Are Maryland students stressed about their career prospects after graduation?
According to the Huffington Post, college debt and joblessness is still a problem for many college students, reporting that 45 percent of newly graduated college students are working in jobs that don’t require a degree and the average student is carrying around $35,000 worth of debt, $2,000 more than a 2014 graduate. The artcile also detailed that community college students can fare better than bachelor’s degree students because the skills they are gaining are immediately valuable to them in the workplace.
“The current climate is very competitive still,” said Delaney Leathers, a junior biology major. “I feel like I should have gotten more experience in my research area, or at least in my field. I at least should have gotten an internship when I was younger.”
According to the University of Maryland’s careers survey, 13,661 students out of the 19,530 responders are doing something in their graduate life that was their first choice.
“Grades, depending on the extra curricula, can be more important for gaining employment,” Leathers said. “Although, it depends on the curricula. If you’re playing Quidditch that isn’t exactly going to help.”
Courtney Deena, a junior American studies major plans on going to law school after graduation. “The type of law that I want to do has a lot of opportunities, it’s just a matter of finding them,” she said.
The top hiring state for Maryland students, according to the careers department survey, is, unsurprisingly, Maryland. The networks and links to the local area seem to pay off in graduate employment opportunities. Additionally, 60 percent of Maryland graduates accept a job within a year of graduating again according to the careers survey.
“I think getting jobs all depends on how you set yourself up.” Deena said. “For me always talking to people in the field I want to go into really helps and I don’t worry too much. For other people who haven’t made those relationships and gone out of their way to network, I think it could be a lot more difficult.”
According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, the employment rate is higher for those with a higher educational attainment, which is the contrary to the Huffington Post report. Furthermore, the statistics say that employment rates were generally higher for males than females at each level of educational attainment in 2014. Additionally, the employment rate of young males 20 to 24 years old was higher than that of young females with the same level of education.
So ladies, it seems that the grades you get might not guarantee you the job over your male counterparts, but the more extracurriculars you can get and the more networking you do will definitely put you in a good position to get the job you want!
Promisingly, according to the Maryland careers survey, 72 percent of Maryland students are obtaining their first choice graduate option. And, a further 66 percent of these students are doing something that is directly related to their undergraduate field of study.
So with the appropriate experience, network, some decent grades and extracurricular activities under your belt, the post-graduate world shouldn’t be such a terrifying thought.