Hold A Bachelor Degree and Need A Job? GOOD LUCK.

I had planned on attending medical school or pharmacy school to become either a doctor in the NICU or a pharmacist. However, after seeing the rise of tuition costs and the pay wages remaining steady where they have been, I had to give it second thoughts. According to The Associated Press, 1 in 2 college graduates are either underemployed or not employed at all. It has been estimated that 1.5 million bachelor’s degree holders, or 53.6 percent, under the age of 25 were jobless or underemployed last year.

There is a strong demand for employees in the science, education, and health fields, but the fields of arts and humanities tend to be much more difficult for job findings. The assumed reasoning behind this is the lesser need for employees, as we have numerous technological advances from those last 12 years. For example, banks are not in need of as many bank tellers since you can now deposit checks through the ATM at the drive thru at some banks.

I have now taken business management into consideration and, although I do not enjoy classes relating to the subject matter, I feel as though it will spark the interests of employers when looking for business managers. I also think that prior experience is a must. Many of the bachelor degree obtainers did not have much prior work experience, if any at all. Job employers and prospective employers do not wish to see this on a resume, especially with the job economy the way it is. This is, what I believe to be, a danger in children and teens and college students growing up to receive everything they wish from parents or other: iPads, iPhones, college tuition paid in full, brand new BMW for 16^th birthday, etc. First, students are not being taught a worth ethic at all and no – I do not consider a few household chores around the house as “work ethic”. Work ethic includes showing up to a job on time and being responsible. Second, I believe that this generation is being taught that life is fair and they will receive whatever they wish at the snap of their fingers. When students get into the real world after college, they begin to see that they cannot just find a job right away and not having any work experience makes it even more difficult. I have worked at a retail company for 4 years and plan on working there through college, making it 6 years, partially in a management position. I believe that this will make me a good candidate for a job someday: this experience combined with a business management degree. Another danger for students searching for jobs is the “job hoppers”. I recently spoke with a family friend about this situation and the way it looks on resumes. She responded to this by informing me that her job puts “job hoppers” into their own folder and does not even consider them. The reason for this being that if an individual has a new job every 6 months, an employer can only expect them to last that long at their company. For this reason, rather than go through the hiring process once again in 6 months, why not just go through it once and find someone who will potentially stay?

Fresh out of college, these bachelor degree holders are feeling obligated to take jobs as baristas, waters, waitresses, bartenders and cashiers just to ensure that they have at least a small source of income. College students are not making the money they need in order to pay phone bills, car insurance, gas money, and apartment rent, much less student loans. Because of this, parents have to assist their young adults in paying student loans which, in turn, causes the parents to become short on money and more cautious of their spending. This not only causes problems for the family, but also for the economy. If the parents of many students do not have enough money to buy certain things, then companies start going out of business, hereby causing more job losses, which causes even a bigger problem. Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, evaluated the number of college students with jobs and their hourly rate; in response to this, Sum said that many recently graduated college students are challenged what he calls a “double whammy”: rising tuition and poor job outcomes. On the bright end of the scale, the Southern US, anchored by Texas, was most likely to have young college graduates in higher-skill jobs! J

These statistics are based on an analysis of 2011 Current Population Survey data conducted by Northeastern University researchers, which was supplemented with material from Paul Harrington, an economist at Drexel University, and the Economic Policy Institute.

In this article, they also mention that “according to government projections released last month, only three of the 30 occupations with the largest projected number of job openings by 2020 will require a bachelor’s degree or higher to fill the position — teachers, college professors and accountants.”