Sorry seniors. You’re graduating at possibly the worst time in the past half-century. Maybe you can find solace in the fact that you won’t be drafted like your grandfathers might have been, but it is going to be extraordinarily hard for you to find jobs.

UCLA’s Anderson School of Management has issued a report saying that the nation could very likely lose 2 million jobs in 2009 and other analysts have made the claim that there are no recession proof industries.

Your first instinct might be to weather the storm while studying at graduate school. Indeed, history has shown us that applications increase at graduate schools during recessions.

But that might not be a good move, says the Boston Globe’s career columnist Penelope Trunk.

Her reasons are:
“Grad school pointlessly delays adulthood”
“PhD programs are pyramid schemes”
“Business school is not going to help 90% of the people who go”
“Law school is a factory for depressives”
“The medical school model assumes that health care spending is not a mess”
“Going to grad school is like going into the military”
“Most jobs are better than they seem: You can learn from any job”
“Graduate school forces you to over invest: It’s too high risk”

Her arguments are fairly strong, and her view is backed up by a Chronicle of Higher Education column that vigorousy dissuades students from pursuing graduate degrees specifically in the Liberal Arts.

So, what should you do? Internships have been popular, but of course the majority of them are unpaid. In truth, we really have no idea what you should do. Sorry.