NYU should stand for "Now You're Unemployed"

<p>My friend just graduated this year from NYU and has consistently failed to find a job. She has a really high GPA, and has been involved since freshman year. Yet, she is unable to find a job up until this day. What is really going on with colleges these days?</p>

<p>It’s not NYU’s fault. What’s going on is that the economy is horrible, the worst that it has been in more than 20 years. If your friend wants a job, she probably needs to be open to a variety of possibilities including temporary office work and moving to North Dakota. </p>

<p>"NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) – Need a job? Move to North Dakota.</p>

<p>In May, the state tied for the lowest unemployment rate in the nation – a mere 4.4% – and added 3,000 jobs over the past month. Only Nebraska had as low a rate.</p>

<p>The national unemployment rate rose to a 26-year high of 9.4% in May.</p>

<p>Labor experts attribute the state’s good fortune to its diverse range of industries. All sectors are seeing growth, even the oil industry, which had contracted quite a bit after last year’s price spike. Mining, construction and agriculture have all experienced double-digit employment growth since 2000. Health care and transportation are also key industries.</p>

<p>“We’ve quietly been doing well,” said Michael Ziesch, research analyst at Job Service North Dakota, the state’s employment services department. “We don’t have the highs and we don’t have the lows. It’s just the conservative nature of North Dakota.”
[North</a> Dakota: Where the jobs are - Jun. 19, 2009](<a href=“http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/19/news/economy/Jobs_in_North_Dakota/index.htm]North”>North Dakota: Where the jobs are - Jun. 19, 2009)</p>

<p>Northstarmom, I know GPA counts a lot but and no job is guaranteed post-graduation but are there majors in which you will almost always find a job? Should students just ditch the “Pursue what you love” thing and go for a job-guaranteed major?</p>

<p>I personally think that students should pursue what they love while also doing what they can to get the skills and experience to find a job that they will enjoy. This means that students need to start using their career services office early – soph year isn’t too early, and they also need to talk to people in their field of choice to find out what the students need to do in college to get jobs in their field of choice or jobs that use skills that they learned in their majors.</p>

<p>GPA often isn’t as important in getting many jobs as is having certain skills and experiences. For at least 10 years, most employers have not chosen to hire college grads who lack job experience, which can include unpaid internship experiences in their field. Often having a solid unpaid or paid internship after junior year is the ticket to getting a post senior year internship, and those post senior year internships are how employers see if a person should be hired.</p>

<p>Students also need to start getting contacts and networking early. This includes connecting with alum, going to job fairs, etc.</p>

<p>I used to recruit for the journalism field, including for a Fortune 500 media company. Experience – published articles, edited film, etc. – was far more important than was students’ gpas. Low gpa students with strong portfolios were routinely hired over high gpa students who lacked experience in the field.</p>

<p>While I didn’t hire students for PR jobs, I saw students with low gpas, but lots of experience doing things like event planning for campus organizations (for example being the main organizer of campus wide dance marathons and similar projects) getting wonderful jobs while students with high gpas, no experience, weren’t offered jobs at all.</p>

<p>For jobs in politics such as being aides to political officials, students with SGA experience or students who had volunteered with the officials’ campaigns were hired over students with high gpas in political science and no EC or political volunteering experiences.</p>

<p>I’m sure there are fields in which having a high gpa is a strong asset, but from what I’ve seen, having some kind of work or related EC experience also is important in terms of getting hired.</p>

<p>Are you really blaming the university? Right now, there is something like 6 applicants for every one job (more here in Detroit where I am). Your child is fresh out of college, competing with people who have decades of work experience. The one with work experience is going to get the job over the fresh college grad.</p>

<p>There are no longer majors where you will always find a job. Not in this economy.</p>

<p>How does this have anything to do with NYU? All college graduates are having the same problem… Blame the economy, not the institution.</p>

<p>like 20% of the college class of '09 graduated with a job. college grads have been screwed over for the past year or so.</p>

<p>I know people who graduated from ivies working in Barnes & Noble and at Walgreens right now…Having a “high gpa” and “great EC’s!” matters if you’re a HS kid trying to get into college. Don’t see why it would make a big difference if you’re a college grad looking for a job. The only major I can think of which insures a job is Nursing (shortage of nurses in the country) and possibly engineering/compsci. </p>

<p>also, I go to nyu and know it has terrible financial aid, and I know half a dozen students graduating this year with $80k-120k in debt, and they have degrees in Theatre and the like…I’m guessing your friend has loans to pay off as well? Also, has she considered getting an internship or doing Americorps?</p>

