Graduates Face Many Barriers in Job Hunting K1CgM1 v
It is graduation time again. Whether joining the social workforce or pursuing hdDL92JVg
advanced studies, about four million Chinese graduates will soon turn a new page in Y?AvcY.
their lives. Still, no matter what, campus life will remain deeply etched on the minds p0Pmmp7r
of China's former students. What lies ahead for the country's graduates? sL)7MtNwy
Statistics released by relevant departments of China show that in 2006, graduates KGrYF
from all Chinese colleges and universities numbered 4.13 million, up 750,000 from I#/"6%e
2005 with a growth rate of roughly 22%. Hence, the employment tension further c)Ne/E{!0
intensifies. Meanwhile, various intangible barriers exist in social relations, regional [&pMU)
restriction, permanent residency and university's reputation have made the graduates' -
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job-hunting process tougher. nCDG PzJ
Some analyze that against the backdrop of intensified employment tension for Ze?
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university graduates, needy students from rural and urban areas usually find -oi@1g@
themselves in relatively inferior positions. e)$a ;6
Some graduates realize that in order to get a job, they have to sign some "unfair 5a|{ytP
treaties" that promise not to take the postgraduate exam or leave the company within G^:?)WRG
several years, or they have to pay 5,000 Yuan for breaching the contract. Some gI00@p:m
recruiters even declare openly that they only need students from famous universities, D*'sO B(
so graduates from other schools are not even entitled to apply.
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Currently the contradiction in China's higher education has transferred from entering CYYo+5x
to leaving a university and from the difficulty in enrollment to employment after R-tZC9
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graduation. It has become a common phenomenon that "graduates become jobless". X/h|;C*9
Should this problem not be tackled rightly, the employment issue would turn into a @w(X}q1
new factor that causes social instability. p@ U[fv8u
College—A New Experience '4}8WYKQ
Living at college, first of all, gives me a sense of responsibility, of being on my : . PRM+
own. My parents aren’t around to say, ―No, you’re not going out tonight‖ or ―Did you 6Zx5^f(qd
finish your homework?‖ Everything I do has to be my decision, and that gives me the @U:PXCv
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responsibility of handling my own life. During the second week I was at college, I had SPm2I(at7
to go out and look for a bank where I could open an account. Before that I looked in qL5~Wr m-W
the phone book since I had no clue about any banks around here or where they were K{:[0oIHc
located. I went to the bank and made decisions for myself—whether to have a r}}2Kl
checking or savings account and whether or not to get a MASTER card. UG3}|\.u
Friendly people: that’s another aspect I like about college. On my first day (and jp|*kBDq\
even now) people were nice to me. I came to Marymount University here in Virginia I
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from New York and – even though I’d been here before—I was a bit confused about hV&