<p>
</p>
<p>I agree and think every college should require seniors to take a seminar that gives out this type of advice. Landing that first job is mostly about strategy, persistence, realistic expectations and flexibility.</p>
<p>msl2008, without giving out too much info about these kids: majors include anthropology, sociology, French, history, philosophy, math, art history, political science. Jobs include: research at major hospital, Teach for America, public relations, legal assistant at major law firm, analyst at investment bank, operations at investment bank, corporate staff in fashion industry, staff at startup co in environmental field, staff at not-for-profit, sales job at internet co.</p>
<p>I am not saying it is easy to find a job these days, it is obviously very tough. But there are jobs out there.</p>
<p>My eldest daughter graduated 2008 from Colgate with a degree in English.</p>
<p>She was hired September 2008 - laid off January 2009…</p>
<p>She is now in grad school.</p>
<p>Her husband graduated from the Newhouse school of Journalism @ Syracuse in 2009. He is still looking for his first professional job.</p>
<p>The main advantage of any school is its alumni network. But if there are no jobs to refer someone to, there are just no jobs :</p>
<p>BTW, they are both employed in unskilled jobs and paying their own bills. I am proud of them both.</p>
<p>For the people I know who graduated in 2009 (from MIT), they’ve had mixed but decent results in the job hunt. Many got very good jobs, but others have struggled to find anything. Probably more have been struggling than what I’ve seen among my friends in past years, but as a group I’d say they are likely doing better than 2009 grads as a whole.</p>
<p>This isn’t so surprising, that a few would be struggling right now. Unemployment has been high across the board lately.</p>
<p>The “failed $200,000 experiment” comment disgusts me. Like somebody said upthread, way to take the long view. The kid graduated 4-5 months ago! Yeah, it would be nice if s/he had landed a really good field-related job, but it doesn’t always happen right out of school, and for all the parents know the kid could eventually get a dream job - I’m sure we can all think of examples, possibly ourselves, of people whose career paths were not exactly straight and narrow but made it into a good place. Also, way to think of your kid as though s/he were a mutual fund, something that’s expected to return X money per year given Y investment (though I would point out that a lot of mutual funds haven’t done so well in this economy either).</p>
<p>I know a Brown grad (UG & grad) who’s doing massage therapy for a living. This person’s parents paid ~300k for 6 years at Brown. It’s a precautionary tale for me growing up, applying to schools, picking school.<br>
Brown = fail, according to the parents.</p>
<p>Those parents = fail, according to me. At the very least, what sort of idiots spend $300,000 on anything without thoroughly researching what they will get for it? If I buy a car, is anyone going to be sympathetic to me when I complain that it doesn’t fly or float? But that isn’t the real problem. Jessiehl nails it pretty well.</p>
<p>How do you thoroughly research the worth of an Ivy League education? Apparently 50%+ parents paid full price at Brown. What exactly do you expect? A job, a decent job. When it doesn’t materialize at the end, it is a failure.<br>
Your example is absurb. An appropriate example would be a 300k car that doesn’t start. DOA of some sort. Nobody is expecting a 300k car that can fly or float. You = fail.</p>
<p>“If I buy a car, is anyone going to be sympathetic to me when I complain that it doesn’t fly or float?”</p>
<p>JHS, you’re missing the point. If you use the logic in THIS thread it’s all about the ‘experience of buying the car’. The fact that you can actually PUT the car to practical use is looked down upon.</p>
<p>Sorry, you don’t have to research Brown for more than five minutes to know that there is no guaranteed job at the end. That’s not what they are selling, and it’s not a reasonable expectation (especially with people graduating from anything this year). Ditto Harvard, MIT, whatever. Nursing schools seem to be doing pretty well. But every long-term investment is a financial gamble, certainly including higher education. </p>
<p>I don’t know what master’s program this kid was in, but it ought to be pretty easy to get a sense of the employment prospects of graduates of that. This year, of course, has confounded lots of expectations, but things should work out in the medium term at least. If they paid $100,000 for an MFA in creative writing . . . well, that’s on them. Again, it doesn’t take a lot of research to know that an MFA in creative writing does not reliably produce employment.</p>
