sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/05/31/MN254655.DTL
After she graduates in two weeks, Bishop is joining the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, a Catholic service organization that places volunteers in one-year stints working in the community. Fueled by a dismal economy, and possibly an interest in working in the community, a growing number of students are opting out of the job market altogether. They are joining the growing ranks of graduates taking paths other than the corporate 9-to-5 grind -- traveling, going straight to graduate school, or signing up for a service-oriented program like the Peace Corps or Teach for America. What Bishop is doing is a far cry from the path her brother took when he graduated from Santa Clara in 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, she said. He landed at an Internet company -- with a fat signing bonus. Emily Bobel is one of 16 Stanford University graduates who have been accepted into next year's class of Teach for America, a program that recruits college graduates to teach for two years in urban and rural public schools. In the Bay Area, 125 UC Berkeley seniors, 38 Stanford seniors and 48 UC Santa Cruz seniors applied for Teach for America, Palladino said. The Peace Corps and AmeriCorps also have seen applications surge, as have graduate schools across the country. Santa Clara senior Lindsay Thrasher, 21, said that she decided to apply for graduate school in January after her job search seemed to be going nowhere. Thrasher, a communications major from Los Gatos, will study sports management at Long Beach State University in hopes of ultimately getting her dream job working in event planning or public relations for a professional sports team. I figured I have to go with what I'm passionate about," she said. These students are leaving behind what has many of their classmates frustrated: perhaps the worst job market for new graduates in two decades. A 21-year-old senior at Stanford, Jakobovits will graduate in two weeks with a computer science degree and big dreams about someday starting his own Internet company. During the dot-com frenzy, he probably would have already been snapped up by an employer and offered a signing bonus to boot. Instead, he's sent out 40 resumes, without a single phone call back. Career counselors also report anecdotally that graduating seniors are working harder to land job offers, and settling for lower salaries. Despite the poor economy and a renewed interest in volunteer programs and graduate school, Bay Area career counselors say most students are still choosing to look for traditional employment. None, however, could say how many had firm job offers as of graduation day. MORE CHOOSE GRADUATE SCHOOL But, Devlin said, 23 percent of them are expected to go on to graduate school, versus 17 percent two years ago. Meanwhile, 35 percent are planning to work in nonprofit or government jobs, up from 20 percent in 2000. One of the few Haas graduates to land a plum investment banking job is Talia Sessler, 28, who had worked in accounting before coming to graduate school. She will be working in Merrill Lynch's New York office, making a six- figure salary.
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