Has Your University degree helped you finding a job??

Ivan Seeking

Heh, this is really bringing things back.

One key concept learned is that we all have many skills that go unrecognized. One has to think of everything ever done for fun, as a hobby, as well as actual work experience. A foot in the door is all that you really need and you never know what might make that happen.

A degree is a degree, and you need the degree, but the company is hiring an entire person. You will be surprised at how many things you know how to do if you start listing them all. Take time to figure out how great you are.

mathwonk

After a BA from Harvard and an MA from Brandeis. I was working as a meat lugger for $4/hour, until I got on as a tempopary instructor at a small college for 4 years teaching math.

It seemed generally agreed I was the most knowledgable person on staff, I taught extra courses for free and gave the only seminars ever offered there, brought in outside speakers and traveled to give talks at other schools, and was the only person who went to summer math conferences, but without a PhD I was terminated. So i went back to grad school at age 32 with a wife and 2 children, got a PhD and became a university professor elsewhere.

so a degree waS HELPFUL TO ME. my son on the other hand, went to stanford, majored in math, but took a job in the internet world before graduation. he ultimately graduated but i am not sure it mattered in his work, as the school did not teach anything he used in his job, rather he learned it on the fly. the people he met in school were useful to him though as they were movers in the internet world, and knowing them was an entree to at least an interview.

the only thing i rmember about resume writing was that on mine i said if they had a quota system, then i was something like 1/256 th part full blooded cherokee. that got a laugh. the color of the paper has nothing to do with it, but could detract if not plain white. the key is when a friend of mine writes from holland "this is the best PhD student i have ever had. You cant go wrong here." or something like that.

brewnog

And make damn sure you get the watermark the right way up!

Karlisbad

well, i can't say i'm amazed..as far as i seen (1 day) everyone but me has chosen "Yes"..well i'm from Spain, perhaps the only contry in the world that a Ph. D (in my case in Physics SOlid State) worths nothing and i think you can't say my career is useless or stupid...

Kurdt

Have you considered applying for a job abroad?

Astronuc

It was the COMETHE code developed by Belgonucleaire. The code models nuclear fuel. Our group, which we called the Advanced Nuclear Fuels Lab, was given several months training with COMETHE and other codes. We were the only group of grad students in the country to get such experience. One company, which had a previous version of the code desparately needed someone to run it. I accepted the job.

Ki Man

karl, what did you do with your degree afterwards?

did yuo go into physics careers or drift off into other fields

Karlisbad

I have submitted to almost every grant relating physics in my country.. or to get a Ph. D thesis research (paid) grant with no result, still trying, i mean if this is the situation of a Ph D graduate in the US or english Speaking countries...
the "Urban legend" says that in US with a career, you can get a good job..

josh_einsle

This was jobs not in IT...actually if he wanted to he proably could have gotten a good job there...) the two of work as field metrology engnieers... and I have been told several times by both him, our customer and other people that we work with that the customer will not even look at your resume unless you have a Bachlors minimum...master prefered... and it is not uncommon for other customers to have the same requirements.

Locrian

My bachelors helped me get a job. Everything has worked out great and I'm back in grad school.

However, if I hadn't had school to go back to, it would have, for all intents and purposes, been a crappy, dead end job. It's my opinion that a B.S. in physics is a very weak degree. There are lots of jobs you can get, but most of them aren't in physics. If you have a B.S in physics and get a job in physics, you spend your time watching PhD's get promoted past you, regardless of how awful their work performance is. If you get a job outside of physics, you spend your time watching people with more appropriate degrees get moved past you.

In my opinion you really can't afford not to get a PhD, and even then you need to be smart about what you are getting it in.

symbolipoint

From Locrian: Your choice of courses probably influences how well you do after earning the B.S. degree. Considering what your electives might prepare you for is probably a very important task in course elective selection. Also, if you limited yourself to "just physics", that might strongly work against you.

Locrian

I absolutely agree. A smarter choice of electives would have opened up many more low-mid level technical jobs that I would have, in the long run, been sorry to have.

BobG

A friend of mine made a plaster model of his foot and encased it in a very nice clear acrylic showcase and delivered it to a company he wanted to work at. It had a nice acrylic pocket in the back to hold about 20 or so of his resumes.

I'm not sure if anyone at the company has gotten back to him yet, but a pitch like that seems like it would be hard to resist.

Geronimo42

I quite have 3 spanish friends that work here in diffrent domaines...it's not that hard, as long as there is a will.
Ada arizona employee handbook

Ian_Brooks

Hey mate,
I think finding a job is another skill you have to pick up while in college. Get together with a group of friends and start applying. Some of us applied to - upwards of 50+ jobs since 2nd year and got very few replies but it refined our technique with the application process. You should be applying to as many companies as you can even if they're not on par with your dream job that you had in mind. Some people will have to work their way up to what they ideally want to work as.

Also your resume and cover letter are essential to the job application so make sure its good. It's much more than just writing some facts down about yourself - get a good template off the microsoft office templates section - and look at their samples, read up guides on how to write a descent resume such as

* Purdues OWL - resume help section
* Virginia Tech's work placement section - they should have an online guide to resume writing

I believe Sinclair Knight and Mertz, an engineering consultancy firm has a great resume and cover letter prep section for their potential summer interns as well.

To be honest man its a skill that you need to pick up - frankly you don't deserve to be working at pizza hut (unless thats truly ure passion) and you should make the effort to be working somewhere where you can apply your skills. You should sit your self down one weekend and send out as many applications as you can, and walk into some careers centers in your old college and get your resume and cover letter critiqued.

Good luck with landing your first job!

MrJB

It's nice to hear that other people have been having similar problems. I figured I was the only one.

In college, I had assumed I would get into graduate school, so I never worked on the job finding skills. I didn't get into grad school, and after graduation I couldn't find a job. The few positions that only required a BS Physics also required above a 3.0 GPA. I was out of luck as far as I could tell.

Instead, I've been working as the warehouse guy for a building supply company for a year now. I've also been taking a few undergrad math courses because I'm looking to do grad school in Math.

Still, I'm not even sure if that'll work out, since I didn't make many connections with professors in college. At least let this be a lesson, work hard in college, develop the skills to find a job, and network. I'll figure something out. Hah.

Ian_Brooks

Its another course in its own - getting workplace + networking skills. You realise life lessons aren't taught in the classroom so you should be actively developing these skills in the meantime.