Collegiate Times

Only slightly more than half of Virginia Tech graduates have jobs lined up before officially leaving college.

Of the 55 percent who do, the majority cannot say they will start at $52,000 immediately after graduation. However, many business information technology majors can.  

The average employment rate for the BIT department's 2005 graduating class was 80 percent, the highest for all majors in the Pamplin College of Business, according to the department's Web site. The average starting salary for the 2005-06 graduating class was the sixth highest for all majors at Tech, only trumped by four engineering majors and computer science. The university average is $45,000.

"I'm very confident in saying BIT majors go to work," said Gary Kinder, director of undergraduate career services at Pamplin. "That is not changing."

One might think that students would be knocking the doors down on the first floor of Pamplin Hall to declare a BIT major, but only 283 students were enrolled in the program last year. The numbers have continually decreased since 2001, when 817 BIT majors were enrolled.

While the numbers in the program are decreasing, employers are relentless in their desire for more BIT graduates.

"It's a problem in the sense that we serve the university and we serve the state, and we would like to put out more students because of this high demand from employers," said BIT department head Bernard Taylor. "We just have a bunch of employers in the state of Virginia who need more graduates in the IT area, and we would like to be able to accommodate them."

Taylor explained that he is not entirely sure why the enrollment has decreased, but it could he related to parents and incoming freshmen not fully understanding the IT job market.

The overall job market was on a decline from 2001 to 2003 because of the dotcom bust, and Sept. 11 only furthered the fall. Following those events, many IT jobs began to be exported to other countries such as India. This move was highly publicized.  

"Those perceptions have been hard to turn around," Taylor said. "Some of it is a lack of media attention -- a lack of exposure to the fact that there is this shortage now of IT jobs."

Students considering a BIT major shouldn't worry that the degree would send them overseas, Taylor said. The jobs that went abroad required a much lower skill set than that which Tech BIT students graduate with.

Kinder said the lack of Tech BIT students for industries to hire is part of the natural flow of all fields.  "It's just a natural part of the hiring cycle that most industries experience when it comes to recruiting," Kinder said.

During the IT boom from 1999 to 2000, it was very easy to land a high-paying job without much competition.

"If you had a basic interest in it and you were a quantitative person, that was just the way you went," Kinder said.

Now students are starting to really evaluate their skills and personalities to determine whether BIT is right for them. "Four or five years ago, we had people probably in BIT who truly didn't know what they wanted out of it," Kinder said. "(Students) may have an interest in technology, but they may not want to be turning it into their career."

Those who do turn BIT into their career typically have much success after college. Alan Abrahams, assistant professor for BIT graduate students, said he asked one of his classes which students had jobs lined up and 75 percent of the seniors raised their hands. He said the unique knowledge of a BIT major emerges from Tech attracts employers.

"Our students have the technical skills and business skills that most employers are looking for," Abrahams said.

Taylor said faculty in the department try to speak with as many upcoming freshmen as possible about BIT during orientation programs. But there's really not much else they can do.   "We're not like a company that can market ourselves by advertising," Taylor said. "Basically, we are able to indicate our needs by word of mouth. We would like for students to know that there is a lot of opportunity in this area."