Are you ready for the real world?

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No, I'm not wondering if you prepared your audition tape for MTV.

The real "real world" is lurking just around the corner for you December graduates. I'm wondering—do you feel confident that you'll be able to land a job in your field after graduation?

During my senior year in college, I definitely did not. The job market was lukewarm, and I had thousands of dollars in student loan debt hanging over my head. I knew I wasn't going to be able to wait around for my dream writing job at an ad agency. Or my dream office. (In college, a lot of my job daydreams revolved around working in one of those cool offices straight out of a TV sitcom—you know, with exposed brick walls, a funky spiral staircase, and tons of hip, young co-workers.)

Turns out, I was right. The dream job (and office) would have to wait. My first job out of college was at a tiny newspaper office with a tiny salary to match. I wasn't dreaming up cool ad campaigns. I was hustling to city council meetings, snapping pictures of 7th grade football teams, and at the end of the day, unloading piles of freshly printed newspapers at the post office.

But even non-dream jobs have their perks—mine came with a rent-free apartment right above the newspaper office, which allowed me to survive on the roughly $1,000 per month that was my take-home pay. And the commute was a breeze.

But what about your job outlook? According to some recent research, the job market in 2005-06 is the best it's been in the past four years, and things continue to look good for the class of 2007. Employers expect to hire 17.4 percent more new college graduates in 2006-07 than they hired in 2005-06, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers' Job Outlook 2007 Fall Preview survey Click here to learn about third-party website links.

It also appears that your starting salary may not need to include a free apartment to sweeten the deal. Starting salary offers have increased for many disciplines at the bachelor's degree level, according to the Fall 2006 Salary Survey Click here to learn about third-party website links report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers(NACE).

Do these positive-sounding statistics ring true for you? Are you confident about finding a good job after graduation? Is your student loan debt adding pressure to your job search?

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