The Academic and Career Development Center reported that 98 percent of students in the 2018 class received employment or placement in a graduate school or volunteer program within six months of graduating. This makes the class of 2018 the seventh consecutive class to score near perfect in post-graduation employment.
Forty-seven percent of graduates are said to have gained employment by recruiting done through Fairfield University their senior year, 20.1 percent through their internships and 32.4 percent due to networking.
Director of the Career Center, Cathleen Borgman, explained how this data is collected from graduates to compile the annual survey.
“Every April, the Career Center launches the First Destination Survey to the Senior class. This is a short survey that asks very specific questions about the senior’s plans after graduation. We ask if they have finalized their next step (job, volunteer or graduate school) or if they are still looking/waiting to hear from an employer, or if they are going to travel first,” said Borgman.
The Career Center obtains information by not only emailing graduates, but also through their LinkedIn profiles as well as faculty and staff. Borgman explained that they continue to follow up with graduates six months after they leave the University.
“To me it says that Fairfield students are hard workers, smart and industrious,” Borgman continued. “The success rates we have witnessed shows that students are doing the right things while they are at Fairfield, so kudos to them. We would not see this ongoing success if students were not exploring careers and preparing throughout their four years here. We find that the sooner students engage with the Career Center and career counselors, the better prepared they are to select and pursue a career path that is right for them.”
The highest area of placement was finance, making students in the Charles F. Dolan School of Business successful in receiving jobs in the months after leaving Fairfield.
Alumna Jessica Ling ‘18 felt that Fairfield helped her exponentially when it came to employment and preparation for post-graduation life. A member of the nursing program, Ling is employed at Summit Overlook Hospital in New Jersey.
“The nursing program and the support they offered senior year most definitely helped my friends and I with post grad employment. Not only do I feel like it helped employ us but it helped us get the jobs we really wanted at the end of the day. Every single one of my friends in nursing school got a great job and started pretty soon after passing the NCLEX,” said Ling, who works in the intensive care unit of Overlook Hospital.
Will the class of 2019 manage to do better? Only time will tell.
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