Competition in the Global Workplace

Alexandra Boac

Professor David

BUS-310

Feb 8 2016

The world has become more accessible in recent years than it has ever been before. Trade used to be something a country did to satisfy its needs for food or materials it couldn’t successfully or efficiently produce itself. Now with the improvement of infrastructure such as transportation in developed nations, the introduction of the Internet and our growing knowledge of other countries and what they can provide for us, suddenly the entire world is at an individual’s fingertip. It is possible to hop online and search for a dress made in Thailand, while we buy a textbook printed in the USA as we drink tea that was imported from India. Our shoes are Italian, our cars are German, our alcohol is Russian and our neighbors are immigrants from all nations and walks of life. In America, with flying being so readily available to people who have the purchasing power of a ticket, we have more freedom than ever before to move anywhere in the world to start our lives as recent college graduates. While this is an incredible opportunity, it also can be a great handicap if we forget to recognize the thousand or even million other graduate students across the world who have earned the same degree as us and are also moving from their home countries in pursuit of better opportunities, jobs and adventure.

        My personal area of study is Communications with a concentration in Public Relations, which is defined by the Public Relations Society of America as “strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” There are millions of companies and organizations around the world, and there are constantly more popping up daily. Public Relations is a field that is currently booming because people are coming to realize that there will always be a need for a company to efficiently and intelligently communicate with the public on the companies mission and vision statements, and also to keep the public aware of any changes the company may be undergoing, plans for growth, or also to respond and keep the public aware of a companies action during a time of crisis. In Cuyahoga County of Ohio alone, there are five, four-year institutes that offer a bachelors degree in Public Relations. They are Cleveland State University, Case Western Reserve University, Baldwin Wallace University, Notre Dame College and John Carroll University. To achieve the best estimate possible I used the National Center for Education Statistics to find the average percentage of students that graduate in four-years from accredited four-year universities with a communications degree. Then I found the four-year graduation rate amongst full time students at my university and divided it by the national average and this gave me the percentage of communications majors at each school if I was unable to find it listed online. From there I multiplied that percentage by the total undergraduate population to find a specific number of graduates to better help me grasp the amount of student I am competing against.

At Cleveland State University according to Forbes.com there are 74% of undergraduates enrolled full time. Only 2% of those students will graduate on time in 4 years with a bachelor degree in communication. This is slightly lower than the national average according to http://nces.ed.gov/datalabquickstats, which was 19% for a communications degree.  So if total enrollment in CSU were 12,100 for undergraduates (Forbes), then only 242 students would graduate in my field and be my competition from CSU.

At Case Western Reserve there are 97% full time undergraduate students according to Forbes. An impressive 67% will graduate on time with a bachelor’s degree from CWRU.  There are 4,661 undergraduate students (Forbes) then this means 3,122 students will graduate in 4 years.  While Case Western does not offer my degree, but Public Relations is a field students can enter without a degree in communications. Case Western Reserve students have a great advantage in the medical and healthcare field. Many medical students will try and pursue sales of medical equipment after college to gain work experience or even just to enter into the hospital of their choice.  This still increases competition for me if I ever wish to enter medical sales or healthcare communications.

At Baldwin Wallace University, Forbes stated we had a 3,425 undergraduate enrollment rate. Out of those 3 thousand something student, 88% are full time and only 55% will graduate with a Bachelors in 4 years.  Assuming our college follows the national average of a student graduating in 4 years with a communications degree, than 2.8% of the student from Baldwin Wallace will be searching for a job in Public Relations or other related communications field after graduation. This would be close to 96 students.

At Notre Dame College Wikipedia has them listed with 2,091 undergraduates enrolled and College Board states that they have a 33% four year graduation rate. I again compared it to the national average of communication majors and came out with 1.7% of recent grads from NDC as Communications majors. That’s roughly 36 students competing in the global market place for jobs.

Lastly, John Carroll has 3,711 undergraduate students with 97% of them enrolled full time. Out of those, 65% will graduate in four years with a bachelor. Assuming 19% of those are communications majors then that mean 3.4% will be Communications majors and this means from JCU 126 students will be entering the workforce in my field.

In Cuyahoga County alone, excluding Case Western Reserve, I will be competing with about 497 students upon graduation for jobs locally and globally.

Now moving onto another state, Arizona, to see the number I will be competing with all the way across the nation. I used the National Center for Education Statistics average graduation rate from a four-year university to assess how many students graduated with a communications degree on time. The universities that offer my degree are The University of Arizona, Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University.