What's Ahead for 1950?
The Magazine's Survey Among June Graduates Gives a Partial Answer
A BOUT THIS TIME of year the Sunday supplements and the round-up specialsts of the national wire services turn their attention to college seniors, summarizing the employment outlook, the sort of plans the June graduates are making for the immediate future, and what they would ideally choose to do if the world were their oyster. This year the editors can feature the fact that the nationwide total of June graduates is a record-breaking 506,000 and that the competition for jobs is a lot stiffer than it was a year ago, when the prospect already was clouding up for the Class of 1949.
In a recent open letter to college seniors, the U. S. Department of Labor painted the job picture as generally good, but by the time it got through discussing the oversupply of graduates in various fields, warning seniors that they would "have to hunt longer and harder" than their immediate predecessors, and advising them to explore the possibility of graduate school, the seniors might be pardoned for wondering if the outlook really could be called good.
Against this background, and with the Undergraduate Issue specifically in mind, the DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE asked Dartmouth seniors a few questions just before the spring recess, to see whether any significant pattern is discernible in the plans of the June graduating class, which itself will set a College record with more than 600 members. The purpose of the survey was limited, even superficial in the eyes of those who dislike to associate jobs and salaries and related preferences with liberal arts education. The questionnaire distributed at one of the meetings of the Great Issues Course would have produced fuller answers later in the spring, but despite the timing necessitated by the MAGAZINE'S publication schedule, some in teresting facts on the plans and expectations of Dartmouth seniors were turned up. Replies from 352 men gave a reliable sampling of the class.
That this year's graduating class is only slightly older than pre-war classes is indicated by the present average age of 22.5 years. The men participating in the MAGAZINE'S survey ranged from 20 to 30 years of age, but the great majority were in the 21-22-23 bracket. Forty-nine of the 352 seniors listed themselves as married and as having a total of 31 children. Another 62 have marriage plans, which means that roughly one-third of those replying are married or engaged (with varying degrees of sureness).
One hundred and fifty-eight men, or 44.8% of those who filled out questionnaires, indicated that they plan to attend graduate school; but only 121, or 34%, could name a school in which they are definitely enrolled, and the percentage of the class actually doing postgraduate work will probably fall somewhere between the two figures, as it did last year. Only about one-fourth of these seniors will be able to use G. I. financing in graduate school.
Business administration will draw by far the largest group of graduate students, and 46 of the 54 men listing this field expect to continue at Tuck School. Law is the second largest field, with 25 men; followed by medicine with 22 and engineering with 14. Geology, International Relations, English, Zoology, Hospital Administration and Theology each have small groups of three or more men, and then the fields of graduate study go off in all directions to embrace business-engineering, government, psychology, philosophy, education, physics, forestry, art, biology, city planning, chemistry, library science, mathematics, foreign languages, drama, agriculture, speech and dentistry. Graduate work will be done at 28 different schools, with the largest groups, other than those remaining at Dartmouth, going to Minnesota, Michigan, Columbia, Pennsylvania and Chicago.
In nearly all cases, plans for the years following graduate school are directly related to the fields of study. Fourteen men list teaching as their life work, three are aiming for the foreign service, two list state government and one national government, one hopes to be a museum curator, one a librarian, and one a farmer.
Of the Dartmouth seniors not planning on graduate school—a survey group numbering 194—only 44 were able, just before spring vacation, to report that they had jobs definitely lined up, and exactly half of these were going into a family business. With spring vacation providing a good job-hunting period and business representatives still visiting the campus for interviews, this figure is admittedly out of date by now, but it nevertheless indicates that the vast majority of seniors get their jobs close to graduation or even after it.
SALES JOBS MOST NUMEROUS
In addition to the 44 men with jobs, 19 seniors in NROTC reported berths all picked out for them by the Navy (this group will actually be somewhat larger) Among the jobs listed, sales is in first place, followed by insurance, industrial training, teaching, retailing, and banking, plus miscellaneous phases of business. No generalization can fairly be made from these figures, except, perhaps, that sales and insurance offer the most numerous opportunities today.
