How are the job searches coming along for grads from May? What is the climate like out there? At the suggestion of his professors, my DS is going to pursue a grad school assistantship. As most of those deadlines are 2/1, he will have to wait until next year so in the meantime is going to start another summer internship search. Hope there are some out there for recent grads. 
The nephew I had mentioned a couple pages back (finance major, no directly applicable work experience), I am happy to say, found a job in October and is gainfully employed. He was hired by a SF area startup on a trial basis along with two others and they kept only him.
D graduated in December with the least marketable STEM degree, a BS in Zoology, and is home and just starting to figure out what to do with herself. Her good friend also graduated in December, Environmental Science and English, is in the same boat. All the talk of low unemployment does not seem to have filtered down to job offers for new grads not in engineering.
My son is just finishing up after a college transfer midstream cost him credits, but he did say of all his engineering buds that made it out in 4 years, the ChemEs are struggling the most to find (good) jobs.
My sonās experience has been that employers want experience and donāt care for and about the recent grads.
He graduated with a degree in Interactive Multimedia and has tried finding a job as a web designer.
I posted previously about the coding boot camp. He made a decision to go ahead and do it instead of banging his head against the proverbial wall of employers who require a laundry list of skills and 5 years of experience for an entry level job.
Thankfully, he is currently working in the field but not where he can really learn a lot.
^Yes. Most ChemE jobs are high paying, but seem hard to get and are often in remote locations since that is where factories etc. are usually located at.
Am I allowed to start stressing now about my spring 2018 graduate?
Yup. Good ChemE jobs are located not in very glamorous places.
@sciencenerd, it seems to me that the position most requesting a ChemE degree is called āProcess Engineerāā¦I have no idea what that is, but I did relay to my son to relay to his ChemE graduate friends. But yes, I agree, many engineering positions and not just ChemE will end up in a manufacturing settingā¦some in an office HQ type setting and some in the plant settings. Mine is a Civil Engineer so heās had alot of field work with his internships and heās had to get a bunch of certifications along the way to do state and fed. field work with his internships.
My D graduated in June and found a job in October. She is a non STEM major and is working for a marketing firm. The company has a lot of young people and a lot of fun perks like wine Wednesday. She is making enough to support herself in our high cost city and put a bit away each month. She is looking at taking a web design or Photoshop class in the spring quarter that her company will pay for. She sees room for growth in the company and just received a very good 3 month review.
It took my cousinās S more than a year and a half to get a Chem E job after graduating. He just relocated and started working this month.
My relative graduated Spring 2017. He ārestedā over the summer and started job hunting unsuccessfully afterwards for several months. Heās a math/chem double major.
He eventually was offered an interview at elementary school a relative teaches at for part time keyboarding instructor and was hired to start right after his interview.
His parents were very stressed and concerned that he wasnāt getting any job offers and wasnāt interested in grad school at the time.
DD is in her final semester with UG, double major civil and architectural engineering. Lit a bit of a fire under her on how to find the jobs. She had not darkened her Career Planning and Placement Center at college to see who was hiring students (or at least interviewing) in her majors - I suspect she has done so before last weekend and started getting her information out there, with job applications to openings with various companies. DD is very competitive and is very motivated to land a job ASAP. Will be relieved when she lands the jobā¦
My Civ-E son just graduated in December.
He worked an internship the summer after his freshman year, a co-op beginning his 2nd year and stayed on an additional summer with that company, then worked an additional internship after his final full year (he took 9 semesters to graduate).
He liked some things about his final internship and didnāt like some others, but he had a strong advocate there that had the managers redesign the position to fit his background and interests and all but guaranteed him the position theyād created before he left last August.
However they wouldnāt put a firm offer with salary together until after they received proof of his degree. It took a couple weeks after his graduation for the degree to appear on his transcript, so weāre thinking they probably just received it last week and hoping that heāll get a firm offer soon.
Currently heās back there working in the new position, but still as an intern with his intern salary and still waiting for the firm offer as a graduate. I think since heās got a strong advocate there and the position was created for him that he does have some leverage to negotiate if he does get a low offer.
But as heās currently living back at my house (since the job is only about 30 miles away), Iām REALLY eager for him to get the offer and salary that should come with it.
Iād encourage your son not to put all his eggs in one basket and look for and apply to other positions as well, @jrcsmom. Good luck to him!
9 school semesters, or 8 school semesters and 1 co-op semester?
9 school semesters + 2 co-op semesters (and a summer co-op term)
(In addition to the summer co-op term he worked 3 additional summers - an internship after his first year of classes, an additional summer with the co-op company (a second summer), and the internship after his final full year of classes that he returned to after graduation)
He graduated 5.5 years after he started classes
While the 5.5 calendar years to graduation looks bad (including in graduation rate numbers of the college), the 9 school semesters is equivalent to 4.5 calendar years for someone who did not take any co-ops or other time off school. So that is another reason to be careful with making assumptions from 4/5/6 year graduation rates. You probably know this, but there seem to be many posters who view 4/5/6 year graduation rates as an unclouded measure of a collegeās quality.
Posting this here for life science majors in the Seattle area looking to secure an internship:
http://www.lifesciencewa.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1069357
āYup. Good ChemE jobs are located not in very glamorous places.ā
This has the advantage of having jobs in ārelativelyā low cost areas. It may be a reason that Chem Es are paid a bit more since they have to have incentives to live in unglamorous areas. Since my D is a Chem E I know a lot of Chem E students. Most of them live in rural areas near bodies of water.
From what anecdotal evidence I can see having a coop is definite advantage for a Chem E student. Most of the students my D cooped with (including my D) have good paying jobs or have them lined up. When my D went for her interview they asked her little about her degree but questioned her most about her work experience. She is not working for the company she cooped with.
My brother could use a little fairy dust. I came here to read some good news and renew hope.