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NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2009
JOB MARKET
Graduating seniors face the unknown after leaving college
BY RAY SEGEBRECHT rsegebrecht@kansan.com
In less than three weeks, the planned four-year college path that Mike Stock, Merriam senior, has known with certainty will suddenly end. And the sense of merriment and accomplishment traditionally tied to graduation, for Stock, will be unavoidably subdued by another feeling — concern. Stock, who is majoring in German and political science, said he recognized that with two secured internships, one in Vienna and one in Berlin, he sits better than most. But even that can't erase his concern that by July, if he believes statistics of recent graduates, he should have nothing.
"I'm very uneasy," Stock said. "I've got some student loans I've got to pay back. Basically finding a job in this market, especially with a liberal arts degree is very, very difficult."
The unemployment rate among
college grads under 26, which reached 7.7 percent last April, has dropped to 7 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But Kathryn Edwards, Economic Policy Institute researcher, said these students, and young adults overall in the U.S., are failing to keep up with older people who are equally educated.
"It is difficult for college graduates," Edwards said. "But it's also a reflection of the economic downturn and a reflection of the difficulty all young people are facing in the labor market."
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, college graduates over the age of 25 have an unemployment rate of just 4.7 percent. Edwards said the difference in experience seemed to be the principal cause for the disparity in unemployment.
Joshua Rosenbloom, economics professor, said he thought December graduates might experience additional difficulty finding long-term jobs at first because
employers often wait to recruit in the spring.
"There are some pretty big seasonal fluctuations in job seeking," Rosenbloom said. "Of course, there are a lot of temporary jobs, but finding full time work in December is probably a little harder."
Edwards said that inexperience, which can hurt recent graduates as they apply for certain positions, could also make them ineligible for unemployment checks if they've never held a full-time job. She said this lack of government assistance, when combined with outstanding student loans, made unemployment an especially difficult struggle for young graduates.
"Unemployment benefits are based off of your previous jobs," Edwards said. "Young college graduates are in a particularly difficult situation because they will have debt, won't have experience, and won't be eligible for any government benefits."
David Gaston, director of
the KU Career Center, said he and other career advisers were encouraging students to pursue internships and workshops while in college to make their job candidacy more competitive by graduation.
"I would encourage students to start sooner than later," Gaston said. "Right now it is a challenging market, There's a lot of folks who are experienced who have been laid off and are looking for work, and they're competing with graduates.
He also said he has noticed more students with concerns about future jobs coming to the Career Center for advice using the Career Center Web site to post their resumes and search for jobs.
"Our staff's been really busy this semester," Gaston said.
Gaston also said employers that use the Web site for job postings have been posting fewer positions this fall than in the past. He said he was hopeful, however, that an in-person career fair at the University in February would present students with close to as many opportunities
as it featured last year, when roughly 90 hiring businesses attended.
"It's probably the place where students can meet with more employers at one time than they'll ever see." Gaston said. "They're corning here to specifically recruit KU students."
Edwards said, on a national average, six unemployed Americans are applying for every one position that opens. She said while these odds weren't great, it could help to know that the market has been worse before and later recovered. In December of 1982, the most recent example of a recession.7.8 percent of college graduates under age 26 were unemployed.
Jeffrey Smith, 1983 KU graduate, said he remembered feeling terrified as he prepared to enter the market. He spent the last half of college working internships as a photographer with local papers and even changed his pen name to J. Sharp Smith to make it more memorable.
"Since I hadn't had jobs, the internships were my jobs," Smith said. "The idea was to make the resume look like everyone else's resume in that it had similar information."
Looking back, however, Smith said the excitement of the unknown and trying as many new experiences as possible created some of the best memories of his life. Now a successful editor in Des Moines for the Biby Publishing LCC company, he said he only feels grateful that his career path carried him everywhere from Newton to Denver to Washington, D.C.
"I just chose something that I loved to do," Smith said. "So it wasn't hard at all to do internships for little or no money or even to take jobs that maybe didn't pay as much at the beginning because I loved what I do. If you love what you do, if you're surviving, that's the payoff."
Novel inspires holiday dog adoption program
ENTERTAINMENT
— Edited by Jonathan Hermes
BY JESSE BROWN
jbrown@kansan.com
Olathe junior Hannah Kincaid was about 16 years old when her father, Greg, began constructing the story that would become the novel, "A Dog Named Christmas."
"He's been telling the stories bit-by-bit for the past five to six years on Christmas," said Hannah.
Hannah said it was her mother who urged her father to put the story on paper.
"A Dog Named Christmas" was published last year, and with its success has come a Hallmark film and a canine adoption program for the holidays.
The story is about a mentally-challenged boy named Todd and a dog, Christmas, he and his parents adopt over the holiday. Greg said
the basic conflict of the story was whether Todd could deal with the returning the dog he was inevitably going to fall in love with once the adoption period was over. Throughout the story, Todd tries to get the rest of the community to adopt a dog over the holidays, too. In the end, town members rally around the boy and his mission and learn a valuable lesson: to care and love those in need.
Greg, a 1982 law graduate from the University, said the crux of the story came from the inner dialogue between a mentally-challenged son and his father.
adopted the program.
Inspired by the novel, a program was created so animal shelters could allow pet adoptions for the holiday season. Hannah has been involved in the efforts to enlist animal shelters across the country. She said 600 shelters around the country have
adopted the program. According to Petfinder.com, 19 shelters in Kansas have adopted
According to Pes shelters in Kansas the program. The Lawrence Humane Society is excluded from that list.
Hannah said the idea behind the adoption program is to let the family make a connection with the dog and not want to return it when the adoption period end.
Ellen Jasa, communications manager for Hallmark Hall of Fame, said that last Christmas, members
"It's kind of like extending the love and hospitality of Christmas to animals as well."
"it's kind of like extending the love and hospitality of Christmas to animals as well." Hannah said.
The movie version is in the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie series and stars Bruce Greenwood. It aired Nov. 29 on CBS. The DVD was released the next day.
HANNAH KINCAID Olathe junior
in the office read the book and wanted to make the movie by this Christmas. She said the ratings showed 12.5 million viewers.
"The response was incredible from the viewers," Jasa said. She said the office
She said the office continued to receive
e-mails about the movie. She said the responses on the Facebook page and Twitter were positive.
Hannah said a sequel to the book would be coming out next year.
— Edited by Lauren Cunningham
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The novel"A Dog Named Christmas"was made into a Hallmark film, which aired Nov. 29 on CBS.The story has inspired an increase in dog adoption programs for the holiday season.
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1. 写出下列语句的正确写法。
The Spirit of Christmas
一
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1. ___
Valerie Peterson, Wichita freshman, wraps a present that will be distributed at a local shelter this winter. The Association of University Residence Halls used $500 of its budget to buy gifts for children.