Job opportunities for 07
Joanna Pumple is a mass communications major and a senior of Goucher’s Class of 2007. While she is expected to graduate this May, she does have a few concerns about her life after Goucher. One of her biggest concerns is that she doesn’t have a full-time job.
“I really don’t know what I’m gonna do,” says Joanna. “I have plans for a summer job working retail, but nothing really towards my major.”
Joanna is not alone in her predicament. Many other Goucher seniors are facing the same dilemma of not being able to find a full-time job in the field that they studied.
While there are other options after graduation such as immediately going into graduate school or taking a year off, the most taken strategy after college is to enter the job market and start a career in their field of study.
The Career Development Office (CDO) polls the number of students who are going to be employed full-time, part-time, or going to graduate school. However, since the official count isn’t until after graduation and that the results will be confidential afterwards, the CDO employees were allowed to show a sample poll from last year’s graduating class of 2006.
From the sample poll of last year’s class, 38% of the students were full-time employed right after graduation while 41% were still seeking employment. “Last year’s statistics will be somewhat similar to this year’s graduation class,” says Stacy Patterson, an employee of the Career Development Office.
This high rate of unemployment after college is alarming seniors. From a lot of full-time job searching seniors, a lot of sentiments are being repeated such as “I have a part-time job lined up,” or “I have plans after graduation,” but the most repeated phrase is “maybe I should have picked a better major.”
“It’s not that some majors have more jobs readily available per se, but the direction you drive your major towards. The economy has a lot to do with it, for instance we’re in a state of war right now so the sectors that are supporting the war effort should have more positions that are open,” says Patterson.
“While it’s generally easier for students to get jobs from their past internships, it’s more important on how people market themselves.”
Seniors from other colleges and universities are experiencing the same difficulty in entering the job market. Through a questionnaire on facebook.com, most hard-pressed seniors plan on moving back in with their parents and getting part-time jobs close to their house.
The most extreme case is a senior from Salisbury, Mike Wessel, who says “I plan on moving to Taiwan to teach elementary English, nothing to do with my double major in political science and conflict resolution, but a good excuse to travel!”
By looking at the recent trend of scarce job opportunities of last year’s and this year, it could be safe to say the next year’s outlook won’t be so good either.
