Ohhhh k.... I will have to apolgize as I can't fully answer the question. This is going to be about web design and advice for that college grad.

I graduated a few years ago and it took me a little while until I got my first "real job" where I've been ever since. It was a small IT company and I helped morph it into a full fledged SEO, Web Design, Internet marketing and new media company.

Some advice prior to getting your job:

1. Try to get as much experience as you can. Even if it's just setting up your own webpages. An easy place to start is by helping out with your local neighborhood association (if you have one) or finding another local organization that might need a little web help. A small charity or meals on wheels type of programs are usually nice as they just want some simply information pages usually with info on how to donate, etc.

2. Learn about art if you haven't already. I'm talking about the color wheel, design principles. If you're a bit of a graphic design artist then you should have no problem here. However if you're not become familiar with these techniques of color selection, etc.

3. Know how to talk business. Being able to suggest web design ideas to enhance customer conversion or different ways to market your client's product will make you widely successful. A website is only one part of a marketing campaign. Learning how that fits and how it interacts with the other elements is very important.

Going freelance?

Be prepared is all that I can say. I would advise that you create a proposal template for all your projects. That way you get familiar with the process. Make sure you set deliverables and sign offs. For example, make sure you have a process where your client signs off on the design before you move forward. Establishing deliverables where the customer either signs off and you move forward or requests changes and you try again will help eliminate scope creep. It also help you out when a few months down the road they want to change something drastic to the design that they already signed off on and they expect you to do it for free... - I don't think so.

There are a lot more liabilities this way. You bear all the responsibility and liability for your service. This can become very complicated and troublesome.

What kind of Job you ask?

Well you really have two scenarios:

1. You work for a company's web department and you work on their website and online services, etc.

2. You work for a web design company design client's websites.

They both offer different pro's and con's...

#1 - You will most likely be working on pretty similar projects all the time. However, presenting those key ideas that I talked about earlier can really help you climb the corporate ladder to a CTO type of position. Another pro about this scenario is that you're supporting a company so you're not worrying about getting more and more web projects to keep the company running. However this is a double edged sword because you're also a cost deparment (you're not directly producing a profit). So, if your company starts going downhill your job may be one of the first ones to be outsourced.

#2 - This is nice because you can always be working on something different unelss you've been assigned to some year long project... A con is that your web design service is your product so you'd better be designing or looking for new projects because you're not supporting the company as you were in scenario #1 you're the in the profit role, if you're not working you're not making ends meet. Another major con can be clients themselves. It can be hard to try to suggest things and the clients say that it's too expensive to do all of those items you have to scarifice one or two line items from the project. But, you know that those should really be in there to make the end project stellar, but the client simply doesn't understand no matter how you try to explain it to them. Being in this scenario though does lend itself to you becoming a bit more of a consultant at times which is pretty fun.

So, you have a lot to think about here... The jobs are out there and they usually pay pretty well, even for entry level which I've seen range from $35k - $50k per year depending on prior experience, etc.