Career Survey Report - Class of 2000

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Survey and Responses

The Career Services Office conducts an annual survey of the previous year's graduating class to determine the career and employment status of the new graduates.  The 2000 survey was mailed out in early January to 1,175 alumni representing bachelor degree graduates from January, May, and August 2000.  A second mailing was sent out in February, and follow-up phone calls were made in April and May.  For the second year, we utilized an on-line survey located on our web site that allowed graduates to send their results to us over the Internet.

Through all of these efforts we yielded a total of 587 replies, a response rate of approximately 50 percent.  Appendix A provides a comprehensive listing of the majors included in each field of study and the number of respondents from each major.  The chart below offers a short summary of the respondents

Fields of Study # of Respondents
Social Sciences 152
Education 162
Management 88
Humanities 112
Sciences 73

In this report, information is provided about graduates' employment status, the fields and location of employment, the techniques used to secure employment, and respondents' opinions about how well Bridgewater prepared them for their current position.  Results are reported for the entire group, and, when appropriate, for individual fields of study.

Employment Status

Six months to a year after graduating, 92 percent, of the class of 2000 were employed. Of those employed, 82 percent were employed on a full-time basis and 10 percent were employed part-time.   

Forty-seven graduates (only 8 percent) indicated that they were not currently employed. These respondents fell into one of the following categories: they could not find employment it their field or location (19 percent), they were in graduate school (53 percent), or they were not looking for employment (28 percent).

Out of the 8% not employed – Reasons  not employed

As the local economy continued to improve both in Massachusetts and New England, so did the unemployment rate for BSC graduates.  The unemployment rate for the Class of '00 was 1.5 percent, down a half a point from the Class of ‘99. The unemployment rate of 1.5 percent was again lower than the Massachusetts unemployment rate of 2.7 percent during the Spring of 2000 as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics web site.

 

The graph below illustrates the decline in the BSC unemployment rate over the past six year.

Unemployment Rates of BSC Graduates:  1995-2000

Location of Employment



Bridgewater graduates continue to work in the Commonwealth and contribute to the vitality of the Massachusetts economy; approximately 91 percent of this year's respondents are employed in the state. For the Class of 2000 graduates, only 4 percent indicated that they were employed in other New England state, and 5 percent outside the Northeast.



Fields of Employment

The Class of 2000 graduates are employed in a variety of fields.  Forty-two percent indicated that they were employed in Business, either manufacturing or non-manufacturing. Twenty-nine percent reported employment in Education (including Elementary, Early Childhood, Physical Education and Special Education), 11 percent in human services and non-profits and 7 percent in health related fields.  Given the educational preparation of our graduates, these results are not surprising.  The vast majority of respondents were Management Science, Education, and behavioral science majors.  The number of graduates in government positions fell only slightly from 5.7 percent in 1999 to 5.0 percent in 2000.

Relatively few graduates indicated that they were self-employed (9), in the Military (2) or in volunteer service (1).

Relation of Position to Academic Major

Graduates were asked to identify the degree to which their position was related to their academic major.  Eighty-two percent felt that their current position was either directly or somewhat related to their major, up 4 percent from 1999. With the current job market and the relatively low unemployment rate, most graduates have had the opportunity to secure positions closely related to their field of study. 

 

BSC Preparation

Graduates were also asked how well they thought BSC had prepared them for their position by responding to the statement, "The academic program at BSC prepared me for my current position" using a scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Overall, 84 percent agreed or strongly agreed with the statement. The response to this question has stayed consistent over time with responses ranging from 81 to 85 percent over the past five years.

  "The academic program at BSC prepared me for my current position"



Salary Data
[Out of the 587 returned surveys, 539 answered the salary range question representing 92% of the respondents.]

Overall salaries were up again for many majors for the Class of 2000. I expect that this will level off for the 2001 graduates.  On the upper end of the salary scale were Science majors. Twenty five percent indicated they were earning $42,000 – $51,000 or over. This was consistent with the class of '99 data. Management majors represented almost 16% in this range up 9 percent from last years' survey.

One of the largest increases from 1999 was in the $30,000-$41,999 range. Almost sixty percent of Management Science graduates fell within this range. This was an increase of 24 percent over last year. In addition, the Humanities and the Sciences graduates saw gains of approximately 6 and 8 percent over last year.

