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by Daniel Thomas
With three weeks remaining before graduation, mechanical engineering major Jon Robelia quickly rewrote his resumes career objective statement: "Enthusiastic to obtain a permanent position in mechanical engineering" became "enthusiastic to continue my education in mechanical engineering."
Last summer, prospects were rosy for the Maplewood, Minnesota, resident. He was hired by Boeing after an internship and given a leave of absence to complete his senior year at the University.
But in March he was laid off. Now, like a growing number of engineering graduates, he is looking to graduate school as an appealing option while employment is hard to find.
Robelia says the reason for this decision was "not just the bad job market, but that certainly was a factor."
Apparently, others have had the same idea. So far, Robelia has only applied to the University, where the mechanical engineering graduate program has seen a 22 percent increase in applications over last year’s numbers. In other departments the increase has been more dramatic: Electrical engineering, the largest IT graduate program, has seen an increase of about 65 percent.
Job slump
The current job market is a stark change for engineering graduates, who just two years ago could choose between four or five lucrative job offers. Engineers were in great demand during the period of rapid economic growth leading up to the slowdown in 2001.
Engineers reaped the benefits of the hi-tech boom fed by telecommunications deregulation in 1996, the Y2K spending of 1998-1999, and the dot-com bubble of 1999-2000. But average annual raises for engineers, which peaked at $7,300 in 2000, fell to $100 the next year, according to an EE Times study.
Layoffs began to creep in as salaries leveled off. The events of September 11 and the fall in the 2001 third quarter gross domestic product precipitated another wave. Robelia was one of the 30,000 layoffs Boeing announced following the airline slump at the end of the year.
According to Sharon Kurtt, director of IT Career Services, the slowdown in hiring was already evident in 2000. Manufacturing companies experienced a decline near the end of 1999, and the mechanical engineering job market was the first to feel the effects.
Graduates now are lucky to get one good offer by May. The number of companies coming to campus for interviews dropped off sharply last year, and many companies delayed start dates for recently hired students.
"Companies were less confident in making commitments to students," Kurtt says. Students have had to put much more effort into their job search and look for jobs using other methods.
For Thomas Manley, who majored in electrical engineering and computer engineering, that extra effort paid off. He started searching in September 2001, signing up for every career service interview he was eligible for, sending his resume to every company he could think of (about 50), and calling up contacts in some of these companies. Manley received an offer in March 2002, soon enough to jettison his backup plan—filling out graduate school applications.
Graduate school boom
The total number of applications to the Graduate School rose 13 percent since last year, and much of this rise was due to a 24 percent increase in applications to the physical science departments.
"The slump has hurt people, but it has helped us," says John Gardner, adviser for the mechanical engineering graduate program. In addition to seeing more applications from graduating seniors, he has also received many from junior engineers who have been laid off and are returning for a master’s degree.
David Champion, a 1997 electrical engineering graduate, decided to start working on his master’s when he found himself without a job in June 2001.
"I knew it was going to be a long time before I found something," he says. He continued his job hunt with declining enthusiasm during fall semester. But after the September 11 attack, his intuition about its effect on the job market joined his academic record in compelling him to concentrate instead on his studies.
The booming job market of Champion’s undergraduate years left a bite. He had a job three months before graduation and rushed through to start it a few days after graduation—with a GPA of 2.5.
"The idea then was to get through as fast as you can, not to get the best grades," Champion says. Even though he didn’t make the 3.0 entrance GPA, he was accepted into his current program through an adult credit option. But this option requires him to maintain the entrance GPA for his first nine credits.
In addition to the stress of making the grade, Champion has moved out of his Uptown single apartment into a house with three roommates, a situtation better suited to his new student budget.
Despite these sacrifices, Champion is happy with his decision, seeing it as a chance to move into a different field of work and to improve his skills for the economic rebound he says is nearing.
Nationwide trend
Andrea Scott, admissions director for the Graduate School, says delegates to the recent conference of the National Association of Graduate School Admissions Professionals discussed the increase in graduate school applications most had noticed. They attributed the rise largely to the bad job market and to the possibility that applicants are filling out more applications.
Even if prospective students are inflating the numbers a bit with extra applications, the greater number of applicants will intensify competition for places because the number of students accepted for most programs does not change. In fact, a downturn in the economy means there is less funding available for graduate education.
As competition for both jobs and graduate school places gets tougher, many graduates are also examining other options. Mechanical engineering senior Neil Olness, who has already had 10 interviews, is considering staying on at his campus bookstore job when he graduates in May.
As the economy shows signs of recovery, Kurtt says, this year’s graduates may be the last class to deal with the problem in such severity.
"All the signs are that people graduating in the 2002-2003 year will see a much better job market," she says.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
www.grad.umn.edu
www.it.umn.edu/students/services/advising.html
