The best-paying jobs for recent NIU graduates have come from the electrical engineering field.

Yes, that’s right, electrical engineering. NIU electrical engineering majors who graduated 1988-89 report they earn a median salary of $32,000 a year, representing the highest end of the NIU graduate pay scale, according to a mail survey of 1988-1989 NIU graduates conducted by NIU’s Career Planning and Placement Center.

Those who earned bachelor degrees in physical education reported the lowest median earnings of $12,000, according to the survey. The center received 1,882 responses from recent NIU graduates.

However, there’s hope if you don’t want to be an electrical engineer. Seven out of ten of those surveyed said they have a full-time job somewhere, down three percent from the 1987-88 survey. Seven percent reported being employed part time.

One out of ten of those surveyed are unemployed and looking for work, up from seven percent in the 1987-88 survey. One percent said they were unemployed, not going into graduate school and not looking for work.

If you’re interested in working in a job right out of college related to your field, consider a major in electrical engineering, geology, meteorology, community health, dietetics, medical technology, physical therapy or art education. All respondents with those degrees said they are employed in a job related to their major.

At the other end of the scale, half of the respondants who earned degrees in art history, theatre and sociology did not find jobs in their major.

All of the respondents who earned degrees in communicative disorders and anthropology did not find jobs relating to their degrees.

If you are planning on fleeing Illinois right after graduation, guess again. Ninety-two percent of the graduates that responded stayed in Illinois after graduation.

As far as recruitment, the fields of computer science, accounting, finance, marketing, public education (particularly special education) and health occupations demonstrated the greatest demand for graduates in terms of on-campus recruitment, job fairs and job vacancy bulletin and referral activities, according to survey results.

There was also an increased demand for graduates in other areas of business, liberal arts and sciences, and technology.