<p>I’ve already posted here, but I’m posting again because we are still celebrating the wonderful graduation we attended at Rice last weekend! My son graduated with a degree in Civ Engineering with a concentration in Environmental Engineering, and has a job as an engineer, an apartment, a car, a birthday, and just found out that he passed his EIT (FE) engineering qualifying exam with flying colors… which surprised no one, but I had wondered about, as he had mentioned that he had decided not to study for it, on the grounds that he could always take it again if he did not pass… (Ha!) He loved his time at Rice, but he is not eager to go back to school in the near future…wants to work for awhile. We are thrilled that he is gainfully employed, and living in the same state that we are in! :)</p>
<p>anxiousmom, my S also passed his EIT exam. He also did not study for it. Too many things to do to get to graduation. He didn’t want to take it as it is not usually taken in his major but his Dad insisted. Dad said he never studied and you didn’t need to. Since you had just gone through the coursework, everything should be fresh in your mind. Seemed like it worked for our S’s lol!</p>
<p>Good luck to all the graduates. We leave next week to take our S to his job. He bought a car and rented an apartment, it’s finally all coming together.</p>
<p>I like reading this thread because it’s great to hear that so many of this year’s graduates are going to be doing things that make sense for them. In the past few years, we have heard a lot about college graduates who are unable to find jobs or who have to settle for jobs that are irrelevant to their interests (journalism majors working in restaurants, etc.). But the new graduates described on this thread seem to be going things that will help them to develop the careers they want – whether it’s graduate school, a job that relates to their interests, or some sort of special opportunity like travel abroad.</p>
<p>I wonder whether the economy is looking up or whether it’s just that the only people who post on this thread are those whose offspring have plans for the future that aren’t a disappointment.</p>
<p>Update - DD graduated and has her first professional job in the Houston Grand Opera chorus. With that, her church job and a retail job, she can support herself until grad school in a couple of years. We’re very proud of her.</p>
<p>Well, Marian, I hate to steer the thread in a different direction, but …</p>
<p>My daughter graduates from Brown next weekend. No job offers. She majored in social sciences/humanities – that makes her one of the many unemployed college graduates who didn’t major in STEM. As much as I wish that she could have majored in CS or engineering, that would have been so wrong for her.</p>
<p>She is up for one job, which would be perfect for her – has had two interviews, and will learn in June whether she gets it. So, everyone, please cross your fingers and toes for her, and maybe the good karma will pay off. If that doesn’t work, she’s also filling out the online Starbucks application. She had a rough finals week, and stopped job hunting for awhile, and now I’m sure she’s enjoying Senior Week.</p>
<p>I’m jealous of all of you with kids who have jobs and apartments. Just be kind to those of us whose kids are still looking at a black hole after graduation.</p>
<p>My D2 is in more or less the same boat, she has a “job” of sorts, but it isn’t a career-type job. She passed on the paralegal/Teach for America/ law school route because she has something else in mind that seems to self-actualize better.We’ll see how it works out.</p>
<p>My D graduated into that black hole in May '09. It was horrendous and demoralizing. She was offered jobs, but since she wanted to remain in NYC, none of them even began to cover rent, even sharing digs. Tough time.</p>
<p>She was set to come home, which had me panicked because at the time she didn’t have a driver’s license. We live in a place with few jobs and no public transportation.</p>
<p>But she went to Atlanta for a year (my suggestion) to live with BF. Got a driver’s license (yay!), studied for LSAT’s and earning a fairly good living as a nanny (obviously not what she majored in, but she loves babies.)</p>
<p>No she is back and has done a year of law school. She has a wonderful (sadly unpaid) internship lined up working for a criminal court judge, but she also has a second paid job as a research assistant for a prof writing about the death penalty (her special interest.) Even if they graduate into the void and it takes a little longer for things to evolve, they do. Positive things happen.</p>
<p>S has done all the Starbucks, etc, on line applications. Nothing yet. But he worked so hard on his last semester (hardest work since he started college) that he didn’t have much left for the job search. I expect things will evolve there too.</p>
<p>D graduates on Sunday with a BA in English, minor in Anthropology/Sociology. She’s going to get a Masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.</p>
<p>She was very pleased with her undergraduate experience at Gustavus Adolphus.</p>
<p>Just finished with all the festivities last night from D1’s graduation experience…it was unique and lovely as only a New College event could be (grads wear whatever they feel like for the ceremony, from shorts to nice dresses to far-out costumes). She did the break-up with the college BF before coming home to her party. Poor baby, but she’s handling it as well as could be expected.</p>
<p>Thankfully, she has a busy year lined up with two different Jewish Service organizations that pay her living expenses with a small bit of $$ at the end in grad school scholarships. She’ll be taking GRE’s and doing grad aps while in these programs this year. We feel fortunate and very proud of her for planning her year off so well, but I fear getting into a grad program she wants will be very difficult. Wish her luck, too!</p>
<p>My very best wishes to all our wonderful sons and daughters!!!</p>
<p>D2 graduated last weekend from Bryn Mawr College–she did well there (Magna Cum Laude and departmental honors–honors was a pleasant surprise). She majored in theater (an independent major) and minored in Russian. She’s interested in getting more theater training and is participating in a summer program at the American Repertory Theater for part of the summer and working on Nantucket for the rest of the summer. In the fall, she’s going back to Philadelphia to get more training–she’ll participate in a program at the Headlong Performance Institute. H and I will pay for her rent and both training programs since we consider that a continuation of her education. She’s planning on working part-time and has two different part-time jobs lined up for the fall–one at an independent coffee shop and the other at a boutique clothing store. She’ll be a great salesperson because she’s outgoing, loves clothes, and can talk to anyone. She’s planning on auditioning as much as she can once she finishes the fall program. Eventually, I think she’d like to get into an MFA program. Since she didn’t go to a acting conservatory program as an undergrad, she feels that more training would be a plus.</p>
