Your first job is very important as you depart from campus. If you have done a great search, you not only have a job, but it is the first step in a career that you are very excited about. It should be an area or industry that will grow over the course of your working years, so as you become great, opportunity abounds.

NACE has published its Fall Salary Survey and here are the median starting salaries for those with a master’s degree by major. These are NOT estimates; this is real data from hiring companies reporting back to NACE.

The NACE Fall 2015 Salary Survey is out. It reports starting salaries (excluding: bonuses, fringe benefits and commissions). 

How you manage money while you are on campus really affects life after college. By and large, students have been given NO personal finance training prior to college, and little to none on campus. Yet they have a mountain of decisions to make.

On campus you are surrounded by many events and opportunities to find employment through internships and/or full time jobs. These fall into the category of the ‘physical job search’ which include events and contacts that you can physically engage with to find an opportunity.

Who could have imagined the highflying Twitter, experiencing massive growth and industry leadership, would now be facing a major layoff. The message? We all need to be prepared for our next, and often unexpected, job search in the new economy. 

When it comes to long term investing, usually through a 401k, your money ends up in the stock market and for good reason. Most often it is in mutual funds, which are simply baskets of stocks, bonds, or other mutual funds. The reason for going this route is that it pays more than say putting your money into a savings account or CDs...a LOT more. But Wall Street (the epicenter of the US stock market) has its ups and downs.

As baseball Hall of Famer Connie Mack said, ‘You can’t win them all.’  But that does not lessen the sting of NO. 

Pope Francis just visited and regardless of your faithfulness or lack thereof, he moved everyone he came in contact with. I believe he inspired us to raise the bar of expectation on a variety of issues. Don’t settle for what is given today, but raise the bar to a grander vision. I think that this touches on a huge issue facing us today and with that, reveals opportunity for all of us. 

A reader wrote in last week with a question: “Is it OK to have your college's logo on your business card?”