Notes From The Edge - Military Times Edge

College may not be for everyone, but those who do decide to pursue a degree are reaping the benefits of better employment prospects in a still-tough job market.

The Bureau of Labor Statistic reports that employment in America has grown by 521,000 jobs since January for Americans with a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to a recent story in USA Today. Contrast that with a loss of 318,000 jobs nationwide for those with only a high school diploma, and it’s easy to see the potential for a growing “education gap” in U.S. employment.

Among veterans, overall unemployment rates in 2010 were higher for those with less education, according to BLS statistics — 11 percent unemployment for those with only a high school diploma vs. 5.3 percent for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

In these tough economic times, education by no means is a golden ticket to employment. In fact, many critics suggest higher education may be a waste of time and money for some.

But it’s difficult to argue with numbers. Many employers, inundated with applications from jobless workers, now want college degrees even for positions where higher education previously was not a requirement, such as customer service. In a job market where potential employees are looking for any edge over competitors, a safe bet still seems to be starting with the benefit of a college degree.

To intern, or not to intern — is there even a question?

According to a recent New York Times report, a full three-quarters of the 10 million college students enrolled in four-year schools in America will work as interns at least once before graduation.

Internships are a bit like dating, in that they give both sides — in this case, employers and prospective employees — the chance to test-drive one other before entering into a more binding commitment. Internships are beneficial in other ways, as well. For employers, they mean (usually) reliable, quality — albeit temporary — workers at no cost, or much lower cost, than a traditional employee. For interns, they can offer a big leg up on the competition. According to another New York Times report, college interns get more job offers than applicants without internship experience, and jobs that grow out of internships often command higher starting salaries than those that do not.

But internships — particularly unpaid ones — are not without controversy. One Times opinion piece argues that schools encourage, and in many cases require, students to participate in internships without putting safeguards in place to inform them of their rights or protect them from potentially exploitative employers. It also criticizes the practice of charging students precious tuition dollars for unpaid internships, all in the name of earning academic credit.

Personally, I see the value in internships. As an undergrad in journalism, I had two internships — one unpaid, the other well-paid. I learned a great deal from both and never felt exploited in either. I paid tuition dollars to receive three college credits for the paid internship, an internship that gave me a huge foot in the door to employment after graduation.

But all this was as a traditional college student. I’m curious what college internships mean to our audience of largely nontraditional college students? What difficulties arise for active-duty students in academic programs that require internships for graduation? How can you be expected to complete, for example, 20 hours of work at an internship per week if you are deployed or TDY?

Or, take the whole internships-lead-to-employment argument. Are nontraditional learners unable to compete for promising internships because they have families to support and can not afford to work for substantially reduced salaries, or even for free? Does this unfairly penalize these students in the job search?

I’m curious: What are readers’ experiences and opinions about college internships?

A good reason to stay in uniform? According to a recent press release from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, starting salary offers to Class of 2010 bachelor’s degree graduates are down 2 percent — to $48,351 – from the average $49,353 offered to Class of 2009 bachelor’s degree graduates.

Before you start revamping your future plans, however, consider this: While the overall average offer fell, a number of college majors, including some very popular with former service members, actually saw encouraging increases. One example? Computer-related degrees, such as computer programming, computer science and information sciences/systems, saw a 6.1 percent average salary increase – the highest reported in the Winter 2010 issue of NACE’s Salary Survey – from $56,128 to $59,570. Engineering graduates also fared well. Although the average starting salary for engineering graduates as a whole increased by a modest 1.2 percent, to $59,245, eight of the 10 top-paid bachelor’s degrees in the survey were engineering-related.

Less-promising prospects are available for liberal arts majors, with overall average starting salary offers down a whopping 11 percent – to $32,555 – from last year’s average of $36,445, according to the survey.

Many businesses seem to be catching on to the value of veterans in their workforce, and now it appears business schools are doing the same.

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, America’s business schools are working hard to recruit former service members into their MBA programs. Part of your appeal? Leadership skills, teamwork and the ability to bring an alternate perspective to the classroom, said school administrators.

These schools are also putting their money where their mouths are, offering scholarships and joining the Yellow Ribbon program to help offset the high cost of earning an MBA. That cost can reach upwards of $150,000 for two years at a top-ranked school, according to the Journal article.

Interested in earning your MBA but worried about being saddled by debt to do it? The Web site Military MBA has identified the 20 MBA schools that provide the best value for military veterans.

Already in an MBA program, or a recent graduate of one? Check out some unique networking opportunities for veterans at MBA Veterans.

Much has been written about how poor judgment in social networking can sink a job candidate’s prospects. Even a single misstep on a site like Facebook, Twitter or MySpace could cause you to be passed over for employment, according to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey.