<p>Our daughter graduated from Gettysburg College just yesterday in a beautiful outdoor ceremony. She squeezed a very broad range of courses into her major and two minors, completed two internships, studied abroad, and was involved in various campus social/volunteer/job/research activities, including a sorority. Her four happy years there were capped off with a job offer just three weeks ago. </p>
<p>There was certainly an element of luck in getting this job. She had a phone interview (arranged by Gettysburgs career center) with a well-known company back in October; didnt make it through to the next round, but kept the recruiters contact information just in case. In April, she found a couple of job possibilities on this companys website, emailed the recruiter (HR person) who emailed back right away to set up a formal interview. They made her an offer a few days afterwards. </p>
<p>Surprised but obviously happy with this quick turn of events. Its great company with excellent benefits. She starts in two weeks. Once she gets settled, she might consider grad school part-time. Itll take longer that way, but itll be fully funded by the employer, not by her (and not by us!)</p>
<p>S2 will graduate the first weekend in June with a double major in political science and philosphy, and two minors in judaic studies and public policy. He is heading off to graduate school to get a masters in public policy (his plan since sophomore year) and i wouldn’t be completely surprised if he pursued rabbinic studies after that…funny, because while he is not observant, he has always been intensely interested.</p>
<p>Life unfolds…</p>
<p>Where did your S graduate from, boysx3? If I recall, you have a Cincinnati connection.</p>
<p>My youngest is a freshman at UC and goes to Hillel (he’s not real social but likes their programming & Friday nights.)</p>
<p>Hi mommusic,
You have a great memory. Our family recently moved to Cincinnati.</p>
<p>S2 is graduating from the University of Denver–he had a great 4 years there and got in to the graduate program there as well. But he will be heading to DC instead–</p>
<p>boysx3,
It’s funny, I think my D will eventually head in the Rabbinic direction, too. Although she is a philosophy major, she was a TA for the Hebrew prof for several years, president of Hillel, studied Talmud with a Rabbi prof and wrote a 90 page thesis on a philosopher that was also a Talmudic scholar. During her year off, she’ll be working for two Jewish service organizations. As much as she talks about wanting to go for the Ph.D. in philosophy, she keeps veering towards Judaic studies. It’s funny, she’s not religious either…but she does keep her Friday night Shabbat enthusiastically.</p>
<p>It shall be quite interesting to see which direction she ends up heading in.</p>
<p>boysx3 - DC for public policy grad studies? Just curious if he’s going to Georgetown Institute of Public Policy - We just returned from DC, celebrating S1’s master’s degree graduation from GIPP.</p>
<p>We’ve had two graduations, two weeks apart. (D’s was mentioned earlier on this thread.) As my H points out, this latter one was especially nice because we didn’t pay for it!</p>
<p>After taking a gap year, S graduated from WUSTL on 5/21–very moving ceremonies (Elie Wiesel gave commencement address) and I cried buckets as we drove away from his dorm for the last time.</p>
<p>He double majored in math and physics and heads to Boulder for a PhD in Astrophysics!</p>
<p>Daughter2 graduated from the University of Michigan where she had an incredible four years (she already is missing her friends big time.) She will be starting her medical degree in the fall at Rush Medical College in Chicago. Her brother fell for all the Wolverine PR and will start at Michigan in August.</p>
<p>For those whose children are graduating without jobs, I can only advise you to hold on and support your kid. My oldest daughter graduated in 2009 after the economy crashed and her job offer was rescinded. We went to Plan B (law School) which she hated and never really planned to attend. She quits after first semester with decent grades, and works as a waitress, saving her money and spending every spare minute online applying for jobs. One year to the day after graduation she lands her dream job in NYC in pharmaceutical advertising. Seven months later, she gets an even better position with a larger advertising firm, more money and moved up several levels in the bureaucracy. She plans to work a couple of more years and then get her MBA.</p>
<p>Lessons learned: Your kids are actually much more interesting to live with since they were in high school, but you will have to compromise on house rules. Finding that first job is very difficult and may require lots of networking–D1 found her job through Tulane’s career center–use your college career resources. Once you have that first job and you can show them how smart and hard working you are, then the other offers will come (she had three firms in a bidding war for her to come work for them.) Don’t stay at a waitress/barista job too long, even though the pay is good, because it then becomes your resume. Try to find an internship during the day, while you work a second job at night. We ran into a friend of my D1 who was selling makeup at Macy’s two years after graduation, and she went to Dartmouth!</p>
<p>Bumping this thread to report some good news: My daughter got a job! As I said in post 105, she was a humanities/social sciences major and we were all concerned. (Definitely worried about her being a waitress for months.) But she got the job I mentioned in that post. </p>
<p>I can’t give too many details because it could identify her, but it is a great opportunity with OK pay and good benefits in a not-so-great location. Most important, it’s doing exactly what she wants to do (just not where she wants to be). </p>
<p>What a relief! We’re all happy here. And now she’s putting everything in her room into boxes. Talk about the empty nest!</p>
<p>Fireandrain: Congratulations…and as the parent of a Brown freshman (although probably a STEM major) your news makes me doubly happy.</p>