As the Class of 1998 enters Dartmouth, many recent graduates are either searching for a job or entering the next stage of their education.
Dartmouth has its share of famous alumni -- Theodore Geisel '25 (otherwise known as Dr. Seuss), former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop '37, USA Today founder Peter Prichard '64, U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich '68 and of course famous Secretary of Sate Daniel Webster, Class of 1802 -- to name a few.
And some more recent graduates are well on their way to making their mark -- Keith Boykin '87 is special assistant to U.S. President Bill Clinton and Nicole Rabner '93 works in Hillary Rodham Clinton's office.
Bill Wright-Swadel, director of career services for the College, said in the past five years about the same number of graduates have entered the work force as have begun full-time graduate study.
Results of a questionnaire filled out by the Class of 1993 directly after their graduation show that 60 percent of respondents said they were going to be employed full-time immediately after graduation.
Twenty-three percent said they were going to be full-time students at graduate school -- seven percent to law school, five percent to medical school, four percent to engineering graduate schools and seven percent to arts and sciences graduate studies.
Wright-Swadel also said about 70 percent of Dartmouth graduates went on to graduate school within seven years of graduation.
"I think as the academic challenges get greater, the reality is that choosing plans after graduation becomes harder as well," Wright-Swadel said.
Career Services does most of its young alumni advising for graduates that request help in applying to medical schools, he added.
Dartmouth is well known for its loyal alumni and Wright-Swadel noted the significant impact that Dartmouth alumni have on the career options on recent graduates.
"Alums are an extensive support of the whole career process for undergraduates," he said.
Career services has a database of more than 12,000 Dartmouth alumni to assist undergraduates and recent alumns in sorting through a variety of career options.
Wright-Swadel said that students and alumni can access any profession and region of employment of the 12,000 alumni that are registered in the database.
This allows students to have an outreach for questions about careers and sometimes helps them to receive internships and employment options, he said.
Some graduates remain in Hanover to work for the College after graduation. Ellen Davis '92 is now director of the senior interviewer program for the admissions office.
She spent the summer after graduation working at the Phillips Andover Academy as a teacher's assistant. The following fall she returned to the College as an employee rather than a student, a switch that Davis cites as a slight challenge.
"The only think that's a little bit of a challenge is when I graduated I was ready to move on," she said.
