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1 in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed

Tck13

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Not sure if this needs much of a description.



1 in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed
WASHINGTON - The college class of 2012 is in for a rude welcome to the world of work.

A weak labor market already has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don't fully use their skills and knowledge.

Young adults with bachelor's degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs — waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example — and that's confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans.

An analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press lays bare the highly uneven prospects for holders of bachelor's degrees.

Opportunities for college graduates vary widely.

While there's strong demand in science, education and health fields, arts and humanities flounder. Median wages for those with bachelor's degrees are down from 2000, hit by technological changes that are eliminating midlevel jobs such as bank tellers. Most future job openings are projected to be in lower-skilled positions such as home health aides, who can provide personalized attention as the U.S. population ages.

Taking underemployment into consideration, the job prospects for bachelor's degree holders fell last year to the lowest level in more than a decade.
 
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Douglas

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There really needs to be a better market for careers in art history, music therapy, and literature. Someone needs to do something about this problem or we will continue to waste our most valuable resource: bright young minds.
 

Piobaire

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Are they saying it takes an undergrad degree to be a bank teller? :confused:
 

MrG

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This is what happens when too many people have college degrees.
 

why

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This is what happens when graduating from high school only requires showing up and all actual teaching happens in post-secondary school.
 

Piobaire

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From the link:

"I don't even know what I'm looking for," says Michael Bledsoe, who described months of fruitless job searches as he served customers at a Seattle coffeehouse. The 23-year-old graduated in 2010 with a creative writing degree.

Initially hopeful that his college education would create opportunities, Bledsoe languished for three months before finally taking a job as a barista, a position he has held for the last two years. In the beginning he sent three or four resumes day. But, Bledsoe said, employers questioned his lack of experience or the practical worth of his major. Now he sends a resume once every two weeks or so.

Bledsoe, currently making just above minimum wage, says he got financial help from his parents to help pay off student loans. He is now mulling whether to go to graduate school, seeing few other options to advance his career. "There is not much out there, it seems," he said.

File that under, "No ****, Sherlock."

Under the same heading:

College graduates who majored in zoology, anthropology, philosophy, art history and humanities were among the least likely to find jobs appropriate to their education level; those with nursing, teaching, accounting or computer science degrees were among the most likely.
 
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GreenFrog

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Lesson: major in economics, finance, statistics, math, computer science, any type of engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, or accounting.
 

Piobaire

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Lesson: major in economics, finance, statistics, math, computer science, any type of engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, or accounting.


Or nursing, PT, OT, ST, medicine, or a PA program.
 

dfagdfsh

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or if you major in the humanities get internships, work study and work experience, and learn how to explain your degree to prospective employers.

there's a lot of people in my grad program who are really clueless and are like 'welp I'll just be a teacher!' while I kill myself networking/setting myself up for later. and then they come up to me and are like 'how are you the adjunct advisor in the department?' 'how do you have this job?' 'how did you get that internship?' and its cause i went out there and got em! hard work.
 
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Piobaire

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or if you major in the humanities get internships, work study and work experience, and learn how to explain your degree to prospective employers.

there's a lot of people in my grad program who are really clueless and are like 'welp I'll just be a teacher!' while I kill myself networking/setting myself up for later. and then they come up to me and are like 'how are you the adjunct advisor in the department?' 'how do you have this job?' 'how did you get that internship?' and its cause i went out there and got em! hard work.


Dammit, teger, you're starting to sound like me!

:fistbump:
 

dfagdfsh

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I've always said that. I think that the humanities job placement statistics are screwed because humanities encompasses so many majors, and a lot of people 'fall' into programs like psychology or anthropology because they can't make the GPA reqs in other departments. if you work hard and make connections then you can land a job with any major.

as part of my advising job i put together a 3 day long 'career week' for my department. we had 20 speakers come in and speak about resume building, networking, etc. was really great (and is a great resume line for me). sadly very few students took advantage of it, and those who did were seniors.. and I'm sure it helped, but when you're a senior it's almost too late.
 
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Gibonius

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or if you major in the humanities get internships, work study and work experience, and learn how to explain your degree to prospective employers.
there's a lot of people in my grad program who are really clueless and are like 'welp I'll just be a teacher!' while I kill myself networking/setting myself up for later. and then they come up to me and are like 'how are you the adjunct advisor in the department?' 'how do you have this job?' 'how did you get that internship?' and its cause i went out there and got em! hard work.

I found science academics to be interesting in that regard. You spend a lot of time and energy learning how to do research, play the right games for academics, but much of that will not help you get a job. And your adviser is frequently either not interested or not knowledgeable about what you ought to be doing to get a job after graduation provided you don't want to go into academics. It makes for tough transitions for a lot of people.

My department did almost nothing to guide us into developing a network or pursuing career opportunities before graduation. The school career center did some stuff, but they don't really understand specialized markets very well. Looking back, I could have done a lot of really good stuff (internships that provided security clearances, for one) but simply had no idea they existed or would be important.

Lesson: major in economics, finance, statistics, math, computer science, any type of engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, or accounting.


While there's strong demand in science, education

I have a number of friends who are teachers in the sciences who are seriously underemployed (teaching one or two classes at community colleges). It's also not any kind of a sure deal to find a decent job in chemistry (and for damn sure not in physics) unless you had the foresight to get into a branch that's in demand. That's not at all obvious when you're trying to plan your career in the early stages. Then again, chemists have been historically very spoiled: had something like 3% unemployment for a very long time, so there was huge demand even for brand new grads. Less so right now. I assume it will recover, but it's bad timing for those of us who happen to be entering the market.

Engineering seems pretty solid, more companies are more interested in implementation than basic R&D right now so far as I can tell.
 
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Concordia

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My brother-in-law got a PhD in chemistry from one of the top universities in his field, and further appalled his lawyer father by announcing that he wanted to teach high school. He moved to the middle of nowhere in Illinois (where my sister got a job teaching undergrads with HER PhD), and found that the hiring politics in the public schools were so weird that he couldn't get work except for occasional subbing and maintaining the computer center.
 

dfagdfsh

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My brother-in-law got a PhD in chemistry from one of the top universities in his field, and further appalled his lawyer father by announcing that he wanted to teach high school. He moved to the middle of nowhere in Illinois (where my sister got a job teaching undergrads with HER PhD), and found that the hiring politics in the public schools were so weird that he couldn't get work except for occasional subbing and maintaining the computer center.


I mean, does he have a teaching degree? because simply having a PhD in chemistry doesn't mean you're licensed to teach..
 

junior varsity

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Lesson: major in economics, finance, statistics, math, computer science, any type of engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, or accounting.


:nodding:
 

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