Job Outlook

This past spring, there seemed to have been a lot more articles about overwhelming student debt rather than the outlook for 2012 college grads.  The job outlook for them was a bit better but it's still tough and even tougher for 2010 and 2011 graduates.  It seems most people would rather have a new model than one that's been sitting on the used car lot for a year or more.

Recently a financial analyst appearing on a Fox Business Network show said that engineering is the only discipline with full employment even in this bad economy.  The U.S. has 300 colleges/universities that have engineering programs.  India, on the other hand has 3400. So India, with roughly four times the population of the United States, has over TEN times the number of engineering programs.  That's not to say that everyone should or could become an engineer but, with it being possible rather than probable that grads will land a job quickly, it's even more important that you consider the cost of your education and how you will cover it.

According to the Wall Street Journal of April 28-29, 2012, college graduates' earnings have fallen in the past decade about 15% and the average college debt has risen by 24%.  Many articles have been written in recent months as to how students can navigate and mitigate this debt.  Karen Blumenthal has written two interesting articles on this topic for the Journal - "The Student Debt Handbook",  April 21-22, 2012 and "Help for Student Borrowers",  August 11-12, 2012.  Both are worth a read.

One sure-fire way to avoid the pitfall of overwhelming debt is to know not only how much you must spend to afford a specific college but to know how much you can spend.  In the next post of 11/14 I'll discuss college cost calculators.

Wishing Will NOT Make It So!

Each time I began a career exploration segment with my students, I would start with a disclaimer to the worn out cliche, "You can be whatever you want to be".  One of the most important aspects of what you need to do when deciding what you "want to be" is an assessment of your talents and determination.  I would use the example with my kids that I may have wanted to be an Olympic figure skater or a concert pianist.  However, having never taken  a lesson and having had no desire to awaken at 4:00 a.m. for a morning practice at the rink nor to practice for hours on end to master "Frere Jacques",  that ship had sailed.  I like the old Army ad slogan, "Be all that you can be".  That phrase recognizes that you need to assess your potential and work to realize it.

One of the main goals in writing this blog is to help students find ways to assess their individual interests and abilities and explore career options that might suit them.  If you followed my posts and researched topics in the archives, you have an arsenal of tools with which to work.  Since I have already outlined a pretty complete approach to the process, I will spend future posts to delve deeper into subjects and highlight current approaches, books, tools and topics that might be of assistance.  In the past I published a post every other Wednesday.  In an effort not to be redundant, I will now post every third Wednesday.  The next post will appear on Wednesday, October 24.