The workforce can seem daunting to anyone, but it can be downright immobilizing to a recent graduate staring up at the mountainous task of finding his or her first job.

The amount of information depicting recent college graduates as underemployed or unsatisfied with their current jobs  would scare anyone.

Although we may be seeing trends of unsatisfied workers, this is not the entire story.

The reality is that no one finds a great job and gets hired without a strategy and experience-based skills.

An Aug. 26 Washington Post article titled, “The College Majors Most and Least Likely to Lead to Underemployment,” contrasts employment struggles felt by graduates holding degrees in fields such as criminal justice, healthcare administration and graphic design against the experiences of employees who majored in engineering, law and physics, who report being more happily employed.

Using data provided by PayScale.com, the article hints that the bottom has fallen out of the former category of degrees, which were once felt to be among the safest bets for post-graduation employment.

While it may be true that college grads in these fields are having difficulty finding sustainable work, this article and others like it fail to mention the critical role played by the combination of experiential learning and career development opportunities obtained in college.

The facts state that graduates finding the most employment success and contentment across the board are those who took full advantage of all that their degree program had to offer; i.e. career centers, study abroad programs and extracurricular pursuits.

This is why Loyola University New Orleans is among leading colleges and universities nationwide taking aggressive and proactive steps to infuse experiential learning opportunities and career development strategies into each degree program.

The proof is in the pudding. Last year, Loyola offered over 1000 internship opportunities to students, seeing 71 percent of Loyola graduates finding employment within their career field or attending graduate or professional school within six months of graduation.

A large amount of this success is due to the university’s belief in hitting students with career information early and consistently.

Loyola’s Career Development Center is dedicated to providing an endless stream of career path discovery opportunities, the latest industry information and, most importantly, ways for students to put their interests into practice through industry-specific involvement in real world experiences, such as internships.

Most recently, the center launched its inaugural “Part-Time Job & Internship Fair,” providing nearly 500 Loyola students with the opportunity to meet with over 60 employers from around the New Orleans metro area.

Loyola will also join other institutions across the city in the bi-annual Career Expo this coming October.

Loyola takes the mission of marrying the values of a liberal arts education and transformative career services seriously by providing inventive career programming, one-on-one mentorships and experiential learning opportunities which foster targeted development of soft skills and industry-specific knowledge in students.

Because of this attention, Loyola students learn the ability to represent themselves as independent thinkers and skill-laden professionals.

They will succeed in directly transferring their knowledge and experiences to their professional pursuits, inevitably finding happiness in the world after Loyola.