It’s a new year, which means that yet another class will be graduating from OU. This also means that another batch of fresh-faced, unemployed college graduates are being released into the workforce to start the desperate search for jobs.

Some of us already have starting careers lined up, but according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, only 24.4 percent of college students who apply for jobs can expect to graduate with a job lined up. Theoretically, that leaves the remaining 76 percent of us to scrape by with whatever starter jobs we can get, continue to pursue our dream jobs in hopes of making a breakthrough, or to make the dreaded move back home.

For those students graduating with degrees geared toward writing, business and communication, fields that are ever-changing with the advent of new technologies, the search for jobs can be especially difficult.

But there are more job options in these fields than one would initially think. The changing job market, emerging technology and Internet have opened up many unconventional and lucrative job options for young professionals.

Jamie Jones, a current Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication student, was faced with the task of finding a job that would allow her to utilize her passion of writing when she first left OU and entered the workforce. She discovered the copywriting business and soon had a successful business of her own with clients and steady workflow.

“I got paid for writing. That’s so cool,” she said of her feelings when she started finding success in the business. Jones had lots of great advice for writers and communicators who want to start up their own jobs and businesses.

She noted that “a lot of people want to be writers,” and that it is important to “be tenacious.”

The Internet, which continues to emerge and grow bigger each day, provides many ways for communicators and businessmen and women to be tenacious in getting their name out on the market. Blogging and Vlogging are now huge businesses of their own that provide great springboards for self-made journalism careers.

Ree Drummond, known as the Pioneer Woman, visited OU last fall to talk about her own experiences as a self-made journalist. After blogging on the Internet and building a massive readership and following, Drummond has published photography and cookbooks, traveled around the country on book tours and is even having a movie created about her life. She started all of this success while living on a farm in Oklahoma.

The advent of e-books, or electronic books, utilized with technology such as the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes and Noble Nook, are also beginning to open up avenues for writers who would have previously needed to rely on agents and publishers to help them make money off of their work. Authors can now publish their work online at bookselling sites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble, thus exposing it to a huge readership without slogging through the normal avenues of publishing.

These are only a few of the options that are within the grasp of new college graduates looking for work and money. The job search does not have to be painful and unsuccessful just because our country’s economy is consistently on the rocks and the job market is tight. There are business options for communicators everywhere that provide, at the least, a way to stay afloat while searching for a traditional job; and, at the most, successful, far-reaching, self-employed careers.

— Jelani Sims, professional writing and religious studies senior