The following originally aired on KCBS

By: Chris McCoy 

 The months following graduation have been a precious time for me to reflect on what I want to do with my life. What kind of work should educated young people like me aim for and what wages must we expect entering the work force?

I am not returning to school in the fall for the first time in seventeen years. I don’t have classes to enroll in or textbooks to buy, but pressure is building up for me to move forward and launch my career--whether it be as a poet, public servant, actor or journalist.

Now I’m starting to post my resume online and submit applications to organizations I respect. I’ve been getting myself out there, volunteering for campaigns and media outlets to get more experience and to stay active.

But will all that, I know an undergraduate degree may not immediately translate into a high paying job. During this transitional phase, I’m making sure to keep my job search swag.

The following originally aired on KCBS

By: Asha Richardson

 Every day I check my Gmail and tell my Macbook Pro how much I love it. But when I graduate from college next year, I’m not sure how much these companies will love me, and by love me I mean hire me.

This year as a part of Youth Radio’s App Lab, I visited the headquarters of one of the world’s biggest tech giants four times and was never introduced to a single black engineer or executive.

Silicon Valley often identifies as a place where people advance based on their ideas and achievements, but what gets glossed over is that it’s only a meritocracy if you’re in the club.

It seems like membership requires attending a well funded high school, doing well on the SATs, and earning top grades…preferably from an Ivy League College. Race, privilege, and class continue to affect Americans’ opportunities.

Hopefully, more tech companies will recognize the value, and profitability, of ideas and input from a variety of demographics. As an emerging entrepreneur, I don’t want my ideas to be funded because I’m a black woman. I want them to succeed on their merits. But for that to happen, I need to be in the room.

The following originally aired on KQED-FM.

By: Asha Richardson

Every day I check my Gmail, chat with friends on Facebook and tell my Macbook Pro how much I love it. But when I graduate from college next year, I’m not sure how much these companies will love me, and by love me I mean hire me.

Less than 1% of startups funded last year were founded by African-Americans. This year as a part of Youth Radio’s App Lab, I visited the headquarters of one of the world’s biggest tech giants four times and was never introduced to a single black engineer or executive. Maybe they were in a different building or all at a meeting?

That experience reminded me of visits to my father’s office in the 90’s. He worked at Intel for ten years, and I could count the number of his African-American colleagues on my little hands.

The tech industry argues that there’s a pipeline problem. In other words not enough African-Americans are entering the industry. And there’s some truth to that. Until recently tech was considered Steve Urkel nerdy, not Steve Jobs cool. Plus where are black kids going to gain exposure to programming? For example, In Oakland, only 2 of 20 public high schools offer classes in computer programming.

According to an editorial in the Boston Globe by a top adminsitrator at University of California, students aren’t always to blame for low graduation rates -- high school curriculums have a lot to do with it.

Vice Provost Russell W. Rumberger argues that school systems get locked into a dogmatic “college-ready” approach to academics that might actually be pushing kids away from paths to higher education. “In Chicago, a 2010 study found no positive effects on student achievement from a school reform measure that ended remedial classes and required college preparatory course work for all students,” Rumberger said, “High school graduation rates declined, and there was no improvement in college enrollment and retention rates among students who did graduate.”

He also says that though college readiness is important, strict academic standards may not be providing students with the skills they need. “A number of economists, including Nobel economist James Heckman, have documented the need for noncognitive or so-called soft skills in the labor market, such as motivation, perseverance, risk aversion, self-esteem, and self-control,” he said.

It’s not immediately clear how to teach students soft skills, but Rumberger says that engaging them is the first step. Rumberger cites a 2006 Civic Enterprises report called The Silent Epidemic, in which high school dropouts reported that the most common reason for leaving school was that classes were not interesting. The solution, Rumberger says, is creating more vocational and training programs—which studies show increase attendance and also the likelihood of jobs after graduation.

Sayre Quevedo, Turnstyle News

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Alexander Monsanto has achieved a lot of firsts. He’s a first generation American, the first in his family to graduate high school, and the first to get a college degree. All eyes are on him to succeed, but it’s been ten months since he got his accounting degree from Florida Atlantic University, and still no job.

“There are times where I would question what I was doing," said Monsanto. "I studied accounting for four years. If it’s going to be this difficult to get a job, is this really the field I want to be in?”

The jobless rate in the San Francisco Bay Area is above the national average, and unemployment is especially high for recent college grads. Month after month, Alexander Monsanto emailed resumes and wrote cover letters with little success. One morning he says he responded to every Craigslist ad in the San Francisco Bay Area that mentioned accounting, and didn’t receive a single response.

“It turns into this viscous cycle where it’s not helping to stay home to look for a job. You kind of have to just get out of the house and go and network and put yourself out there. I needed to find something different,” said Monsanto. And that is exactly what he did.

The lanky 25 year-old is a regular commuter on a 7:45 AM bus from Berkeley to San Francisco, but unlike most on the bus, Monsanto is hunting for a job instead of heading to one. When he arrives in San Francisco, Monsanto pulls two straps over his shoulders and begins walking the streets of the financial district wearing a sandwich board with the words "Hire Me" spelled out on the front with big black sticky letters. The sign beats against his chest with every step.

It’s a moment that he says fills him with embarrassment every time, but the need for a job eclipses any insecurities. “Whatever it takes, that's what I keep telling myself,” said Monsanto. “I mean a lot of people probably think I’m crazy but I’m not.”

This commentary originally aired on WAMU, American University Radio in Washington, D.C.

By Rohjanae Mathis

When we were younger, all of my friends wanted to become lawyers, doctors or veterinarians. Everyone had big dreams, the kind of dreams that require years of college and maybe even grad school.

I'm excited as I head to college, but only a few of my friends will be doing the same.

