<p>Harvard offers Global Heath & Health Policy as a secondary field…it’s a department led by an interdisciplinary faculty committee.</p>
<p>GPA? school? what type of engineering?</p>
<p>I know a 2011 Harvard grad who is working one day a week as a janitor. But that’s essentially by choice, and by his mom’s admitted role as a (temporary) enabler. He will likely be off to a PhD program a year from now.</p>
<p>I don’t think you can draw much conclusion from the single unemployed Harvardian here or there. My wife has had a distinguished career. She has changed jobs on average every 3-4 years, and never been unemployed for a day when she wasn’t registered as a full-time student. But in mid-June after she graduated from a college even better than Harvard, she didn’t have a job yet. That changed by July, but the jobs she took were pure stopgaps to live on while she looked for a job she actually wanted. She found that in November or so, and was off to the races.</p>
<p>More recently, and a click or two down the prestige slope from Harvard, albeit still a “good” name-brand university, my children and many of their friends graduated 1 and 3 years ago with typical “unemployable” majors. As far as I know, none of them are actually unemployed now. It took a few of the '09 graduates a long time to chisel out a place for themselves, but they did it. It took my son until the end of July to land a job, but he’s fine now, and so are all of his friends that I know about.</p>
<p>My daughter graduated from a good, but not “elite”, college last month. I asked her how her friends are doing on the employment front and she says all but one of her 20 or so “closest friends” is either employed or, like her, getting ready for grad school. The only one not to have landed a job in their field yet is a mechanical engineer who is limiting his search to the Ithaca area to be close to his fiance who will be attending grad school at Cornell.</p>
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If this slips by without comment on this website it proves my theory that nobody is reading very closely. :)</p>
<p>I caught it too, bovertine. Boola boola :)</p>
<p>I don’t think enough is being done at the college level regarding interview prep/resume presentation, etc. I know these things are offered, but from the looks of some of the resumes I’ve seen and some of the conversations I’ve had with grads about what they want to do, I can’t imagine some of them landing a job. Perhaps career search prep should be mandatory. </p>
<p>Do the tech jobs in Silicone Valley pay enough for someone to afford to relocate and live there?</p>
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LOL Cartera, are they now making digital breast implants too??
Sorry- JK. Couldnt resist.</p>
<p>My DS moved to silicon valley. He probably would not have taken the particular job he did as it offered very modest relo expenses that did not cover his costs, and the salary increase did not cover the COL increase. But he took it because it was an opportunity that fit perfectly with his skill base… and his GF had been transferred there.</p>
<p>Many of the big companies will pay relocation or a signing bonus to cover the relo costs.</p>
<p>LOL! I need to start proofing posts again, although Silicone looks perfectly fine when I glance at it.</p>
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<p>I think that you make do with whatever you can find.</p>
<p>Son was offered a position - basically at an outsourcing company - they were looking for people here to interface to US companies and then manage the work back to India. It was basically shared apartment living for the people that they hired. They would provide six to eight weeks of training.</p>
<p>This reminds me of friends that worked in Manhattan back in the 1980s - a bunch of guys lived in an apartments in very close quarters and just mainly used the apartments for sleeping at. No idea whether it was legal or not.</p>
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<p>S1 seems pretty happy with his job offer at one of the big firms. Of course, he is not looking to buy a $1M house and an expensive car in the next year, either…but he will be able to start repaying his student loans, put $$ in his 401(k) and save for a modest wedding (which he and fiancee are fully funding). Among his CS friends, at both our flagship and other private schools, CS folks with decent grades have done well for themselves. One of his colleagues has even landed a spot in academia.</p>
<p>I believe we shouldn’t generalize. </p>
<p>A student might have succeeded academically, working very hard (or not so hard!) during four years at an Ivy to achieve that goal - but not spent any time at all focusing on career-oriented extracurriculars - professional societies, clubs etc. Said student may not have tried very hard, if it all, to score “the right” internship, for whatever reason. And the academically successful “elite school” student may not have taken advantage of on-campus recruiting, job search/prep or any facet of the career center. Conversely, a student at a so-called lower tiered university might have channeled his/her energy into resume building, actively seeking help from his career center, and job searching as an undergrad - even if his/her school didn’t offer the greatest resources, and secured an amazing job based on his own initiative. It’s a choice. The doors for opportunities might be there, but a student has to choose to open them and go through. Or the opportunities may not be laying there for the taking at a particular school - but a student can actively advocate and make his/her own opportunities. It’s up to the student to make the “right” choice, be aggressive and try to make the most of what his/her university has to offer.</p>
