By Carrie Spitler
What are your plans after graduation?
“I’m just bartending, straight up,” laughed UC Santa Cruz alumnus Marc Keirns.
Keirns, who graduated last year with a degree in history and a minor in philosophy, is just one of many students who have yet to begin a career search after college. He wants to be an educator, but can’t afford to become a full-time substitute teacher because the income can’t compete with what he makes at his five-days-a-week bartending job.
Keirns sees two common outcomes after graduation.
“One: you graduate and unfortunately move back in with your parents, or two: you maintain the job you had during college for a year and relax,” Keirns said.
But neither of these options immediately lead to the well-paying and rewarding job that many students expect to land after attending a four-year university.
Another student, Megan Ryan, agrees and says that her future is uncertain.
“Being a biology major does not guarantee me a job at all,” said Ryan, a fourth-year who dreads her graduation in June.
Ryan is facing a reality that many other college students across the United States grapple with: that an undergraduate degree may no longer pull as much weight in a fluctuating job market as it once did. In many eyes, a bachelor’s degree carries a similar amount of importance as a high school diploma once did. In today’s world, a B.A. or B.S. has become a standard requirement for any satisfactory job.
Insufficient career and graduate advising for several departments, in particular, is a concern many UCSC students have. Ryan, for instance, plans on attending medical school, but says there are far too few advisors to help her achieve her career goals.
Although Ryan is not a health science major, she uses that department’s advisors more than her own because she finds them more helpful.
“[The health science advisors] give me advice about the application process for medical school, what classes to take, and which medical schools to apply to,” Ryan said.
Ryan will be taking the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) this spring and is planning to take a year off to gain experience in the medical field by shadowing a doctor or taking First Responder classes, which are necessary to become an Emergency Medical Technician.
Ryan’s major has become increasingly popular and impacted, partly due to a flow of grant money toward the hard sciences at UCSC. However, in light of the growing interest in the science departments, many Humanities fields are seeing funding reductions and program cuts.
UCSC writing lecturer Leslie Lopez has witnessed the changing dynamics of the Humanities department over the past few years and points out a slow but deliberate reduction of some of the majors considered more ‘vocational.’
“The former dean of Humanities did not feel the UC should be putting money into a communication and rhetoric minor or into upper division writing classes,” Lopez said.
Funding in the writing department was transferred to literature, women’s studies and history—courses considered more academically rigorous.
But Lopez argues that humanities courses teach students practical skills needed to become a competitive and qualified employee, and that the American education system is not adequately preparing students for the real world.
“I feel strongly that the public [high] schools are not doing a very good job with students to meet obligations to polish their skills as citizens and workers, and I believe that continues on to the undergraduate level,” Lopez said.
Some majors and programs are more prone to attracting job recruiters than others. The accounting series in the Business Management department, for instance, has seen large firms, including KPMG and Price Waterhouse Cooper, actively recruit UCSC students—making accounting a very popular major.
“At UCSC I’ve learned a lot of economic theory and feel I’m getting both practical and theoretical knowledge,” said William Umoff, a fourth-year business management and economics (BME) major.
Umoff hopes to either work at a tech, consulting, or finance company after he graduates in June and would eventually like to run his own business. While he believes his money has been well spent at UCSC, he expected local tech recruiters like Google and other Silicon Valley companies to express more interest in BME students.
“I feel like, recruiting-wise, all the other business fields besides accounting just aren’t adequate,” Umoff said. Umoff believes that his department isn’t directing him effectively, and that to be successful means being independently driven and seeking out opportunities.
One of the resources for students to figure out how to best utilize their skills and strengths is the Career Center. Not only does the Career Center help students find jobs, they also offer support in finding internships and provide career assessment tests and workshops.
“The workshops we offer every quarter include how to select an internship, resume and cover letter writing, job interviewing techniques and mock interviews,” career advisor Joan Walker said.
The center has also designed advising sheets that suggest certain career paths for specific majors, but Walker believes the Career Center’s most important and underutilized resource is the Career Advice Network. The network connects students with up to 400 alumni in various fields.
“Some alumni are actually willing to have you come out and do an internship with them,” Walker said. “Some of them will ask for your resume and see if anything comes up in their company and refer you to their hiring manager.”
These connections, combined with on-campus recruitment, prove that networking can be a large part of getting a desired job.
Career advisors from California State Universities offer career support to their students as well.
“We have a variety of programs set up specifically to assist students on the internship and career levels,” San Jose State University (SJSU) career advisor Irene Peck said.
As Peck pointed out, a California State education can be just as effective as a UC education, and perhaps more so: state universities offer classes in more focused fields such as nursing and education. While the career center at SJSU has similar workshops and resources that are similar to UCSC, tuition is much lower.
Before each SJSU job fair, Peck takes the time to teach students how to utilize their opportunities at SJSU. Grad students are also able to attend these fairs and use most of the Career Center’s resources. SJSU advisors have also set up a workshop specifically for SJSU alumni.
“There is something called a Grad Blast for people who have graduated and need help in getting a job,” Peck said. These types of resources can help students find direction and confidence in the somewhat intimidating career search.
UCSC has cancelled its spring job fair this quarter because of past military recruitment protests.
The Internet also represents a highly useful tool in the search for jobs and networking. About.com, for instance, is a search engine that covers everything from hobbies to news to giving career advice. It employs professional career advisors who are used to answering anxious students’ occupational questions.
“If there is a book that addresses someone’s particular issue, I will recommend it,” said an About.com associate who requested anonymity. “I often send [students] to articles I have written or to other resources on the Internet.”
The associate emphasized that networking, summer jobs, work experience, internships, and extracurricular activities can make someone with a degree a more attractive job candidate.
While humanities may not lead directly to jobs the way that business and economics do, having a flexible liberal arts degree can leave a student with several options, making it easier to find a job which they are qualified for. Once a student gets their first job, many find that grades and majors become irrelevant.
Quite often, people—like recent UCSC graduate Jolinda Weston, who double majored in legal studies and philosophy—find themselves pursuing a job in a field completely unrelated to their majors.
“I really found that I preferred working at the (Science & Engineering) Library to being in class,” Weston said.
Weston is now motivated to become a law librarian. She recently moved back to her home in Fresno and is still searching for her dream job.
“I’ve gone on two job interviews this week,” Weston said. “While part of me just wants any job, the other half wants to hold out for better money.”
Matthew Crowell, a 1987 anthropology graduate, works for Starbucks as an accounting supervisor. He has found that, despite not having a plan after college, his degree at UCSC was valuable.
“I know anthropology helped me a lot because I am able to communicate with a lot of people,” Crowell said. “I did a lot of writing and reading and participated in discussions. It really helped me gain confidence for future jobs.”
Before he left UCSC, Crowell enlisted the help of his career advisor and Japanese language teacher to land a job teaching English in Japan. While in Japan, he concluded that being flexible was the most effective way for him to come back to the United States and find a job.
Once Crowell returned, he started working at the bottom of a San Francisco-based company and over time worked his way into a managerial position. He eventually moved to Seattle, and attributes much of his success to the skills he learned as an anthropology student in college.
“I used to hire people and you can basically teach anyone anything,” Crowell said. “But you can’t teach people to get along with other people and anthropology really helped me with that.”