I've spent hours online researching schools, participating in campus tours, pricing laptops and finding decorations for my new dorm, but most of my friends are spending their time getting ready for the next party. They either dropped out of high school or are three grades behind.

We were all now supposed to be getting ready to go to college together, but I can count on one hand my childhood friends who'll be doing that.

If you think of us as flowers, where you're planted affects how you grow and whether you bloom. As I look around my neighborhood, I'm not surprised that many of us never got a chance to blossom.

By Robyn Gee, Turnstyle News

The The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced last week that 244,000 new jobs were created in April 2011. As college students graduate and think about employment options, we wanted to know a little more about those 244,000 jobs, what industry they're in, and how much they pay.

BLS offers employment projections for the future. Below are eight of the occupations showing the most growth between the years of 2008 - 2018, as projected by the BLS, and their associated wages.

(Note to self: go for VH and highest percentages!)

[VH = very high median annual wages, H = high median annual wages, L = low median annual wages, VL = very low median annual wages]

1. Biomedical engineers 72% VH

2. Network systems and data analysts 53.4% VH

3. Home health aides 50% VL

4. Personal and home care aides 46% VL

5. Financial examiners 41.2% VH

6. Medical scientists (except epidemiology) 40.4% VH

7. Skin care specialists 37.9% L

8. Physicians assistants 39% VH

This Thursday, President Barack Obama will hold a town hall discussion with 250 young people in Washington D.C.  The discussion, called “A Conversation With President Obama,” will air on MTV, BET, CMT, Tf3s, mtvU and Centric, according to MTV.com.

Viacom President and CEO Philippe Dauman announced in a statement, "We know that America's youth hold strong views about the challenges our country faces as well as their own aspirations for the future. We are honored that the President has chosen to appear on our cable networks to continue his dialogue with the nation's young people."

The direct audience will be pre-selected to ensure that there are a wide range of political views and interests in the audience.  Some critics, including Sunlen Miller on ABC News, say this takes away the authenticity of the conversation.

However, the conversation is meant to reach a much larger audience.  The President will also be taking questions that he receives via Twitter.  You can submit questions by using the hashtag “#ask”. MTV.com explains, “If you'd like to ask President Obama about how he plans to create jobs, you'd tweet "#askjobs" and then your question. If it's a question about education, you'd tweet "#askeducation."

The show will air live at 4 p.m. ET/ 3 p.m. CT (and tape-delayed at 4 p.m. PT) on MTV, BET, CMT, mtvU, Centric and Tr3s. The show will also be made available on-demand 30 days after its initial airing.

MTV has a lively history with politics. The network has interviewed Bill Clinton, George Bush, Al Gore and others, always asking the untraditional questions.  A few remarks might ring familiar. "If you had it to do over again, would you inhale?" was posed to presidential candidate Bill Clinton.  According to MTV.com he replied, "Sure, if I could. I've tried before." 

Others might remember when Sway Calloway interviewed Barack Obama back when he was a senator. Obama told Calloway, "I think passing a law about people wearing sagging pants is a waste of time. We should be focused on creating jobs, improving schools, getting heath care, dealing with the war in Iraq. Having said that, brothers should pull up their pants."  This Thursday's discussion aims to continue MTV's tradition of engaging young people in politics.

By: Maya Cueva

The following was broadcast on Marketplace Money on September 3, 2010

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Nessa Mahmoudi graduated from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education this spring. She was 24, just starting a career and, like everyone else in her class, facing one of the toughest job markets in memory. But Mahmoudi had a strategy.

MAHMOUDI: You know in my mindset I’m like where do they pay the least, that’s where they need me the most.

In the San Francisco bay area, that means Oakland Unified, where teachers are among the lowest paid in the area. But Oakland Unified didn’t exactly need Mahmoudi.

With 122 million dollars in budget cuts this fiscal year, dozens of tenured teachers were already being laid off. And district administrators told Mahmoudi not to bother applying.

But she ignored them.

MAHMOUDI: Though I know I don’t have a lot of space to be picky because there’s not a lot of jobs. I figure it’s best to go in with the mentality that there is something that I am looking for, and the school needs to be a fit for me and not just whatever job that pops up.

Burnout is high for new teachers, so finding the right school goes a long way towards keeping teachers happy and productive. Mahmoudi’s former professor, Ingrid Seyer-Ochi coaches students to be selective about jobs. But with less than 10 percent of her students landing jobs by graduation…

SEYER-OCHI: They feel like they’re not going to be in a position to be able to choose the kind of school they want to teach at, they’re going to have to take, in some cases, the jobs that they can get.

But Mahmoudi kept her sights set on Oakland Unified,

MAHMOUDI: Because though she’s saying don’t look, in August they’re going to need teachers, it’s just the reality, and we’re kind of just having the faith.

Mahmoudi’s faith paid off, well ahead of schedule. In July an East Oakland elementary school hired her to teach first-grade in a dual-immersion English/Spanish program. It was pretty much her dream job.

Every month, the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes an update on the employment situation in the U.S. They just released their July Employment Situation report today.

Here’s the breakdown of the employment / unemployment situation for 16 - 19 year-olds today. The statistics are in three categories: Unemployment, Civilian Labor Force Participation, and the number of full-time employed youth.

Unemployment Rate [The number of 16-19 year-olds who are actively trying to get a job, but do not have one.]
* In July 2010, the unemployment rate for this age range is 26.1 percent.
* Since January 2010, the unemployment rate for youth has remained essentially unchanged, hovering around 25-26 percent.
* At the beginning of the recession (December of 2007), the unemployment rate was 16.9 percent. This means that the unemployment rate has increased by 10 percent since the beginning of the recession.
* Ten years ago in July 2000, the unemployment rate was 13.4 percent. Wow.