Spring 2009 — Vol. 62, No. 2

By Carrie DuPre

The Clemson degree’s bankable assets make it a high-yield investment.

They are more than 115,000 strong. They live all across the country and the world. They contribute to the fields of architecture and zoology and every field in between. And a couple thousand join their ranks each year.

They are Clemson graduates, and their value in the job market keeps rising.

Kiplinger’s “Best Values in Public Colleges for 2008-2009” ranks Clemson among the best educational buys in the nation and the highest-ranked public university in South Carolina, citing top-quality education offered at reasonable prices.

SmartMoney ranks Clemson No. 8 among public and private universities in “payback” — the ratio of graduates’ earnings to tuition paid.

Clemson is among the 35 members of General Electric’s elite nationwide group of “Executive Schools,” from which it draws candidates for engineering jobs and other key positions.

Clemson’s Career Services is ranked No. 8 by the 2009 Princeton Review.

“The time for this recognition could not be better, given the current competition in the job market,” says Flora Riley, executive director of career services and the Michelin® Career Center.

“The job market has become very competitive, but Clemson graduates have also become sought after in the market place,” says Riley. “Our students are very bright, energetic, articulate and team players. These are all attributes that employers look for in candidates.”

A survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers echoes that sentiment, showing that industry leaders overwhelmingly report looking at more than just high GPAs in job candidates. Strong grades are important, but if students can’t also demonstrate effective communication skills, strong work ethics and the ability to work in a team, they won’t catch an employer’s eye.

Earning an edge

Employers in the survey also expressed a preference for candidates with relevant work experience, namely internships and cooperative education (co-op) assignments.

Approximately 72 percent of Clemson students will complete an internship as part of their overall education.

Mechanical engineering graduate Amy Bolton is one. When she was a sophomore in 2001, she met with General Electric representatives at a Clemson career fair. That first meeting turned into three internships and — after she graduated in 2003 — a job offer. She’s been with GE for five years now and is currently the optimization and control sales manager in Charlotte, N.C.

“As an intern, I learned how to solve complex problems,” she says. “I also learned how to budget my time to be as efficient as possible. Most importantly though, I learned how to work well on a team with people from all backgrounds to achieve a common goal or solve a problem.”

Apart from the career center, Clemson’s Cooperative Education Program has a similar goal of giving students real-world work experience and an edge in the job market. Students alternate semesters of academic study with semesters of career-related experience. Approximately 250 employers actively recruit Clemson students for co-op assignments.

“Because the educational focus is so important,” says Neil Burton, director of Clemson’s Cooperative Education Program, “co-op faculty and staff spend a great deal of time evaluating the assignments our students accept. We want to make sure that they’re actually learning and not just running errands for their mentors. 

“Employers understand that bringing aboard a Clemson co-op student carries with it the responsibility to teach the student how to apply classroom knowledge in a professional setting. This also means that employers looking for new professionals put a premium on Clemson co-op students because those students have already engaged what they learned in class.”  

R. Thomas Haselden Jr. ’75, executive vice president for BP Barber, has seen the co-op program from both sides, first as a Clemson undergraduate with a co-op placement and now as a co-op employer who participates in the University’s program. As a student, the co-op experience helped him decide the direction to take his engineering studies.

Now as an employer, he sees co-ops as a major component of BP Barber’s recruitment. “Co-op graduates are beneficial from a financial standpoint since the co-op experience reduces time for training and allows them to be profitable in a shorter period of time.”

Employers like what they see

“Employers like what they see with our grads,” says Deb Herman, director of employer relations and recruiting for the Michelin Career Center.

Working closely with the center’s 21 corporate partners and other employers seeking to hire Clemson students, Herman often hears praise for students’ involvement in community service and leadership, capability to work in teams and ability to relate classroom learning to the workplace.

“Some of our top recruiters are Clemson graduates themselves,” says Riley.

For example, economics graduate David Peebles ’49 is a former president of Ferguson Enterprises within Wolseley NA. Management and business administration graduate Cheri Phyfer ’93, M ’99 is president of Sherwin-Williams Western Division. Engineering technology graduate Wayne Culbertson ’74 is executive vice president of personnel and chief human resources officer for Michelin NA. Mechanical engineering graduate James Gregory ’81 is director of manufacturing and research at Timken. And the list goes on.

“As our graduates move up in leadership in their companies, they or their representatives come back to campus to recruit,” says Riley. “It’s that whole Clemson Family concept. They want to give back and help other grads. And it’s a good business decision.

“Through their own experiences with the University, they know the high yield of hiring Clemson graduates.”

 

 

Creative Inquiry Now in its fourth year, this unique initiative brings together undergraduates, graduate students and faculty to learn from each other and to research important issues that affect our world. About 50 percent of sophomores, juniors and seniors are pursuing degrees that require some form of Creative Inquiry. In her new book, The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price, financial writer Lynn O’Shaughnessy profiled Clemson’s Creative Inquiry program as a best practice in undergraduate research. Living learning communities Clemson has 12 living learning communities in which students with common academic interests live together in the same residential area and have staff, programming and curricular resources dedicated specifically to them. The National Study of Living Learning Programs recently rated Clemson’s living learning communities among the best in the nation. Community service Whether it’s Habitat for Humanity, Engineers Without Borders, Save the Nation, Safe Kids Upstate or other organizations and projects, Clemson students are very giving of their time and skills. They, in turn, receive invaluable learning experiences, teamwork skills and knowledge beyond their own backgrounds. Clemson had an estimated 8,400 students engaged in service and an estimated 90,800 student service hours for the 2007-2008 school year. The University’s Habitat for Humanity chapter has been named the top chapter in the nation. Earlier this year, the Corporation for National and Community Service named Clemson to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for exemplary service efforts and service to America’s communities. Study Abroad About 28 percent of the student body enriched their education through study abroad last year. Students in a variety of majors have opportunities at the Archbold Center in Dominica; the Daniel Center in Genoa, Italy; the Clemson University Brussels Center in Belgium; and other locations. David Reinking, Eugene T. Moore Professor of Teacher Education, recently earned national honors when his program won the prestigious Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education.