With employers expecting to hire 7 percent fewer graduates from the college class of 2010 than they hired from the class of 2009, you’d think that soon-to-be graduates would be cleaning up their online images. That’s not always the case, according to a popular entry-level job search Web site. A recent survey by CollegeGrad.com found that only 37 percent of job-hunting college graduates have changed their social network content or profiles to remove questionable images or text that could cost them an interview, or even a job.

A news release about the CareerBuilder.com survey cited above offers hints for keeping a positive image online. Monster.com gives great advice for cleaning up your online image if damage has already been done to your reputation.

But for every tale of a social networking faux pas preventing someone from getting hired, there is a matching one highlighting the positive aspects of social networking in the job search. According to the CareerBuilder.com survey, for instance, 18 percent of employers found content on social networking sites that actually caused them to hire a candidate.

And while employers may be scouring your sites to determine whether or not they should hire you, the mere fact that you have, and utilize, social networking skills can give you a leg up in the job hunt, according to Click to Client, a Dallas-based online marketing firm. In an interview with the National Association of Colleges and Employers, Click to Client President Shama Kabani asserts that employers are actively seeking candidates with social networking skills.

The bottom line? It’s all about balance. Have fun with social networking, but use it responsibly.

Pondering a change of course when you leave uniform? Take a look at the Troops to Teachers program.

Established in 1994, Troops to Teachers is a joint Education Department and Defense Department program that recruits retiring and separating service members to teach in public schools that serve students from low-income families throughout the U.S. The program also seeks to relieve teacher shortages in subjects such as math, science and special education. Eligible military personnel can receive financial assistance, placement assistance and referral services through the program.

TIME magazine recently highlighted the Troops to Teachers program in an article that chronicled the efforts of Reps. Tom Petri (R-Wis.) and Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) to expand the program by easing restrictions on who is eligible to participate and who can qualify for a $5,000 program bonus.

Currently, veterans must have served at least six years to participate in the program. The legislation proposes reducing this requirement to four years, a change that would expand the program to more service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Further, Troops to Teachers currently gives a $5,000 bonus only to participants who teach at schools where “at least 50 [percent] of the students are from low-income families or the school has a large percentage of students who qualify for assistance under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.” Petri and Courtney propose enlarging the bonus pool to include all schools that receive Title I funding from the Department of Education. The congressmen hope this move would open more doors to older military retirees, who might be less inclined to relocate for a teaching position in a school that would qualify them for the program bonus.

Research has shown that Troops to Teachers has been successful at bringing into the profession individuals previously underrepresented in teaching, among them men, minorities and teachers in high-demand subject areas. But while the field of education has much to gain from Troops to Teachers, program participants perhaps have equally as much to gain from teaching. While the profession is not one for those who hope to get rich — the estimated average salary of all public elementary and secondary school teachers in the 2004-05 school year was $47,602, according to the American Federation of Teachers — advantages of teaching include weekends, holidays and summers off, and a level of job security not often seen in our current economic climate.

For the October issue of EDGE, I profiled unique degree programs from colleges and universities around the nation that likely hold special appeal for military students. Left off that list because of a delay in the launch date of the program is a bachelor’s degree in biomedical informatics at Arizona State University.

Originally scheduled to launch for the current fall 2009 semester, start of the program has been delayed until fall 2010. It will be one of the first such comprehensive undergraduate programs of its kind in the nation, said Dr. Robert Greenes, chair of ASU’s Department of Biomedical Informatics.

Biomedical informatics, or BMI, involves the integration of computer and information sciences with basic biological and medical research, clinical practice, medical imaging and public health disciplines. Jobs in the field are available in academia; with pharmaceutical, research or technology companies; and in various sectors of government, Greenes said, with career opportunities expected to grow substantially, thanks to recent health-care reform efforts and the need for use of BMI to improve the nation’s health care system. Indeed, the American Medical Informatics Association anticipates 10,000 new jobs being created in the field by next year.

Greenes said the field of biomedical informatics is custom made for someone exiting the military who possesses both technical and health-care skills. He estimates the first class to enter the program will have between 25-50 students. The first two years of the program will focus on introductions to the four aforementioned areas of BMI, with the last two years of study concentrating on methodology courses, in particular in an area of particular interest to each individual student.

“We want to them to be conversant in all four areas when they graduate,” Greenes said. “They will have a broad knowledge in the field when they come out of it, with some selective knowledge in one area.”

Having trouble deciding what you want to be when you grow up? You’re not alone. Most college students will change majors at least once in the course of their academic careers. Change majors too often, though, and you risk delaying graduation — and adding to the cost of your education. Change your mind in a post-graduate field, where the costs of education increase markedly over undergraduate expenses, and the financial weight could turn staggering.

