Michael Yoches is a freshman majoring in computer engineering and, with years of undergraduate classes to look forward to, he’s starting to wonder about the job market that will meet him upon graduation.”I’m actually worried about finding a job right now,” Yoches said. “It’s hard to find a job with all the job layoffs.”General studies, biological sciences and mass communication were the most popular majors for the 2007-08 graduating class, according to data from Office of Budget and Planning— but, according to Assistant Director of Communications for Career Services Sara Crow, a student’s major holds little weight over the job market they will meet upon graduation.”Sometimes students don’t really know what they want to do, and you kind of need to figure out what you want to do before you can find a job and be happy with it,” Crow said. “You need to be networking throughout college, and you need to be getting job experience throughout college.”Within recent years, Crow said survey has indicated 99 percent of University graduates have a “definitive plan.” Crow defined a definitive plan as either having a full-time job, having offers of a full-time job or being in graduate school.”Collectively, our graduates are not having trouble finding jobs,” Crow said of data collected from the graduating students survey administered to graduates within six months of graduation. ”I don’t know that there’s a particular field that’s having a whole lot of trouble.”Business administration and management/commerce, psychology and nursing are among the “Top 10 College Majors” according to data from The Princeton Review. According to Stacia Haynie, vice provost of Academic Affairs, while biological sciences is among the most common majors students graduate from, it is also one of the majors most frequently changed.”[Freshmen] come in with the hopes of pursuing a medical career, and then those students face curriculum that involve mathematics and sciences, and I think they are not as interested in that curriculum,” Haynie said.Jacob Bourgeois, sophomore, said he has changed his major twice because did not like the required classes. “I live around it, and I grew up around it,” Bourgeois said of his newly discovered petroleum engineering major. “I started researching it, and I like it.”Haynie partially attributed students changing majors to the general education curriculum required by the University.”They have been exposed to that curriculum and find that they have a really significant passion or interest in it,” Haynie said. “I think most of them are a convergence of a students’ talents and passions.”Mitch Malone, general studies sophomore, said he has changed his major once because his initial instinct was for the sake of having “something to put on the application.”Every student — regardless of their major — is required to take general education core classes by state statute. The statute distributes 39 general education hours over six major areas, Haynie said.”We have a very broad-based curriculum so they can be exposed to all they would be exposed to in a lifetime,” Haynie said. Bliss Maginnis, communication studies senior, has changed her major three times. The list of majors she’s tried her hand at includes art history, her present minor.”I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to do,” Maginnis said. “I took a communication class, and I figured out that [it] was the perfect fit.”—-Contact Lindsey Meaux at [email protected]