<p>My son is a 2009 graduate of Pomona College. He was fortunate to have many equally strong college/university choices when he graduated from high school 4 years ago. He chose Pomona for the small size, academic reputation and beautiful location. Now after a very difficult 7 month job search he finally landed a full time position in his field of study - economics.He was an honors Economics student with solid recommendations and internship experience. Since graduation ( and particularly as his loans are coming due) he has commented to me frequently on how poorly Pomona's Career Services served him both as a student and as a recent graduate/job seeker. Compared to his 2 older siblings who attended equally well regarded institutions I would say he is absolutely correct. As a parent I can recall only a few communications from their office over his undergraduate career. Short of helping fine tune his resume he received very little direction in his internship and subsequent job searches. The office gave him an incomplete( much of the contact information was incorrect) list of alumni connections in various business fields with the specific instructions not to ask for a job(ask for career guidance only!). He was very disappointed that after 2 months of trying he only received 2 cursory replies from the many letters/emails he sent out. The fact that Pomona has very poor name recognition outside of California did not help his cause. In retrospect he is grateful for the solid education and friendships he developed at Pomona but like many of the classmates he has stayed in touch with he was disappointed in the lack of career support the school offered. He has told me often through the process he would have been better off forgoing the loans and attending our state university as in terms of career guidance there was not value added in Pomona. For all prospective students and parents be careful what you are purchasing - do your homework on the career placement side.</p>
<p>That’s great that your son found a job on his own, but I’m really sorry to hear that he felt unsupported by Pomona. I wonder if there’s a tendency to assume all these smart, accomplished kids are just going to end up going to grad school, so why worry about beefing up any kind of placement services. If so, that’s really unfortunate, and something that I think is risky; Pomona depends to some extent on donations from happy alums! I hope you’ll communicate your complaint to administrators at Pomona who are in a position to make change happen.</p>
<p>Congratulations to your son for finding a job in this tough economy–in economics, no less. Not an easy feat! :)</p>
<p>I can’t vouch for the after graduation placement services, as my son is still a student, but he has had great luck with internships through Pomona. He had a paid internship as a sophomore and will have another one this semester as a senior, both related to his major field of interest. He has also found many part time jobs through the college- apparently they post things online when they come up, so everyone has an opportunity.
I can only speak for one kid, and only what he tells me, as I personally have no contact or first hand knowledge, but he has been pretty happy with his employment and internship opportunities and extremely happy with the education he has received at Pomona. Personally, if he finds a good full-time job 7 months after graduation in his field, I’ll be very pleased. It’s a tough time.<br>
Also, my son really wants to stay in California and only applied to colleges here because he hoped to make contacts here that would help him in that effort. He saw his older sibling go to east to school- and she’s still there three years later because her contacts led to opportunities there. I don’t think this is unusual, or that Pomona’s lack of name recognition in other parts of the country are as much to blame as the fact that
people tend to make contacts where they are located.<br>
Again, kudos to your son. It sounds like he will do very well!</p>
<p>Arizonadad’s gripe has been seen here before and is seen on many college sites these days. Read the 1/17 NY Times and learn all about the top law school grads without employment or terminated employment. It’s grim out there.</p>
<p>That said, I find the complaint about the career services office pretty far off base.
That’s not to dismiss your son’s frustrating job search but really, the Career Development Office fires off a weekly electronic newsletter with workshops, alumni career speakers and connections, mock interview announcements and both job and grad school recruiter visit announcements. There are job fairs jointly conducted with a consortium of A-list liberal arts colleges around the country (and i don’t just mean the Claremont Colleges).</p>
<p>Resources? here’s some info to follow. [Pomona</a> College : Career Development Office : Students](<a href=“http://www.pomona.edu/cdo/students/]Pomona”>http://www.pomona.edu/cdo/students/)
My kid gets news all the time and he and his friends (sophs, juniors and seniors) have a pretty stunning array of internships and summer alumni connected opportunities.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I do know a student who spent part of her winter break on the east coast for a job fair co-sponsored by Pomona. She’s a Cali girl, but is interested in what the other coast has to offer in her field. I think that parents never hear about many of these things because the information is piped directly to the students. I would never have known about the out of state job fairs without knowing this student, as my son has no interest (at least not yet.)</p>
<p>Although Pomona’s career services didn’t play a role inn D’s landing a job (she’s also '09), the Pomona alumni network definitely did. She networked with another alum who had graduated four years earlier (and who had also attended her HS) and who was working in the field she wanted to enter (transportation). Through him, she was able to schedule informational interviews that eventually led to a full-time job in her field in August.</p>