Collegiate Times

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 20 percent of graduates who applied for a job in 2009 got one.

“Accounting, finance and business information technology are about as recession-proof as it gets,” said Gary Kinder, the director of undergraduate Career Services for Pamplin College of Business.

He explained that each of these majors provides a specific set of skills that are fundamental to a capitalist economy, so they will always be in demand.

Carolyn Rude, English department chair, rejected the notion of a recession-proof major. She said classifying a major as recession-proof would be “overly simplistic,” and it would ignore the multitude of variables that factor into whether or not someone is suitable for a job.

Steve Canale, manager of recruiting and staffing for General Electric Co., puts Virginia Tech in the same category as Cornell, Notre Dame and Purdue when it comes to recruiting students. According to the Post-Graduation Report from Career Services, GE is the No. 1 employer for Tech students.

GE is always looking for graduates in the fields of aeronautical, chemical, electrical and mechanical engineers. It also recruits graduates of Pamplin with degrees in finance, economics, math, sales and marketing.

In an uneasy economy, students graduating with an engineering degree average a $60,000 annual salary, which continues to rise. Students from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences average an annual salary of $40,750, which continues to fall.

“If you follow the stimulus money and look at what (President Barack) Obama is directing, one of the things they are trying to do is make electric power grids more reliable,” said Lynn Nystrom, director of news and external relations for the College of Engineering. “That takes engineers.” Lynn Nystrom also serves as a faculty adviser for the Collegiate Times.

Energy and new forms of fuel are big concerns, and that requires chemists and engineers. Chemists
average a starting salary of about $37,000.

Tech is the third largest producer of engineers in the country and 14th in the country overall for the quality of the undergraduate program.

This makes Tech one of the first places for employers to look, and it also makes the salaries of the graduating students range higher than those of students graduating from most other schools in the area. According to PayScale.com, students graduating from Tech
with a finance degree could find an average salary of $55,000 compared to James Madison University with $49,357.

On the other end of the spectrum, students from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences could see a range from $28,000 to $60,000 coming out of college.

“It’s just the nature of the field,” said Diana Ridgwell, director of student development and the Undergraduate Research Institute for the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.

Students graduating with a degree from the CLAHS have a wide range of possibilities when it comes to finding a job.

Teachers, human resource workers, advertising account executives, copywriters, editors and paralegals have liberal arts degrees. Consumer studies jobs are still very much needed, said Ridgwell. Some students go on to be counselors and go on to work in social related fields and many students find themselves working for non-profit organizations.

Ridgwell says students in declining fields such as communication, English and art need to figure out how to market themselves, making the job possibilities endless. The competition is higher, but jobs in these areas are still needed.

Rude advocated recession-proof  choices, as in being proactive and involved.

She also emphasized the importance of an effective resume.

Kinder stressed the increased importance of networking in times of economic crisis, especially for majors that do not draw many recruiters to campus. This year there will be 110 companies present at Business Horizon, the recruiting fair for business majors.

There will be 45 companies present at Fall Focus, the recruiting fair for majors within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the CLAHS, the College of Natural Resources and the College of Science.

According to the Career Services Post-Graduation Report, last year networking was the most common way a graduate from the colleges associated with Fall Focus found a job.