Starting salaries ranged from about $2250, in teaching and wholesaling, to $5000 for sales in a family business and a top of 15600 in government. In most cases, the starting figure was in the range from $2500 to $3250.
From the seniors who reported no job definitely in hand the ALUMNI MAGAZINE requested a job preference and the salary at which they expected to start working. The largest number (33) listed sales as first choice, and the next largest (13) gave advertising. Insurance and teaching were tied for third (9 each), and practically on a par with them were personnel work, journalism, and finance. Other preferences covered government, accounting, engineering and photography, with single choices for public relations, shipping, acting, radio and television, farming, and airplane piloting. Twenty-four men were undecided about what they want to do.
Salary expectations were modest. Better than half of those venturing a figure were below $2750, although a sizable number expected between $3000 and $3500 to start, and one senior was looking forward to a remunerative plunge into the business world at $6000 a year. A more realistic graduate, perhaps, was the would-be journalist, already resorting to adjectives, who described his expected starting salary as "meager."
Last year, in an article about the nationwide Class of 1949' Fortune claimed that the college graduate entering business was more interested in security than anything else and that to attain it he preferred a big corporation to a small business and had little interest in striking out on his own. Three of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE'S questions stemmed from this article, and the answers to all three ran strongly counter to what Fortune claimed. Of 246 Dartmouth seniors expressing a choice between security and opportunity, 199 cast their vote for opportunity. The small firm found greater favor than the large one, 106 to 75; and a sizable number, 98, expressed the hope that they would eventually have their own business.
The question "Do you want to return to your home community to work?" was answered by 338 seniors, and less than one-third, 102 to be exact, said that they did. Among the whole group, 96 men picked the East as the section of the country in which they would prefer to settle down, and 95 others voted for New England. The Middle West and Far West ran a dead heat with 46 devotees each, and then came foreign countries 21, the Southwest 11, and the South 3. Twenty men were still open to the blandishments of regional chambers of commerce.
Mostly out of curiosity, the ALUMNIMAGAZINE also asked, "What do you project as a desirable top salary for your own future?" The answers here gave a median of $15,000 to $20,000 a year. As against 74 men who felt $20,000 to $30,000 would be more adequate, and 35 others who went on up from there, 112 men thought that the good life could be sustained for less than the median figures, most of them being in the spread from $10,000 to $15,000 a year. One senior defined his financial goal as "enough money to support a wife and put three kids through college." The percentage of seniors projecting salary figures below the median was somewhat higher for the group preferring New England than it was for any other group, except the few men choosing to settle in the South.
BASED on information supplementing that secured by the ALUMNI MAGAZINE'S survey, the chances are that Dartmouth's 1950 graduating class will fare about as well as last year's in the matter of finding jobs. At the time of graduation last June, about 75% of the seniors were all set for jobs or graduate school, according to Donald W. Cameron 35. in charge of placement in the Personnel Bureau, who put 60% of the men on his list in touch with fruitful employment opportunities. An increased number of men have sought his help this year, but he expects about the same percentage to be placed by June, with some others helped during the summer by means of the alumni vocational committees working effectively in various sections of the country.
Companies which regularly recruit men through college placement offices are back to their normal needs and are more selective, according to Mr. Cameron. Even though fewer companies are now recruiting, the number sending representatives to Dartmouth this year (65 to 70) is the same as last year, when a 100% increase in company calls occurred. By means of the College's placement program, Dartmouth seniors this spring have been given employment opportunities in insurancelife and property, both stock and mutual; manufacturing—steel, automotive, paper, electrical products, glass, food, aircraft, soaps, paint, rubber, and floor coverings; sales-glass, paper, electrical equipment, rubber, drugs and floor coverings; services —aviation, retail and chain-store merchandising, shipping, and public utilities; banking; advertising; and publications.
THE SENIORS DISCUSS GRADUATION PLANS AT A CLASS MEETING IN 105 DARTMOUTH HALL.
