Finding a Job After Graduation Dependent Upon College Major

This is not good news for the college class of 2012. According to an article on USAToday.com, college graduates who have their bachelor’s degrees are having a harder time finding jobs, and many are accepting lower-wage jobs, such as serving jobs in restaurants and receptionists in business offices.
However, it’s not every college graduate who is suffering due to this poor job economy. There are some who are still doing just fine. Students who majored in education, health, and science are finding jobs, but those who studied arts or humanities are having a hard time. This problem could also be because these students have not studied for a career, per se, like those who have majored in science, education, or health are more likely to have done.
“I don’t even know what I’m looking for,” said Michael Bledsoe. Bledsoe graduated in 2010 with a degree in creative writing. Since then, he has been working at a coffee shop as a barista because his college degree did not open up all the doors he thought it would. After two years without any results from his numerous job applications, Bledsoe is considering attending graduate school as his next step in the job-hunting process. “There is not much out there [with his current level of education], it seems.”
It appears that the decisions Bledsoe and many recent college graduates made when they were younger concerning where to go to school and what to study have not turned out as well as they might have hoped.
“You can make more money on average if you go to college, but it’s not true for everybody,” said Richard Freeman, an economist at Harvard. “If you’re not sure what you’re going to be doing, it probably bodes well to take some job, if you can get one, and get a sense first of what you want from college.”
If you have recently graduated from college and want to find a job, there are some areas in the U.S. that are best for young graduates. Texas and the Southern states had the highest percentage of employed graduates in higher-paying jobs. However, states along the Pacific Coast – like California, Oregon, and Washington – and in the southeast – like Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee – were less likely to have recent graduates in higher-paying jobs.
See Also:
Many College Graduates Don’t Feel Pressured to Grow-Up and Settle Down
Architecture Majors Hit Hardest by Unemployment
Graduates Beware: Worst Places to Live in the USA