Dude, where's my job?

By Morgan on January 29, 2010

Hey there! This is Morgan Noonan, junior at the University of Maryland pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Studio Art. Yes, I get asked "So what are you going to do with that?" quite a bit. I plan on becoming a medical illustrator. Booyah!

Newsflash: unemployment rates are high. And it is affecting all of us: college and high school students, recent graduates just starting out, and even experienced professionals hoping for an early retirement. Middle class, upper-middle class, working class—call it whatever you want—but the average American is lucky to have a job.

In a recent article published in Sidelines, Middle Tennessee State University’s school newspaper, the unique effect produced by such dire circumstances is explored and explained. The national unemployment rate is 10%. Apparently in Middle Tennessee that would be considered good, though, being that their unemployment has reached a staggering 33%.

The community news editor Rozalind Ruth explains in the article that, despite the acute lack of employment in the state, there has not been an increase in student job hunting. Like most schools, Middle Tennessee State has a Career Service Center, which offers the exact kind of aid a student out of work would need. They provide help with “career exploration, job searches and campus-recruitment programs, as well as the Lightning Job Source, an online database of employment opportunities.”

This sounds an awful lot like “Careers4Terps”, which is the website I turned to when I could not find a job on my campus in College Park. And clearly it worked…here I am today interning in our nation’s capital for ThinkTalk—an opportunity I never would have known about otherwise. The University of Maryland’s Career Center “serves as a world class career and experiential learning center that teaches individuals to understand and use the career development process as they seek local, national, and global employment opportunities. Through collaborative and innovative programs and services, UCC empowers students to become contributing members of society.” Sounds great—assuming you actually use it.

This is where the real troubling news comes in…people are giving up looking for jobs. Current students and recent graduates that are ready, willing, and able to put their education to good use are calling it quits. The students at MTSU are not taking advantage of the resources available to them. Participation in job fairs is down instead of up.

I’ll admit, I don’t bother going to the job fairs at UMD, but that’s only because they never have any realistic potential employers for the likes of me. Art majors are a special breed, though. All you students with normal career aspirations need to start going out there and networking. As my ultimate hero and life’s inspiration Leonardo DaVinci once said, "People of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things."