As we might expect, the salary picture for Education graduates has not kept up with other fields. Twenty percent were earning $21,000 or lower. The vast majority were in the $21,000-$32,999 range which represented 67 percent of the graduates. Those earning less than $18,000 however dropped from 18 percent in ‘99 to 14 percent in '00.

NOTE: Local & national salary data is available in the Career Services Office.

Class of 2000 Salary Data - Employed Full-time
Data is represented in percentages.

Annual Salary $

Social Sciences

Humanities

Sciences

Education

Management

< 12,000

1.6

2.2

1.8

3.9

2.5

12,000-14,999

2.4

2.2

0

6.3

0

15,000-17,999

6.4

0

5.4

3.9

3.7

18,000-20,999

6.4

9.9

3.6

5.5

2.5

21,000-23,999

11.2

8.8

3.6

7.8

0

24,000-26,999

21.6

7.7

10.7

17.2

4.9

27,000-29,999

22.4

22.0

8.9

18.0

11.1

30,000-32,999

8.8

17.6

16.1

24.2

23.5

33,000-35,999

8.0

11.0

12.5

3.1

21.0

36,000-38,999

2.4

2.2

3.6

2.3

6.2

39,000-41,999

0.8

8.8

7.1

0.8

8.6

42,000-44,999

0

2.2

3.6

0.8

3.7

45,000-47,999

1.6

1.1

3.6

0

1.2

48,000-50,999

1.6

1.1

5.4

0

3.7

51,000 & over

0.8

2.2

12.5

0

4.9

Missing

4.0

1.1

1.8

6.3

2.5

 

Methods of Obtaining Current Position

Graduates were asked to reveal what they considered to be the primary source used to obtain their current position.  The top three ways graduates landed their first job are highlighted below:

  Job Search Strategies:

·         Networking with others -34%
·         Hired from internship or part-time employment – 19%
·         Newspaper/help wanted ads – 20%

The remaining methods included employment agencies, on-campus interviews, resume referrals, job fairs and job postings on the web.  Not surprising, we saw an increase in the number of students who found positions using job related websites. In 1999 there were approximately 3%. This method increased significantly to 10% for the Class of 2000.

Graduate School

Ninety-one students were enrolled in graduate school at the time of the survey, which represents about 16 percent of the class. Of the ninety-one, 52 were enrolled full-time and 39 were enrolled part-time. The consistent trend shows that from 1995-2000 between 13 to 17 percent of our graduates go directly on to graduate school. Increasingly, many graduate programs are encouraging applicants to have at least a year or two of professional work experience before enrolling.

 Of those enrolled in graduate school, 60 are in masters programs, 9 in post baccalaureate programs, 4 in professional degrees and 8 are in doctoral programs.  A list of all the programs, colleges and universities can be found in Appendix B.

Internships

To date there has been little data about students who pursued credit and non-credit internship opportunities. This year we added a few new questions to the survey to identify how many completed internships,  if it was required, related to their major, and whether they received credit and/or pay for the experience.

The vast majority of respondents (87%) received academic credit for the experience, and most felt the internship (94%) was related to their field of study. Although there has been a growing trend by industry to pay interns, most students (83 percent) did not get paid. 

The chart below identifies the questions asked and the overall response rate from the 253 graduates who indicated that they did an internship.

Did you complete an internship?
43% indicated yes
57% indicated no

Did you receive academic credit?
87% indicated yes
13% indicated no

Was the internship required of your major?
67% indicated yes
33% indicated no

 Was the internship related to your field?
94% - indicated yes
  6% - indicated no

Were you paid?
17% - indicated yes
83% - indicated no

The majors that had the most interns were in Psychology (28), Sociology (23), Social Work (21) and Communication (21).

Notes/Acknowledgements:

  •  Included in Appendix C is a Summary Sheet of the responses to survey items for all graduates. For any major with more than 10 responses we can provide a break out report. Please contact Brian Salvaggio, Career Services, at 531-1328 for details or by e-mail at bsalvaggio@bridgew.edu

  • Special thanks to Denise Diliddo & Tracey Connell from Career Services who assisted in the data collection.

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Last Modified: October 6, 2003