When UW-Madison teaching assistant Jessie Reeder was backpacking through South America after graduating college in 2006, she met various young travelers from around the world who were taking paid vacations or yearlong sabbaticals.
But when she returned in 2009, just after the onset of the global economic recession, things had changed. Many people had been laid off from their jobs and felt the job market was too competitive. Reeder learned that these unemployed travelers had found a way to wait out the recession by living on their savings and traveling through South America.
""They knew they weren't going to get jobs back home in London or Paris, and they could stretch their money further and for longer in Bolivia than they could in Europe,"" Reeder said. ""It's not like they were working jobs in Bolivia; they were drinking rum and going to the beach. But it only cost them $10,000 a year to be unemployed in Bolivia as opposed to the $50,000 it would cost them to be unemployed in London.""
In an article for the New York Times in August, Robin Marantz Henig discussed how 20-somethings are taking longer to reach adulthood and secure careers.
She wrote, ""The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course, as young people remain un tethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, are going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach For America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life.""
Reeder is a current Ph.D. candidate at the university who works as an English Literature TA. She entered the school's English doctorate program at the age of 24, with the confidence that she would have a salary and health insurance until she finished her Ph.D. program, and that hopefully the economy would recuperate by then.
""It was sort of depressing to be so poor and watch others my age earn real salaries,"" Reeder said. ""But in the last few years many of them have lost those jobs. And while I'm still grinding it out on my meager salary, I at least have stability.""
This trend of stand-by living has become more opportune than ever for 20-somethings, especially on the UW-Madison campus.
Leslie Kohlberg, associate director of Letters and Science Career Services, saw the employment landscape change for liberal arts students after the recession, as well. Expecting her office to be inundated with students seeking employment help, Kohlberg said she was surprised when she saw a downturn in the number of students requesting career advising.
""I talked to directors across the nation and asked if anyone else was seeing this,"" she said. ""I got a flood of responses. Everyone was seeing the same thing. We came to the conclusion that quickly before even trying for their first employment, students just gave up.""
Kohlberg said many of students were opting to wait it out by living at home, doing work abroad or going to graduate school.
For students who opt to wait out the recession, programs like the Peace Corps, Teach For America and AmeriCorps are viable options.
UW-Madison Study Abroad Advisors Kate Hamoonga and Jessa Boche see students considering a wider variety of options as a way to wait out the recession, but also to build a more lucrative résumé in the meantime.
""Everyone has a college degree now. But if you did an internship in South Africa–that's different,"" Hamoonga said. ""And these programs offer really good benefits, like salary and insurance, too.""
However, Kohlberg said the liberal arts students she's advised have always struggled with their own confidence in their degrees, and she thinks this is being accentuated with the current economic situation.
""They feel they can't compete. They don't know what they are competitive for,"" Kohlberg said. ""A lot of liberal arts students feel they should have gone to the business school or been an engineer. They want to know what to do with a history major.""
But when the polarity of these departments' placement rates are considered, students' concerns are not surprising. According to Kelly Cuene, assistant director of Career Planning & Advising for the Business Career Center, placement rates for UW business students who had been seeking full-time employment and accepted full-time employment after graduation were 68.2 percent for the 2010 school year.
With rates nearly as successful, The UW Engineering School has a 56 percent placement rate for students who had accepted full-time employment, according to Kathy Prem, assistant director of Engineering Career Services at UW-Madison.
According to Kohlberg, Letters and Science Career Services does not track placement rates for the number of students who had accepted full-time employment after graduation, but that national liberal arts numbers don't compare to the Business or Engineering Schools.
""We don't have good numbers,"" Kohlberg said. The response rate of Letters and Science students who reported to the Career Services department that they had accepted full-time employment is between six and 10 percent.
""It usually takes Letters and Science students six to nine months to land a job, and by then they've usually left the Madison area and so we can't get that information,"" Kohlberg said.
However, Kohlberg doesn't think the numbers matter as much as the students' motivation. She said that, on average, students' college major only has a relationship to their career path within the first three years of employment after school.
Things are looking up for liberal arts students, Kohlberg said. The Letters and Sciences Career Fair in September saw a 13-percent increase in student employment, a record-breaking 241 employers and over 2,400 students in attendance.
""The fact that they were there said to me clearly that employment is on the rise,"" Kohlberg said. ""Employers are looking for versatility, and I feel like that's what liberal arts students have going for them with the degree.""
Hamoonga says her major didn't define what she did with her career. After graduating with a degree in communications designs, Hamoonga spent six months as a health and sanitation volunteer in Zambia. Soon after, she volunteered for three years in secondary and primary schools in South Africa for the Peace Corps.
Alternative post-college career paths are pertinent on the UW-Madison campus today, as 20-somethings plan their future career paths with consideration to the current economic struggles.
Boche said liberal arts students are considering different options because in the economy there are just no opportunities to choose from.
""When is going to be a better time than now?"" Boche said.
