On the Career Carousel
College students prepare for life after graduation
by Paul Gleason
Mary Ellen Stebbins ’08 studied classics and linguistics for four years in college, but what she enjoyed most was designing lighting for plays. In her senior year she decided to turn that hobby into a career, and applied for an internship at Harvard’s American Repertory Theatre, and to the master’s program in lighting design at Boston University (BU). But, she hastens to add, eventually she plans to pursue a doctoral degree in archaeology. And oh, she’d also like to work with kids. “I’m not the kind of person who doesn’t know what she wants to do,” she protests. “I just happen to want to do too many things.”
Photograph by Stu Rosner
Mary Ellen Stebbins sits under the lights in the New College Theatre.
The good news for Stebbins and other Harvard seniors is that she will have ample opportunities to explore, regardless of her chosen field. According to Philip Gardner, director of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University, the job market for new college graduates, which dipped alarmingly after the dot-com bust in 2001, has grown steadily since. Even this year, amid fears of a recession, Gardner’s annual survey found that companies were planning to hire 7 percent more new graduates this year than last. “The real thing that’s keeping the college labor market above water is retirement,” he says. Companies are scrambling to hire and train new workers before the baby boomers exit the workforce. Firms with more than 3,900 employees are doing the bulk of the hiring, with plans to take on 9 percent more bachelor’s-degree-holders in 2008. Firms with fewer than 100 employees are also eager to land newly minted graduates: their hiring rose by 12 percent.
In general, most Harvard seniors (55 to 65 percent) during the last decade have expected to work at a job soon after leaving the College, although a quarter of the class enrolls in graduate or professional schools instead, according to annual surveys conducted by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The balance of young alumni report that they plan to do volunteer work, travel, join the military—or admit they don’t quite know what’s next.
Last year, the Crimson probed more deeply, asking the class of 2007 where they would work. Fifty-five percent of seniors responded. Of those, 58 percent of the men, and 43 percent of the women, reported plans to enter the financial world, gravitating toward high-paying jobs with investment banks or consulting firms. (The respondents based their answers on plans, not definite work offers.)
1 | 2 | continued >
