While 17.1 percent of the Class of 1992 started jobs in the business world immediately after graduation, 5.7 percent opted for jobs in education for the following year.

But she says that since the teaching market doesn't close until late August, its too early know how the Class of 1993 will fare in the end.

Hutchison also says about half of the students who teach after college only dabble in the field for a few years before starting another profession or graduate school.

Other career fields that attract large numbers of graduating seniors are communications (5 percent of the class of 1992), government, political science, and public policy (5.8 percent), and science and technology (6.4 percent).

Many seniors are pursuing fellowships, which allows them to experiment and study abroad before launching into their careers. The students taking fellowships will be among the near 20 percent of the its class spending next year abroad, says OCS Director Martha P. Leape.

Milan G. Chheda '93, a Physics concentrator who will spend the next year at Hebrew University in Jerusalem on the Wallenberg fellowship, plans to study government and work on a human rights project. "Israel seemed cool just because of the history the whole area has," he says. "I thought it would be cool just to go far away."

Chheda says he has not yet decided on a profession. "That's why I'm spending a year in Israel. Maybe I'll be enlightened," he says.

Some seniors are using their freedom from academia to organize ambitious independent projects.

Do Kim, a concentrator in Afro-American Studies and Sociology, received a grant to begin a Youth Leadership Development Program for Korean-American children in Los Angeles.

Kim says he will aim to encourage his program's participants to think about politics, their relationship to the Korean-American community and their role in society. The program will "try to train them to be official leaders for the Korean community."

But for some of Kim's classmates, it's just too hard to put away the books. Since over the past decade the segment of seniors directly entering graduate or professional schools has remained fairly close to 30 percent, it is likely that the numbers for the Class of 1993 will be much the same.

Of course, for many members of the senior class, next year's plans are, well, "indefinite." Many graduates-to-be in this position seem to be taking this in stride. Miriam J. Greener '93, who is trying to land a teaching position but currently does not know what she will be doing next year, says she will use her freedom for the time being to do some go home for awhile and to do some traveling.

"I sort of wish I was more settled, but I'm trying not to worry," she says