{"id":43411,"date":"2018-03-10T15:53:31","date_gmt":"2018-03-10T22:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/?p=43411"},"modified":"2021-02-07T20:36:10","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T03:36:10","slug":"grads-take-different-routes-to-their-first-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/2018\/03\/10\/grads-take-different-routes-to-their-first-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"Grads take different routes to their first jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

G<\/span>raduating from post-secondary is an overwhelming time in every student\u2019s life, especially those who are about to take on the weight of his or her student loans.<\/p>\n

J<\/span>ake Braben, a 24-year-old graduate from the SAIT Architectural Technologies program, said he hasn\u2019t been able to find a job in his field.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel lucky to have even found an unpaid internship at this point,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Braben says he hopes his internship in the estimating department at Stuart Olson will turn into a full-time position in the future.<\/p>\n

The SAIT School of Construction<\/a> has an employment rate of 87 per cent.<\/p>\n

Rosalyn Richardson is a 2015 graduate from the University of Calgary Economics program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t find a job for the life of me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI graduated right around the time our economy really flopped, and I felt lucky to even have my serving position at Earls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richardson worked at Earls for five years, through her entire U of C program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t until the fall of last year that I was finally able to find somewhat of a position related to my field.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been discouraging to say the least,\u201d said Richardson, who now works in sales for Pepsi Canada.<\/p>\n

The University of Calgary has an overall employment rate of 77 per cent.<\/p>\n

Avery Swail, who graduated with a diploma from the Journalism program at SAIT in April, 2017, has moved to Victoria to pursue her Communications degree through her final year of school at Royal Roads University.<\/p>\n

SAIT\u2019s School of Information and Communications Technologies has an employment rate of 67 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked for a non-profit organization called Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Calgary, where I mainly used my social media, writing, and my photography skills,\u201d said Swail.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was good for me to do, as I don\u2019t think I will ever dive back into charity work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Swail spoke highly of her two-year program and the experience she had at SAIT.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe program has opened up a lot of doors for me, but because I am in school, I have had to turn a lot of opportunity down.<\/p>\n

\u201cNowadays, companies want a more technical employee, so having the skills of Adobe Creative Suite, while also being able to write and take photos is exactly what they want,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Kyle Scott graduated in the spring of 2017 with a degree in design from Alberta College of Art and Design.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we are students, we don\u2019t really have time to make a game plan or strategize our moves efficiently upon graduation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that you necessarily have to have a plan because opportunities come at the most unexpected times,\u201d said Scott.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still don\u2019t know what my plan is because I don\u2019t know what my options are yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott says he\u2019d like to work at an advertising agency, as a creative designer.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least working somewhere like that would be a way to get my foot in the door, feel it out for a year or two, and see what happens from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

ACAD does not publicize its employment rates on the official website.<\/p>\n

Katherine McLay graduated in the spring of 2017 with a business degree from Western University.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really didn\u2019t have a plan, which was stressful because I didn\u2019t know what I wanted to do for my career, and I didn\u2019t see myself going into sales,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI applied to a few different positions in Toronto as I\u2019m from Ontario, but when I applied to a position in Calgary I didn\u2019t really know its potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLay now works in Calgary as a pharmaceutical representative for cardiovascular and urology at Pfizer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was offered this position, I was relieved and excited to start the job in a new city, but nervous to go into a job where I didn\u2019t know a lot about the products.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I had a lot of work to do in order to get myself going,\u201d McLay said.<\/p>\n

She said working for Pfizer has been amazing, and that she is exceeding all of her goals and expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI even won a trip to Hawaii this May for excelling in my position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Western University has an employment rate of 100 per cent for medicine and its related programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is always a stressful time trying to figure about a plan for after graduating from post-secondary, so these students shared their experiences and successes. [ READ MORE ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":43415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_ef_editorial_meta_text_assignment-slug":"S3 After Graduation ","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-43411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-image","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-campus-2","8":"post_format-post-format-image"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43411"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43864,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43411\/revisions\/43864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}