By: Samuel Letchworth

While education is important, it’s no secret why most students have come to college: They want that diploma ticket to a better job, to the bigger money.

But as that graduation date inevitably creeps up, it might be easy for students to give in to the consternation about what happens after they toss the cap and gown into the air and are thrust headlong into the real world. Economic woes aren’t helping to abate anxieties, and the career field seems to loom before students like the gaping maw of a slumbering dragon.

There also seems to be a popular sentiment in this day and age that a bachelor’s degree doesn’t hold the same weight that it used to.

“The most important thing is what you do in addition to your degree,” said Angela Williams, associate director of career education at the UA Career Development Center. “Work experience, coupled with a bachelor’s degree, is what employers are looking for. Students always do well to involve themselves in any activities and organizations that will look good on a resume.”

The CDC, located in the Arkansas Union, offers a variety of services for post-graduate preparation, including practice interviews, resume editing and counseling on how students should present themselves professionally in the business world.

“There are a lot of tricks of the trade,” Williams said. “It is a competitive market out there. Every employer is looking for someone who can think on their feet. That, in essence, is the interview process. Students who know what they want and how to job search will be successful. Those skills are what we try to equip people with.”

Success after graduation, though, is varied. Sam Burns, a UA graduate with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry, found a job doing research at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences after he graduated. “It pays surprisingly well,” Burns said, “and it has inspired me to go to medical school. I didn’t know I wanted to be a doctor before I took this job.”

Stephen Coger, another UA graduate with a degree in English, has also found work in his field of interest. He currently teaches English in Argentina.

But some other UA graduates have had a rather different experience finding jobs after college.

Blaine Mosley graduated from the UA in 2008 with a degree in English and emphasis in creative writing, and his job search proved difficult.

“For six months after graduation I was on the Internet, looking in the paper, going all around town applying for work. I sent out probably 2,000 resumes all across the country,” Mosley said. “‘I am a marketable commodity with a degree,’ I thought to myself. I applied for every kind of job, from forest ranger to manager of a corrugated cardboard box factory. Whether I was underqualified or overqualified for the job, I applied, anyway.”

Mosley received hardly any call-backs from the places to which he applied.

“Mostly, the only people who contacted me were from scams or pyramid schemes,” he said.

The job he settled for was cooking at the Flying Burrito, where he is currently employed.

“Truly, it is not what you know but who you know,” Mosley said. “I concluded that I have a B.A. in B.S. I feel like a castaway. I’m on the verge of making friends with a volleyball named Wilson.”

Kyle Wasser, who double-majored in South American Studies and Spanish, did find work in his field but decided against it.

“I make more money delivering pizza than I could make being a translator,” Wasser said. “I learned a lot at the university, but for all the good my diploma has done for me I might as well have rolled it up and smoked it. I’m just going to save up money and ride a bike across South America.”

But while life after graduation remains a toss-up mystery for some, not many students seemed to regret the experience and accomplishment of earning a degree.

As far as students finding a job they love after graduation, Williams said, “If there’s a will, there’s a way. Know what you want and pursue it consistently. And if you find a job you love, you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”