<p>The other thing that better students can do as seniors is to apply to graduate school as well as jobs. If the job market for their field crashes, going to graduate school (if funded, which it often is for engineering) during the recession is likely to be better than spending the recession in the unemployment line (and possibly eventually being seen as unemployable).</p>
<p>You may not have much control over luck, but you may be able to reduce the impact that bad luck can have on you (i.e. going to graduate school even though it was not your first choice, rather than joining the ranks of the long term unemployed). Obviously, doing as well as you can in school helps with this mitigation of bad luck (doing better in school means you have a better chance of getting into funded graduate school).</p>