Carolina Alumni Review - November/December 2009

four years exam-taking and resume-build-ing at one of the best schools in the nation, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt?”

“We’re seeing students who are used to being very successful, and all of a sudden [they’re] having to face this adversity and maybe failure for the first time in their lives,” said Tim Stiles, associate director at University Career Services. “The students definitely go on that emotional rollercoaster.”

McCormick, who majored in math decision sciences, had five internships as an undergraduate. In the first semester of his senior year, he had 45 interviews ( including for 12 different jobs within Bank of America).

“I was definitely interviewing more than anyone else I knew. I was really anxious because every interview had to be perfect. I knew that there were so many people losing jobs, so to be hired you had to be perfect.”

Still, he said, about 80 percent of his

‘It’s difficult
having to put
up with, I guess,
assumed failure
until success.’

James Stenstrom ’09

‘We’re seeing students
who are used to being very
successful, and all of a sudden
[they’re] having to face this
adversity and maybe failure for
the first time in their lives.
The students definitely go on
that emotional rollercoaster.’

Tim Stiles
associate director
at University Career Services

math-major friends had jobs. He lived with a history major and a psychology major; neither had jobs by graduation.

McCormick got two offers: one with an IT consulting firm in Wisconsin, and one with GEICO in Washington, D.C. He

‘In this job market, anything you do with an online Web presence is just demonstrating your knowledge.’ Kelly Giles ’09

decided to forgo both and take prerequisites for graduate school for accounting.

“I didn’t take either job because I wanted to make sure, especially as a young professional, that my job would facilitate growth in the financial sector.” McCormick is planning to enroll in a master’s of accounting program next year, although he said that if he’d found a job in the financial sector, he wouldn’t be going to grad school right now. “I would have tried to work for two years or so and then do an MBA program.”

Some industries and fields have taken a bigger hit than others. Stiles said health-related fields, such as physical therapy and pharmacy, have remained fairly stable, and there are even labor shortages in some technology fields. But the finance sector and other business fields, as well as jobs in media and communications, have seen drastic cuts.