If you are a tech-oriented upperclassman in college who is thinking about a career, or if you are a recent graduate still hanging around school because you cannot find a job, then this article is written with you in mind.

Before I go any further, I would like to present some statistics. I may not be a math person, and you might be bored by this proposition, but statistics go far in assisting the prognosis and analysis of a problem. So let’s check out some unemployment statistics.

According to The San Diego Union-Tribune, local unemployment was around 3.3 percent in June. By July, that had not changed. Even after the Sept. 11 attacks, unemployment in San Diego was around 3.4 percent.

At this point, that sounds pretty ridiculous. The national unemployment rate is higher: 4.9 percent. Studies even show that people will take less pay just to live in San Diego.

In a recent Los Angeles Times article, writer Marc Ballon gave an example that may forecast rough times ahead.

A new Red Robin Gourmet Burgers restaurant owner in Portland, Ore., collected more than 1,700 job applications. The owner, James Bastidas, said that college graduates stood in long lines with laid-off factory workers for only 165 openings, each offering pay of between $6.50 and $9.50 per hour. Bastidas said it “”blew him away.””

Terrorism — and the fear that is rampant as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks and the anthrax incidents — is further hurting what was already a deteriorating economy.

But that brings me to my main point: People cannot just keep complaining about not having a job and that finding one is so difficult. I am sick of hearing that.

There is no point in saving your dignity, my friends and fellow students. The Red Robin case was one of many that Ballon pointed out. Other restaurants and retail shops are experiencing the same thing. If all those people can suck it up and take lower pay in the meantime, so can you. Think of it as a temporary job.

Cisco is laying off 8,000 employees. SUN Microsystems just slashed 4,000 people from its workforce. Agilent, Lucent and other tech companies are cutting jobs, too.

I know that many UCSD computer science and engineering students long for those jobs. And I know Alan Greenspan has said that the entire country will be hit hard with decline.

How can I be so unmerciful and uncaring? I am not.

I have seen some of you loll through the last year of school with no planning. Sorry, brothas and sistas — sending out that resume once every two or three weeks does not cut it these days.

I have seen some of you falter at interviews and come back depressed.

Need a job? Dial those numbers, write those e-mails, make those nice resumes.

Can’t communicate well? Maybe you need more education, or at the very least, more training in social skills.

Times are tough. Our glorious age of mass consumption has hit a huge roadblock, and it is going to take a while before we clear up the way so we can speed again.

I will not throw any cliches or old-fashioned reprimands at you. I just value hard work and an indomitable spirit.

Kudos to those of you who have a job right now because you are unwilling to let a faltering global economy faze you.