UCSD Extension Names Top Twelve Career Trends For College Graduates

As commencement ceremonies around the country loom near, many students find themselves stepping out into a workplace with unemployment at a record high. So what's a fresh college graduate to do? UCSD has just released a study highlighting twelve of the hottest career options for grads, and they aren't all what you might expect. Good news for web design college graduates, though: casual game development came in at number one.

1. Casual Game Development: One of the fastest growing segments of the video game industry is casual gaming. Every month, an estimated 200 million consumers play casual games online, many of whom do not normally regard themselves as gamers, or fans of video games. Casual games are typically played online on a personal computer (within Web browsers), although they now are starting to become popular on mobile phones and game consoles, too.

Actually, it's a banner year for web designers -- mobile media is also on an upswing, and mobile application designers with web site experience are in hot demand:

7. Mobile Media: Graphic designers with Web site design and animation experience are especially needed as demand continues to increase for design projects for interactive media - from Web sites, to next generation cell phones and mobile gaming. One in ten Americans now accesses mobile Internet or video weekly, a segment of the population that are avid users of new and traditional media. They spend 30 percent more time with media than the general population (ages 12 to 64), and they also have higher incomes, travel on business regularly, and are more likely to have made an online purchase.

Also featured among the list are sustainable green practices, data mining, the perennial favorite of paid research test subject, and -- again, alerting all tech savvy designers -- software development and design. Interested in checking out a web design school online or in your area? (And after this study, who wouldn't be?) Check out the top online universities at Get Degrees!