<p>I don’t blame the university that S1 does not yet have a job one month after graduation - I blame him (and being that kind of a mother, myself). I will contradict myself however, and add that despite blaming him, I also feel that within his university the career opportunities were not geared towards his school/major. The bottom line is that he should have been more aggressive. And like HudsonValley mentioned, he also is presently limiting his search geographically, while our home area is not a hotbed of technology companies in his field, and so the opportunities at his college career fair in remote locations were not even an option in his opinion. Hopefully he will expand his parameters as he progresses with his search. </p>
<p>So to sum up a much too long & rambling post that will probably incite a lot of criticism - I am sure there are probably a lot of “elite school grads in the unemployed statistics”, (although right now it sure feels like mine is the only one), as well as from schools a notch or many notches below. I feel there a lot of contributing factors as to why a recent grad may still not be employed. and we can’t blame it on the school or generalize as to those without jobs being from a certain level of school. I wish all of the unemployed Class of 2012 luck (and persistence) in their searches, and hope they all join the ranks of the employed very soon.</p>
<p>If you go to college mainly to improve your prospects for your first job, and then find that it hasn’t helped all that much, I would say you’ve wasted four of the best years of your life. </p>
<p>However, if you go to college to prepare yourself mainly to prepare yourself for a more productive and satisfying life, then being unemployed or underemployed for a year or two or three right out of school won’t really matter all that much.</p>
<p>^^i agree with that annasdad. This would be especially true if the graduate’s desires were defined by location or industry or business. It could be “worth it” to be underemployed or to search for 6-9 months for that first job. But, having actual ‘work’ even flipping burgers or bar tending or washing dishes or waiting tables on your resume leaving college and an internship are always going to trump the name of the school with zero real world experience in my opinion. Unfortunately all too often working in a research lab or working on a EC project only works if the company or person who is interviewing you is interested in that research or project because it’s viewed as part of the education.</p>
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<p>However, long term unemployment or underemployment can significantly worsen one’s chances of moving into a job leading to a more productive and satisfying life. Employers tend to think “well, if no one else wanted to hire him/her for years, why should I even bother to interview him/her when 1000s of others with good experience are applying?”.</p>
<p>annasdad- “However, if you go to college to prepare yourself mainly to prepare yourself for a more productive and satisfying life, then being unemployed or underemployed for a year or two or three right out of school won’t really matter all that much” - THANK YOU.</p>
<p>I will try to make that my mantra when I am frustrated with S1’s situation, when I am faced with mean-spirited & judgmental people who ask what he is up to etc.</p>
<p>I thought college was supposed to be four of the best years of your life. I have 3 degrees and I could be doing my job without any of them. I wouldn’t change a thing though. I loved every minute of school. The difference is that my generation could keep going to school with little debt because fellowships were plentiful and tuition was reasonable. </p>
<p>In my job, I prepare attorneys to interview for lateral moves and, even though many of them have worked in the top firms in the country, they still often need a lot of preparation. I have to tell them what to wear, not to use too much cologne, to make eye contact, not to interrupt, etc. Who is preparing undergrads to interview for their first job?</p>
<p>ucbalum, to the extent that is true, it tends to lead to the false equation that a productive and satisfying life is defined only by what one earns. Certainly, one needs to earn enough to support oneself. But I know people who don’t earn much and are happy and productive, and I know people who earn a lot and are miserably unhappy.</p>
<p>If you can noodge him out of the geographic limits, UMMom, I still have some referrals/recommendations for him!</p>
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<p>That is an incorrect conclusion. Nowhere did I say that the job leading to a more productive and satisfying life has to be a higher paying one. Suppose two jobs pay the same, but one is something you would rather do than the other. The one you like better is the one that will be more satisfying to you, even with no improvement in pay (or even at lower pay).</p>
<p>The point is that the longer one is “away” from employment in the desired type of job, the harder it is to move into that type of job – especially if it was due to long term unemployment. Even if your dream job is not particularly high paying, it may still be extremely competitive, and someone with no employment history in the field is more likely to be left on the outside looking in when there are plenty of other applicants with employment history in the field.</p>