<p>My wife is a world-beater. But in October after she graduated from Yale mid-recession, she was working part-time in sales for a wholesale jewelry distributor and part time as an emergency room admissions clerk. She was trying to get into VISTA. She has since had a very successful career, but she has never had a private sector job, and she has taken a pay cut every time she changes jobs (which happens frequently). Luckily, her parents were proud of her and what she was doing, and so am I (I paid for her last two years of law school after she paid for the first with savings from the job she eventually got through VISTA). Her sisters all went to fancy colleges, too. One is a university professor. One is an ex-cocaine-addict, ex-magazine-editor caterer who has always supported herself, but never with any degree of certainty. One finally became a high school teacher after a number of years on public assistance when her marriage fell apart while her kids were very young. My sister went to a fancy university, majored in Spanish, took five years to graduate because she screwed up the planning, had a tough time getting that first job . . . and she generally earns 4-5x what I do. </p>
<p>You pays your money and you takes your chances, because you aren’t buying a bond OR a job. I don’t blame anyone who opts out of that system, but I didn’t.</p>
<p>@Treetopleaf: <a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm</a></p>
<p>^ Thank you!</p>
<p>(Above is survey of post-grad plans, %seeking employment, etc)</p>
<p>Son was at a career fair today. There were about 40% of the companies there compared to last year. He handed out nine resumes with four showing good interest. We’re hoping for an internship for the summer if he doesn’t graduate this spring. We’re also looking into Grad school and the GRE. It’s amazing how unspecialized an undergraduate degree is these days with all of the arts requirements.</p>
<p>I pay full freight for S1 and will likely for S2 (absent some type of merit windfall). At no time did career or job enter into our discussions of college choice. Instead, we talk(ed) about where one could go that would have the greatest impact on ones thinking and approach to life as an educated person. Different schools emphasize different aspects of what it means to be educated. S1 wanted intellectual rigor, inquiry, theory, and argument. S2 is looking at multidisciplinary exploration tied to real world problems. Both Ss have different goals in life, but both share the desire to become the best educated person he can be. As long as that is the main objective, I will pay whatever it costs. If it becomes about career and jobs, then I would most likely be less willing to pay full-freight at a private. I believe any decent university is acceptable if that is the goal. I began at a community college, attended a fourth tier (is there such a thing?) university, managed to earn a Ph.D. at a top private, was a successful research scientist, a college Dean, and founded two companies. I am a firm believer that were one goes to undergraduate school is unimportant to eventual career success, especially if one is an entrepreneur. Where it does make a difference is in how it influences what type of educated person one wants to be. To this end, I fully concur with the observations made in this article by Andrew Abbott (UChicago occupational sociologist): [The</a> University of Chicago Magazine: October 2003](<a href=“http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0310/features/zen.shtml]The”>The University of Chicago Magazine: October 2003) The primary aim of education should be education itself.</p>
<p>A quote from the article that I particularly like and agree with:
That is what I’m willing to pay for.</p>
<p>Waaaay back in my day (the early nineties) the job market was bleak.</p>
<p>I was a LAC grad (not a top 20 LAC) with a mis-mash of courses that only a LAC could offer. Officially I was a dual major (English/Econ).</p>
<p>I applied for EVERY type of job – I didn’t care if my “major” aligned with the job title. I let my cover letter highlight the courses & experience which could match up with the job. What did I have to lose other than time & postage?</p>
<p>I applied for an Industrial Engineering position with a Fortune 500 (actual one of the top 50). I was shocked that I got a call for the interview. While interviewing another department requested the HR rep see if I was willing to interview with their department too. I left with a job offer that day. Moral of the story – NEW GRADS SHOULD NOT LIMIT THEMSELVES TO ONLY CERTAIN JOBS. </p>
<p>I hated this 1st job. A college degree was not needed to actually perform the job. I did the job for over 2 years. Having this “big” name on my resume & a few years experience was a fantastic spring board.</p>
<p>Casting a wide net is needed in the 1st job search. I don’t understand how these students could cast a wide net during the college app process and yet not do the same for the job search.</p>
<p>Face the fact. A far more more important question now a’days is: "What did you major in?" rather than, *“What school did you grad from?”
