The job market is experiencing fluctuation, leading Tulane University students to explore alternate career and degree paths as they face the obstacles of competitive employment.
One option is pursuing terminal degrees.
“Even if you are in the process of finishing up a degree, there’s still other things that students can do to stay active in their learning and continue building other skills,” said Edward Cruz, assistant dean and executive director of NTC Career Services.
Jill Tse decided to stay at Tulane to pursue a graduate degree in business. “I wanted to have at least my master’s to see if it gave me more job opportunities,” Tse said.
But graduate programs are not financially available to everyone. The average cost of graduate programs are between $10,000 and $30,000 a year.
When looking at graduate programs, former Tulane student Derrick O’Neal would be “paying a lot of money, option A, and then paying even more money, option B,” he said. “I decided that paying no money and just waiting and hopefully reevaluating would be the best course.”
Students also consider whether the job they secure will require them to settle for an industry outside of their passion, even when pursuing terminal degrees.
“I am anxious, because, am I going to be … accepting a job where I don’t want to work and I’m just doing it for the money, just to survive?” Tse said.
Tulane senior Adam Spencer will be working in hospitality and voiced similar concerns. “I really like the job, to be clear, but I may not have agreed to continue to work for them part time if I wasn’t worried about the job market,” he said.
Other students have changed their career paths entirely, especially those interested in government work, according to Cruz.
There have been massive employment reductions in government and private sectors of the economy since President Donald Trump took office. The federal government has made cuts to almost every agency in the last 10 months, with plans to continue the reduction, forcing students to reconsider career paths in government service.
Cruz said Tulane used to have a Diplomat in Residence program that no longer exists, after the program was terminated nationwide.
“We couldn’t even be in contact with the rep that we were working with because … that job was pretty much canceled or eliminated,” Cruz said.
Tulane senior Nya Phillips changed her career focus this past year from international relations to theater performance, both of which she majors in.
Before the cuts, Phillips was leaning towards a career in international relations. “I had just done … seven or eight months in the mayor’s office with her international relations director,” as well as several other programs, Phillips said.
Despite all of this experience, Phillips has opted to go into a career in theater.
This also comes at a time when applicants are at risk of cyber scams posed as job listings online.
“They try to streamline a lot of the services, with LinkedIn and all those, but it’s very oversaturated with false advertisements, bots, scammers and all that stuff,” Tulane alum Simon Rucker said.
“Don’t be afraid to build things out as they come, everything is changing super quickly,” O’Neal said. “Have some backups … Think about all the things that you would want to do, whether you have experience in it or not.”