Life beyond the peripheral road is beginning to set in for Brandeis' 814 graduating seniors. For most, this means confronting the tight job market or spending more time in the classroom. According to a survey conducted by the Brandeis Office of Institutional Research, 55 percent of seniors said finding immediate employment will be their goal in the fall-up three percent from last year-while 29 percent said they will attend graduate school.

With this increased interest in finding employment, seniors' job searches appear just as challenging.

Valerie Cacace is certified to teach elementary school, but she said she has yet to obtain a job in Massachusetts because schools lack hiring budgets.

"If I come up facing other people in a job search, am I as prepared as they are?" she asked. "Am I as smart? How has my four years compared to someone who went to Harvard?"

Arti Dua started her job search last fall by sending out 50 or so rsums.

She said persistence and "constant resilience from constant rejection" got her through the hunting process, which landed her three offers. Next fall, she will be walking down Wall Street to work at Tomson Financial, a self-described global provider of integrated information solutions to businesses and professional customers.

Despite an improving economy, others seniors did not fare as well. According to Prof. Stephen Cecchetti (ECON), that employment figures are lagging behind other measures of the economy's growth is "very unusual."

Still, he said, "this would be the best year [for the job market] since 2000. Employment is picking up and the signs are that it's going to keep moving at a relatively brisk rate."

But Cecchetti also said there are several million people who would normally be working if not for the lackluster economy.

"Where [Brandeis students] are going to be in that queue, I don't know," he said.

Ilya Rudkevich said he is skipping a battle with the job market and going straight to the Mount Sinai Graduate School of Biological Sciences to study computational biology.

"In reality, I was worried about finding a job, so I applied to grad school," he said. "I had this image in my head of graduating and not having a job and not having anything to do. I thought it would be nice to have something locked in."

Despite the apprehension of some, the job market is beginning to recover. Approximately 51.5 percent of employers plan to hire more college graduates in 2003-2004 than they hired in 2002-2003, according to a National Associate of Colleges and Employers survey.

"In the last two, three years there's more optimism and more students are getting jobs this year at this point than the previous year," said David McDonough, the acting director of the Hiatt Career Center. "Others still obviously don't have jobs. But I think things are definably picking up."

McDonough also said the quality of graduate schools seniors are accepted to is steadily increasing. Brandeis pre-law adviser Barbara Garpow said this is consistent with the improving economy, at least for law school. She predicts the law school acceptance rate will be "slightly higher" than last year's.

Due to the improved economy, "more people who applied to law school and to jobs have gotten a job and turned down or deferred law school," she wrote in an e-mail.

For other seniors, graduation signifies time for a break-or at least a change of pace.

Though there is "no real data to confirm it," taking a year off "seems to be increasingly an option before settling down into a career," McDonough said.

He also cited the example of many seniors who are traveling or volunteering abroad for the next six to 12 months.

For Mark Ulberg, traveling is a diversion from the job search. He is going to Europe for the summer to escape the fact he does not have a job.

But Adina Rivas, who is also moving to Europe, sees this venture as just another stop on her career path. She plans to begin work to obtain a teaching certificate to allow her to teach English internationally in October.

"I'm not as concerned about the present as I am about the future," she said.

Some students use a year off as a means to explore their career goals.

Santosh Ganesan said he is "taking a year off to find myself."

"I'm trying to figure out what I want to do," he said. "Do I want to spend another eight years doing this [to become a doctor]? It's a big decision."

Shlomo Meislin's decision to attend graduate school was easy. His desired career path, research, necessitates more education.

He was accepted to all seven schools he applied to, and will attend MIT's graduate program in biology.