The US economy is improving. Unemployment is down, consumer spending is up, and undergraduates are increasingly optimistic about their job opportunities coming out of college. Senior accounting and management major Brian Molnar is not at all worried about his job search post-graduation. “I am very confident I will find a job because the business school provides students with great tools… HireSmith makes it very easy to apply to a bunch of different positions and companies come on campus to interview which is very convenient.”
HireSmith is the Smith School career services management system that links UMD business students to a host of internships and job opportunities. Molnar himself has an internship this summer with McGladrey, a prominent accounting and consulting firm.
Other students are not as optimistic as Molnar, however. Junior biology major Sam Jones said, “[Getting a job] is still really competitive and you have to do really well in school if you want to find the jobs and internships you want. Even though the economy is improving, there are an increasing number of students fighting for the same select positions.”
Nevertheless, it seems UMD students are doing well in the job search. According to a recent CBS article, the University of Maryland is 2nd among all 50 state “flagship” schools in terms of median starting salaries, behind UC Berkeley and ahead of elite schools such as Michigan, Virginia, and Washington. While these statistics may be skewed due to the high number of engineering students in College Park as engineering majors tend to have higher starting salaries, employers clearly respect a degree from the University of Maryland.