*
A paradigm shift has indeed occurred.</p>
<p>Times are tough, but I think most all of these kids will eventually find careers. It’s generally a little hard getting your foot in the door, regardless of where you went to school.</p>
<p>I’ve got bachelor’s in physics and EE, plus a master’s in information systems, plus about 25 years experience. I am darned glad I have a good job. I wouldn’t want to be looking now myself.</p>
<p>Interesting article about the future of employment in the IT field.
[When</a> the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get an Apple – Seeking Alpha](<a href=“http://seekingalpha.com/article/168165-when-the-going-gets-tough-the-tough-get-an-apple]When”>http://seekingalpha.com/article/168165-when-the-going-gets-tough-the-tough-get-an-apple)</p>
<p>And the article by Tom Friedman that inspired it. (a better read)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/opinion/21friedman.html?_r=2&th&emc=th[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/opinion/21friedman.html?_r=2&th&emc=th</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Middsmith, what field is this kid’s masters degree in? </p>
<p>I know a lot of kids in their '20s. Since I hire people for a living (and manage teams of people who hire people for a living) I try to be helpful when I can.</p>
<p>Here are some of the actual reactions I get when I offer assistance, forward job leads, suggest organizations or companies that an unemployed new grad might want to pursue:</p>
<p>1- Oh, I’m sorry, this job is in Newark or Hoboken and when I told you I wanted a job in NY I meant Manhattan, not Hoboken (note to you folks outside the NY metro area-- we’re talking about a 10 minute ride on public transportation which at peak time leaves about once every 8 minutes- so not exactly a hardship commute.)</p>
<p>2-- You must not have understood when I said I was interested in public policy. I meant I wanted to advise legislators on public policy. This job is research for a corporations government affairs office which even though it sounds like it’s the same thing it’s really not. (oh really?)</p>
<p>3- Thank you for thinking of me for this entry level editing position at corporation X. I would feel like a sell-out taking a job like that with my degree in English. I was hoping for a position at a literary magazine. Oh- the job pays how much? Oh, that’s twice what literary magazines pay but then that must be proof of what a sellout those people are.</p>
<p>4- I could not be a paralegal, no way no how. Isn’t that like being a secretary and I have a degree from prestigious U? Oh, you say that this law firm only hires paralegals from prestigious U? Well, they just must not be very ambitious. Oh- the typical paralegal made $65K a year plus bonus after two years with this law firm? Well it must be a real sweat shop.</p>
<p>5- I know this seems like a great fit for me- graphics design major with X in debt from fancy art school. But this is an oil company and I am an environmentalist and could never work for an oil company.</p>
<p>6- See this job might look like a good fit on paper but I can tell from the description that they’re looking for a real “tool” and that’s just not me. (any adults here who can explain what this one means gets extra points.)</p>
<p>7- The ad says they administer a mandatory drug test pre-employment and I believe that’s a violation of my civil liberties (even I understand the hidden message here… i.e. I can’t get a real job since I can’t pass a drug test but I keep telling my parents that I’m looking real hard so don’t rat me out.)</p>
<p>So when your friends complain about how hard it is to get the kid with the BA in History or French literature off the couch… yes, it is a bad, bad economy and it will take some legwork, geographic flexibility, and some effort to find a job. But not every new grad who can’t find a job is operating from the same set of assumptions.</p>
<p>
Chemical or Bio E. One of the lesser engineering discipline. =)</p>
<p>I don’t know what kind of expectation some posters are setting. If a student can’t find a decent job after going to school, why go to school? All the talks about learning for the sake of learning make me want to set myself on fire.</p>
<p>
It’s no great secret that some majors provide better job opportunities on average than others. If a student chooses a field that is not directly employable, they have no one to blame but themselves.</p>