Grads consider options amid gloomy job market
Larissa Sapko, Stewart Bishop
Issue date: 3/26/09 Section: News
In an inhospitable working world, many Emerson students are hitting a brick wall in their job searches, and are, instead, following a national trend toward graduate school and public service.
A National Association of Colleges and Employers study showed the percent of students hired after graduation is expected to plunge 21.6 percent for the class of 2009 compared to last year. In Massachusetts, the unemployment rate, now at 7.6 percent, has risen consistently in recent months. A Northeastern University study found there are eight unemployed Bay Staters for every open job.
"I'll just work as hard as I can and try as hard as I can," senior Jessye Herrell said of her ongoing quest for post-graduation employment. "I'm a film major and there's been a lot of talk with what's going with [financing] films right now."
Applications for graduate enrollment at Emerson are up this year, and are expected to rise even higher. So far, for the school year starting in fall of 2009, Emerson's graduate admissions department has received 1433 applications for graduate admission, up from 1406 for fall of 2008 and 1383 for fall of 2007.
Kristin Burke, director of graduate admission, expects to receive roughly 100 more applications before the admission season is over. Assuming that happens, the total would reach 1533, an increase of eight percent from the previous year.
First-year graduate journalism student John Guilfoil initially declined to attend Emerson in 2007, because he'd been working full-time at The Boston Globe after graduating from Northeastern University. But as the economy began sinking, he decided to rethink attending grad school.
"It kind of makes sense to stay in school when the economy is so bad," Guilfoil said. "I had offers for jobs in both journalism and public relations and those jobs don't exist anymore. Those people have been laid off."
Graduate application rates rising tends to be a lagging indicator of a bad economy, said Stuart Heiser, manager of Governmental Relations and External Affairs for the Council of Graduate Schools, in a phone interview with The Beacon.
A National Association of Colleges and Employers study showed the percent of students hired after graduation is expected to plunge 21.6 percent for the class of 2009 compared to last year. In Massachusetts, the unemployment rate, now at 7.6 percent, has risen consistently in recent months. A Northeastern University study found there are eight unemployed Bay Staters for every open job.
"I'll just work as hard as I can and try as hard as I can," senior Jessye Herrell said of her ongoing quest for post-graduation employment. "I'm a film major and there's been a lot of talk with what's going with [financing] films right now."
Applications for graduate enrollment at Emerson are up this year, and are expected to rise even higher. So far, for the school year starting in fall of 2009, Emerson's graduate admissions department has received 1433 applications for graduate admission, up from 1406 for fall of 2008 and 1383 for fall of 2007.
Kristin Burke, director of graduate admission, expects to receive roughly 100 more applications before the admission season is over. Assuming that happens, the total would reach 1533, an increase of eight percent from the previous year.
First-year graduate journalism student John Guilfoil initially declined to attend Emerson in 2007, because he'd been working full-time at The Boston Globe after graduating from Northeastern University. But as the economy began sinking, he decided to rethink attending grad school.
"It kind of makes sense to stay in school when the economy is so bad," Guilfoil said. "I had offers for jobs in both journalism and public relations and those jobs don't exist anymore. Those people have been laid off."
Graduate application rates rising tends to be a lagging indicator of a bad economy, said Stuart Heiser, manager of Governmental Relations and External Affairs for the Council of Graduate Schools, in a phone interview with The Beacon.
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