Jessica Preece graduated from Marshall University in May with a degree in elementary education. Now almost four months later, she hoped to have a full-time teaching position, but she's finding out, with her degree...there's not much available.

"It's discouraging," Preece said. "You went to school because you wanted the opportunity to have the great job and make money and things like that...it's disappointing and it feels like you wasted your time."

Preece has tried different schools in Cabell, Wayne and Putnam counties. But according to Denise Hogsett, MU Director of Career Services, that may be the problem.

"If they are bound by geographic location and they have to find employment, then I think it limits their search abilities to find that job," Hogsett said.

Hogsett agrees that finding a job after graduation can be difficult, but she says it's important to get a job after graduating even if it doesn't relate to your field, because that allows you more time to search for the career you really want.

No one knows that better than Sarah Kemp, who graduated in 2007 with a public relations degree. Now, more than a year later, she's working for the same school that gave her the diploma.

"It's a great sense of validation and accomplishment," Kemp said. "That the work all those four years is now paying off."

As for Preece, she says she'll stick with it, in the hopes of one day working her dream job.

"I know in the end there will be something for me in teaching."