San Luis Obispo, California - Many Graduates To Be Without Jobs Yet Again

Many Graduates To Be Without Jobs Yet Again

Posted: Jun 13, 2013 5:28 PM PDTUpdated: Jun 13, 2013 5:28 PM PDT

By Christian Hartnett

 

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. - Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara will be sending off thousands of graduating seniors into the real world this weekend. 

Some of them will have jobs waiting for them, but many will not.

Evan Nickel, senior at Cal Poly, says, "it was like, wow, I really made it here. This will probably be what leads me into a potential career."

That was Nickel's reaction when Warner Bros. Entertainment gave him the call to let him know that he'd gotten the job. Nickel will be involved with video game production.

Nickel worked hard in the classroom, earning a degree in Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies.

"It was a constant freakout with how I was going to get a job and how this would all play into my future," says Nickel.

Evan admits he stumbled on a bit of luck in securing a job, but his work ethic in the classroom might have had something to do with it.

"The best classes that I took were the ones that I got to choose what I was doing myself. And those were the ones that I really spent a lot of time on, 200 plus hours making a short film that was 3 minutes long," says Nickel.

While Evan's story of hard work in the classroom translating into a job after graduation is inspiring, it's not the norm. For every Evan, there's many students who graduate without a job.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers released a survey a few months back. The survey projected that employers would only hire 2 percent more graduates from the class of 2013 than last year's class.

Career services at Cal Poly has seen an increase in students using them to increase their job prospects. Their advice to young students is to seek out job-related experience over their college career.

"When you actually are adding to society, adding to a culture, getting experience, getting direct experience in what you are interested in. That's a very important and critical talking point when you interview with employers," says Carole Moore, program coordinator at Cal Poly's Career Services.

Career services at Cal Poly also says they've made it a point to reach out to freshman and sophomore students, so that they'll start looking into possible internships and jobs earlier rather than later.