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From doctor to cop to role model
Grads get A+
in job market
Being the first female to win the campus police department’s “Top Gun” award for sharpshooting is just the latest of Officer Thelma Matthews’ accomplishments.
Matthews
Before joining the department, Matthews was a physician in her native Mexico. When she moved to the United States in 1989, she spoke only Spanish and taught herself and her two sons English by listening to the radio and reading. Matthews went on to become a corrections officer in the San Joaquin County Jail and in 2002 joined Sac State’s Department of Public Safety.

She is currently training to become a certified emergency medical technician for situations which may call for medical assistance.

Matthews earned praise for her shooting prowess during Public Safety’s quarterly skills tests, which qualify officers to carry firearms. Sac State’s 22 police officers fire at targets from 5 to 75 feet away.

“I didn’t know we were shooting for the Top Gun Award when we were on the practice range that day,” Matthews says. “I asked if I passed, and Range Master Cpl. Vic Vinson said, ‘Yes, and you’re also the Top Gun.’”

Matthews isn’t content to be a leader for her gender on the shooting range alone. As one of only two women on the Sac State police staff, Matthews sees it as her duty to be a role model. “When you do something you like so much, you need to think about building a legacy.”
This winter, graduates had a lot more to celebrate than the end of term papers and tests. Waiting for them was the best job market in the past four years.

A National Association of Colleges and Employers survey found that employers plan to hire 17.4 percent more college graduates this year than a year ago. The survey also says that employers across the country are increasing starting salaries for new college graduates.

The salary increases came in almost all areas of study, with business disciplines and information sciences seeing the biggest jumps.

“Accounting graduates are doing exceptionally well in the
job market,” says Eva Gabbe, of Sac State’s Career Center. “And certainly construction management and engineering graduates are heavily recruited.”

Gabbe also indicated that more than 100 companies—including KPMG, Intel, PG&E, Target and Granite Construction—were on campus during the year to collect resumés and schedule interviews. “Corporations are looking for strengths such as oral and written communication skills, problemsolving abilities, leadership skills and good attitudes,” says Gabbe.

And the large number of older employees leaving the workforce should continue to benefit newcomers. “The demand for college graduates is going to explode over the next several years with the growing number of retirements of Baby Boomers,” says Beth Merritt Miller, director of the Career Center. “This is a change for the better for college grads.”
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