East Tennessean

Issue date: 2/19/09 Section: ViewPoint

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Before I started college there was only one thing that I wanted to do - musical theatre. I applied and auditioned at Belmont University in Nashville and was accepted into the program of my dreams. But then I started thinking, really thinking, about my future, about the pricey tuition and the loans that I would one day be responsible for paying back.
So, I made the decision to attend the University of Tennessee - Knoxville and to major in something a little more substantial. For some reason, I thought that journalism would fall into that category.
Here I am, four years later, ready to graduate with my degree in journalism, and terrified that I will not find a job. Isn't this why I changed my major in the first place?
Many students are finding themselves in a similar situation and a great deal have gone as far as to changing their major in hopes of finding better jobs. In the same way, many young professionals are now changing their career paths, whether they are changing jobs or going back to school.
Angela Gross graduated from ETSU last May with a bachelor of science in speech, a concentration in theatre, and hopes of finding a job in stage management. "I applied for jobs at SETC [Southeastern Theatre Conference] and applied to some graduate programs in stage management," said Gross, "but since all of them were so selective I didn't get in to any of them."
After working for a professional theatre company in North Carolina, she decided to go back to school for teaching. "I always planned on teaching eventually, it was just something I intended to do after I gained some field experience," she said.
Heather Clark earned her bachelor's degree from ETSU in 2000 in merchandising and marketing. Nine years later, she is back, this time to get a degree in nursing.
For recent college grads, going back to get a master's degree or a bachelor's degree in a different field seems to be the way to go.
Maybe soon we will start to see more students changing their paths before its too late. Getting a job straight out of college is a scary thought as is, but being in the middle of an economic crisis almost makes me want to stay in school as long as possible.

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