A study conducted in December 2012 by Jason Abel and Richard Deitez of the federal reserve bank of New York found that fewer college students find jobs in their major field.
Abel and Deitez found 27.3 percent of college graduates had a job related to their major. This means that almost 63 percent of college graduates have a job that does not relate to their major.
Charlie Wilder, a career counselor at Mississippi State University, said students who struggle to find jobs are the students who do not prepare for life after college.
“It’s mainly those (students) who don’t prepare before they graduate,” Wilder said. “There are opportunities (to find a job). Some fields are going to have a lot more to offer, and some fields are not. As long as a student prepares and had direction, they can find something.”
In their research, Abel and Deitez found the chances of finding a job related to a person’s major increase if they were to move to a big city.
Abel and Deitez argue that big cities have more job openings and offer a larger variety of job opportunities. Economists have believed that dense urban environments help facilitate matching between workers and firms. 
Gina Neal, a senior secondary education major, said her dream job is to work as a high school teacher. While she does expect to have a job after college, she admits it would be unfortunate to major in a subject only to work in a different field.    
“It’s cool that (a student) has a job and all,” Neal said. “But you went to school for so long to get a certain degree. It would be a little disheartening to not find a job that relates to it.”
Abel and Deitz’s research also found a correlation between better job-major matching and higher wages. College graduates who worked in a field related to their major had a higher wage than graduates not working within their major.
Wilder said students do not work in jobs related to their major because they really wanted to do something other than what they majored in.
“In America, many students go to college to find themselves,” Wilder said. “They declare a major before they really know who they are. So by the time they graduate, then they know what they want to do, but maybe they didn’t major in the right thing. In some respects it wouldn’t be a bad idea to wait and hold off on college a couple of years.”
Wilder said that students who are concerned with finding a job after college should focus on networking through sources such as Linkdin or the Alumni Association.
“Bulldogs like to help out other Bulldogs,” Wilder said.