With Diminished Prospects - Bloomberg](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>"Ten months after graduating from Ohio State University with a civil-engineering degree and three internships, Matt Grant finally has a job – as a banquet waiter at a Clarion Inn near Akron, Ohio. </p>
<p>“It’s discouraging right now,” said the 24-year-old, who sent out more than 100 applications for engineering positions."</p>
<p>Engineering in general may be a safe field, but civil engineering seems to be particularly hit hard by the recession more than any other major.</p>
<p>Now for some positive news:
[College</a> Graduates to See Low Wages for Years - WSJ.com](<a href=“College Graduates to See Low Wages for Years - WSJ”>College Graduates to See Low Wages for Years - WSJ)</p>
<p>“The unemployment rate in April among four-year college graduates between 20 and 24 years old was 6.1%; among those the same age with only high-school diplomas, it was 19.6%.”</p>
<p>The only question that remains is what the job placement rates are for civil engineers. as I’ve said before, engineers generally have good job prospects, but civils are having a particularly tough time since the construction industry is currently on life support.</p>
<p>On top of everything that’s already been pointed out, does anyone here run track or cross country?
You can’t just do the minimum and end up with a 4:23 mile, no matter how “naturally talented” you are. Natural talent can get you far in a lot of sports, but not non-sprinting running events.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Civil engineering probably did get hit harder than other engineering, though it may seem more dramatic because it was relative to the 2004-2006 real estate bubble (it would not be surprising if civil engineering graduates then, no matter how lazy, found it relatively easy to get a job – though they may now be unemployed and competing for the same jobs now that current new graduates are seeking).</p>
<p>But still, a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering is probably more employable than a bachelor’s degree in most humanities, social studies, and biological science majors. Not to say that prospects are that good now, or that there is any guarantee that someone who tries hard to find a job will find one, but those other majors have so few major specific job and career opportunities that they are essentially “generic bachelor’s degrees” to employers. Someone with a degree in civil engineering can seek both jobs specific to civil engineering as well as the “generic bachelor’s degree” jobs.</p>
<p>Note that civil engineering is not limited to things that are suffering in the current real estate doldrums, since there are other projects like roads, bridges, pipelines, water and sewer utilities, etc. that use their services.</p>
<p>
Bad news… the unemployment rate has never been zero, even for college graduates. The fact that an engineer from OSU didn’t get a job is not particularly impressive, especially since we know nothing of his qualifications other than that he did three internships. Many impending college graduates try to make up in the application process for what they didn’t do in their studies.</p>
<p>FWIW, 100 applications is ridiculous. He could not have been targeting those at all.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This one example proves nothing. What was his gpa? Did he go to career fairs to talk with people in person? Did he perform well where he was an intern? We can’t base any conclusions on this without knowing the details. Nobody is denying that some graduates find jobs easier than others but in general I’d take my chances with an engineering degree any day over practically any other major.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for civil engineering in general because I am a mechanical but from what I have seen, a lot of companies are still hiring engineering graduates. If you are a good engineer with an impressive resume, you should have no problems getting interviews. Some people think that a job is just going to find them. It takes a lot of work to find what companies interest you and to try and network with people at career fairs and interviews. If people just sit at home and email resumes to companies, chances are they can get lost in the shuffle. When job hunting, people have to be proactive and try to make impressions on hiring managers and recruiters at career fairs and interviews.</p>
<p>That whole first Article didn’t sound unfair. I sounded like a big dose of karma came back an paid him a visit.</p>
<p>When you try to google this, only CC comes up. LOL</p>
<p>
I don’t have much experience with running, but a 4:23 mile on little training is definitely possible. From: [LEARN</a> THE 15 LAWS OF TRAINING](<a href=“http://www.coachr.org/learn_the_15_laws_of_training.htm]LEARN”>http://www.coachr.org/learn_the_15_laws_of_training.htm)</p>
<p>“who ever records that exceptional runners like Walter George and AU Shrubb achieved quite remarkable performances on very low mileage? George ran a mile in 4:10.6 and a 16-km run in 49:29 on little more than 3 km of training per day.”</p>
<p>
So what? Not every high school has an online version of their newspaper (mine didn’t), and nobody felt strongly enough about the article to post it on other websites.</p>
<p>All we can say from that Google search is that the article wasn’t plagiarized.</p>
<p>Aren’t you guys engineers? I would think you would all be smart enough to understand two simple things:</p>
<ol>
<li>Outliers exist amongst almost any large data set.</li>
<li>If the news was reporting about the 96% of engineers that ARE employed, nobody would really consider it newsworthy, would they? The news media reports extraordinary cases because that’s what sells.</li>
</ol>
<p>i’m calling shens.</p>
<p>but who knows. maybe he did the least possible effort assembling his resume/cover letter
maybe the 100s of resumes sent out (a lot of effort!) were mass mailed to random companys’ help desks</p>
<p>Here are some survey results from UC Berkeley’s career center about what civil engineering graduates were up to after graduation:</p>
<p>[2006</a> graduates](<a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major2006/CivilEngr.stm]2006”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major2006/CivilEngr.stm): 49% employed, 2% seeking employment, 38% grad school, 11% other.
[2007</a> graduates](<a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major2007/CivilEngr.stm]2007”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major2007/CivilEngr.stm): 35% employed, 12% seeking employment, 35% grad school, 18% other.
[2008</a> graduates](<a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major2008/CivilEngr.stm]2008”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major2008/CivilEngr.stm): 44% employed, 15% seeking employment, 22% grad school, 19% other.
[Most</a> recent year surveyed graduates](<a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/CivilEngr.stm]Most”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/CivilEngr.stm): (2009 as of this writing) 19% employed, 48% seeking employment, 23% grad school, 10% other.</p>
<p>wow, that’s a significant drop.</p>
<p>Doesn’t that refer to how the graduates are doing as of NOW, not as of directly after graduation? That means the older grads got jobs, but within the time frame of graduation to now. So 2006 grads had 4 years, and 2009 grads had one year. Obviously it’ll take some time to find emloyment. If there was mass unemployment for CivE’s, then all these %'s would be small, not just 2009’s.</p>
<p>Also, in regards to the article, that guy was just asking for it. He had no drive, just expected everything on a silver platter. He should’ve started putting in effort during highschool, not post-graduation. Waterguy, maybe you should use this as a warning to not mess around. Find something you like, which might or not be civil engineering, and bust your butt at it. Stay ahead of the game, be on top of grades and possible interniships, and you’ll be 100% fine. “Lee” obviously wasn’t on top of any of that, if he actually exists.</p>