Poll: Job placement higher for recent grads

With an economy rocked by debt and a competitive workforce advocating specific job interest areas, college graduates' main worries center on job placement.

However, according to a CNN News article recently published, seven out of 10 college graduates are reported to have found a job upon entering the workforce. Out of the 64 percent of the workforce currently employed full time, 73 percent are college graduates and 57 percent are people between the ages of 18 and 29.

Dr. Sheri Dressler, the director of the UCF Office of Experiential Learning, commented on the benefits of attaining a college degree.

"When hiring personnel are asked what they look for when they set about to hire new people, they make an assumption that the discipline-related information is going to be there, that people have the background to actually do the job," Dressler said. "Employers are looking not only for discipline-related abilities, [but] they are looking for professional skills as well. Students in college have an opportunity to develop both the discipline-related information through their college courses and experiential learning courses in support of their degree programs."

A CNN Money article listed specific job areas, such as business, technology and medical fields, in its top 20 "Best Jobs in America for Fast Growth" list with software development, physical therapy and financial advising as its top-three placement areas.

Through this growing tendency within the work industry to focus on more technical-based fields, college students' focuses are also changing, according to the UCF Office of Institutional Research website.

Over the course of four years, student enrollment has increased in the College of Engineering and Computer Science by 1,273 students, the College of Sciences by 2,489 students and the College of Health and Public Affairs by 965 students.

In contrast, enrollment in the College of Education has only increased by 417 students, and the enrollment for the College of Business Administration has actually decreased by 295 students.

Within Florida specifically, Gov. Rick Scott's address at the Florida Governor's Conference on Tourism in September indicated that funding for liberal arts programs may be cut in favor of science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs.

Junior accounting major Lateresa Hinson said she recently switched majors in order to accommodate this growing trend.

"I just switched my major from sign language, and that's not a demanding field right now," Hinson said. "Business is in more demand; people are becoming entrepreneurs with their own ideas, [but] I see more increase with nursing fields than business."

Sophomore Bradley Hankin also recently switched majors from engineering to economics. He said his decision to switch was an epiphany. He said engineering, though proven more successful in terms of salary and placement within the workforce, was not as fulfilling as he expected it to be.

"I loved math in high school, but I was studying and I [realized] I hate this, I hate all of it," Hankin said. "I didn't see myself getting anything out of it."

Georgetown University conducted a study back in May connecting certain majors with their actual "economic value," labeling certain fields as more productive and conducive to a successful career within the workforce.

An MSNBC article covering this study showed that the fields with little to no unemployment were, at the time, geological and geophysical engineering, military technologies, pharmacology and school student counseling; in contrast, social psychology and educational administration and supervision were the fields with the highest rate of unemployment.

Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce and author of What It's Worth: The Economic Value of College Majors, said that a student's major was just as important, if not more so, than the college degree itself.

"It's important that you go to college and get a [bachelor's degree], but it's almost three to four times more important what you take," Carnevale said in the MSNBC interview. "The majors that are most popular are not the ones that make the most money."

Hankin offered another view toward receiving a college education.

"I do agree that you need an education, but it isn't the end-all, be-all in my opinion," Hankin said. "You definitely need a degree. You learn a lot in school, you learn the foundation. But people skills take you very far in the business world and on-the-job experience. Yeah, they teach you all these things, but realistically, how much do you really remember when you get out of school?"

Dressler said she thinks the outcome for the college graduate in both the workforce and economy looks promising.