Enter the Intellectual Entrepreneurship Pre-Graduate School Internship program at the University of Texas at Austin. The for-credit program allows undergraduates at the school to work closely with faculty and graduate students to explore different academic opportunities — and the various careers associated with them — before investing time or money in entering an actual post-graduate program. In the words of one participant, the program “opened doors for me academically that I previously never knew existed.

While a recent Inside Higher Ed article has drawn wider attention to the pre-graduate school internship, few other such types of programs exist at colleges and universities. According to the UT program’s director, about half of all its participants are underrepresented minorities or first-generation college students — both groups which typically also define a large number of military students in higher education.

It would be great if more schools would take a cue from the UT-Austin program and begin offering pre-graduate school internships that allowed students to “sample the goods,” if you will, before committing to a post-graduate field of study. Unfortunately, in these tough economic times, extra funding for such programs is unlikely, which means you might have to get creative.

A year or two into an undergraduate program of study, you’ve likely developed at least a few close relationships with faculty or staff members. If you’ve been contemplating grad school but are uncertain that you want to commit the time or resources it takes to go that extra step, talk to a trusted adviser. See if there is some way you can shadow a faculty member or student pursuing the path you are considering.

Sitting down and talking to someone about his or her experiences for even an hour could be all it takes to help sway your own decision. And that’s a lot less commitment than the investment of time it takes to earn a post-graduate degree.

Soaring unemployment rates and dismal economic forecasts continue to strike fear in the hearts of many a job-seeker. For soon-to-be and recent college graduates, the prospect of that first job hunt may be all the more daunting. And with reason.

According to a new report published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, employers expect to hire 7 percent fewer graduates from the college Class of 2010 than they hired from the Class of 2009.

Whether you hope to use your college degree to advance your military career or step out into the civilian work force, good grammar, in your speech and on paper, is one sure way to give yourself an edge.

If you think misplaced apostrophes and incorrect verb tenses don’t matter, think again. According to one recent survey from temporary staffing firm Accountemps, 75 percent of executives interviewed said just one or two typos in a resume would remove applicants from consideration for a job. Forty percent said it takes only one typo to rule candidates out.

Just as you would not wear dirty, rumpled clothes to an interview or spout profanities to your interviewer, nor should you assume that employers are going to be so blown away by your experiences and charm that poor communication skills and a less-than-impressive command of the English language aren’t going to matter.

Often, mistakes on resumes and in cover letters are the result of poor proofreading. Spell-check programs are not going to catch every mistake. Consider these bloopers posted on the Hall of Fame section of Resumania (www.resumania.com):
1. “I’m attacking my resume for your review.”
2. “Hope to hear from you, shorty.”
3. “Chapter president, 1887-1992″
4. “I prefer a fast-paste work environment.”

Sure, they’re humorous. But I’m willing to bet none of these resumes and cover letters made it past the first cut.

Other times, grammar mistakes are the result of ignorance. Maybe you’ve forgotten what you’ve learned in high school English class, or you were so busy goofing off that you never learned it in the first place. Examples of some common, everyday no-no’s made in speech:
1. “Between you and I.”
2. “Me and my former colleague created an award-winning presentation.”
3. “I did not take it laying down.”

Avoiding mistakes in writing and speech is simple. First, ensure you have a command of what is right and wrong. Most schools offer writing refresher courses, many of them free, or have writing resource centers. On-base education centers or school career offices also have people on hand who can red-line your work.

Finally, always read over your resume and cover letter before submitting it for employment. When in doubt, ask a friend or trusted adviser to proof your work. And practice before interviews. Record yourself and critique your performance, or have someone else critique it for you.

Ever Googled yourself or someone else you know? Here’s something to consider: Admissions officers at schools where you have applied may be Googling YOU. And what they find could take your name off the list of prospective students.

Last year, I interviewed Drew Myers, president of the military-to-civilian recruiting firm RecruitMilitary.com. Myers spoke then of the importance of keeping your image clean and respectable on social-networking sites, so would-be employers don’t find any unpleasant surprises when they check up on you online.

It should come as no surprise that colleges and universities are looking at you, too. A recent survey by education services company Kaplan Inc. found that 10 percent of admissions officers from prestigious schools had looked up applicants’ profiles on Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Of those using the profiles, 38 percent said it had a “negative impact” on the applicant.

Job-placement firm Bradley-Morris, which specializes in veteran job placement, has a good article on its Web site about so-called cyberskeletons and how they can haunt you in the job search. The information has applicability to the college admissions process as well.