<p>What was her major? Certain majors need to understand that it is going to be an uphill battle at best, especially if they want to get a job with just their bachelors. I don’t think that students should study what they love if they don’t plan on getting a masters in it and then teaching it or something, unless they happen to love something that is likely to get them a job. I’m not saying major in something you hate. Major in something you like and could see yourself doing for the rest of your life, AND that lends itself to a job. If you can’t find anything like that take a little time off college if you need to to figure out what kind of job you want. I agree with nstar about experience though. Most recruiters have a GPA cut-off and if you’re above that it really doesn’t matter what your GPA is that much. A 3.9 is very rarely any better than a 3.5 to a job recruiter.</p>

<p>Its not the university’s fault. Tons of recent grads are jobless, which is why after I graduate I’m going back to school. I don’t think a bachelors degrees is that great nowadays, especially in this economy.</p>

<p>My older daughter graduated in 2007 from a prestigous university. With the exception of her friends who went into investment banking or are in grad school as she is, only one of her friends has been able to secure a full-time job with a company that offers benefits such as health insurance. Most are underemployed in short-term temp assignments or paid internships that do not amount to full-time employment. We have a relative who is 28 who was laid off earlier this year as his company turned his salaried position with benefits into internship without benefits. There is no easy answer and I don’t see any near turnaround. My own company laid off thirty plus people last winter, mostly young, entry-level positions and so far has hired only one person back. I work in reference publishing-print, online and e-book.</p>

<p>Maybe your friend is bad at interviewing; usually your GPA and ECs can only get you as far as the interview room, and the rest is up to you.</p>

<p>The only majors that pretty much always get jobs are engineering and accounting (and probably finance). We always need accountants, and we always need to invent things. Not to mention people with engineering degrees often go into fields other than engineering (mainly management) because that degree shows they can be trained to do something and do it somewhat well.</p>

<p>If you major in something like Queer Studies you can still make a living with something having to do with it, but you gotta know it’ll be a lot harder.</p>

<p>Queer Studies? That’s a new one on me.</p>

<p>“The only major I can think of which insures a job is Nursing (shortage of nurses in the country) and possibly engineering/compsci.”</p>

<p>I think Math, Physics, Chem, Econ, Stats, and Informatics/Information seem to do a pretty good job too… I don’t really feel bad for anyone who decided to major in Literature and now can’t a job.</p>

<p>@VeryHappy it exists at UC Berkeley.</p>

<p>@Qwerty - Nah, math, physics, chem, econ, are all liberal arts majors as opposed to things like engineering, nursing, architecture, comp sci, and informatics which are pre-professional and lead directly to jobs. math/sci majors do have better luck finding jobs than other liberal arts majors, but it’s not like those degrees train you for specific careers. I’m double majoring in chem and neural sci and I know upperclassmen in those majors graduating this year who will have trouble finding jobs (although, they will be better off than the lit students like you implied).</p>

<p>nursing has got to be the best degee to be graduating with right now. it’s a pre-professional program that teaches you an important skillset and there is a need for that job everywhere in the country, a shortage of nurses, and we’ll need even more nurses as the baby boomers age and die off. Maybe your friend should have gone to NYU Nursing School. :slight_smile: engineering is more limiting in terms of location, I think, but another good major to be graduating with now. Not that I think people should pick majors based on that, but don’t complain when you can’t find a job in this economy.</p>

<p>“like 20% of the college class of '09 graduated with a job. college grads have been screwed over for the past year or so.”</p>

<p>People who lack college degrees are probably having an even harder time getting jobs because college graduates are taking jobs that used to be happy to take high school graduates. There are plenty of college graduates now supporting themselves by being waiters and doing similar jobs.</p>

<p>If it wasn’t for those sadists at NYU’s Department of Unemployment the unemployment rate wouldn’t be so high and more people could get jobs. The university should be shut down by force or the Dean of Joblessness and Poverty should be asked to step down and dissolve his position.</p>

<p>Nursing, Accounting, Engineering, Pharmacy (grad), and other pre-professional majors are the best options for employment in this economy.</p>

<p>It’s the economy, not the school, that’s the problem. Many of my friends graduating from at top 10 business school are having difficulty finding full-time employment. They have stellar GPA’s and many have completed multiple internships, but the job’s just aren’t there. </p>

<p>In this economy, even Ivy League students are taking a hit, as posters mentioned above, but the effect is much more dramatic down the ranking ladder. </p>

<p>The best prospects right now come from having a demanded pre-professional major, excelling in quant heavy disciplines at a top institution, and from connections. </p>

<p>Bad part is that NYU costs a pretty penny.</p>

<p>Yeah engineering is a bit limiting in terms of location, but thankfully the locations you’re limited to are damn nice. </p>

<p>The best bet for people with… less in-demand majors would be to work somewhere part-time during college and stick with it. Get to a position like assistant manager. It might not have anything to do with Russian Literature but it’ll show you can be trusted with more and more responsibilities. Not to mention you’ll probably be able to get some killer letters of recommendation from your bosses.</p>