Although he spends his nights in a place where the only thing you hear is dogs barking and roosters crowing, Li Ling hasn't had a good night's sleep in several months.

"I'm worried as I get close to the end of the project," said Li, 26, who's been an assistant to a village Party secretary in the Changping district, Beijing.

"I don't feel quite confident about starting a new career," said the 2006 Beijing University of Chemical Technology graduate.

Li is a chemistry major and said that local officials used him more as a typist than anything else.

He spent last week preparing for the civil service exam. "We still have to find an iron rice bowl," he said. Next month, the first group of student village officials will finish their three-year stint and will be thinking about the future.

According to a 54cunguan.cn survey, the rural experience didn't give these people as much of an edge in the job hunt as they'd expected, and more than 62 percent said they wanted to take the civil service exam or wait for a government recommended job.

Only 10 percent said they would find a job on their own.

"I wonder whether the rural experience is really conducive to job-hunting in an urban area," said Li.

Liu Yuchen, 25, a village official in Beijing's Daxing district, has even considered removing the village experience from his resume.

"I studied administration at university and worked as a village assistant. But most of the time, I just wrote papers or ran errands for leaders."

Liu says that he came up with some ideas on pollution-free agriculture, but failed to get village support.

"I have nothing noteworthy and my job had nothing to do with my major. I'm not confident about the market."

According to a China Agriculture University (CAU) survey of early this year, more than 51 percent of student village officials say they have misgivings about the future.

One of their main difficulties in the village was finding that their major was useless and it was hard to immerse themselves in the local community.

The poor fit between the university education and the rural culture contributed to the misgivings, explained Liu Laoshi, a Renmin University professor and student village-official specialist.

In fact, villagers and local governments do need graduates and they think the grads can bring in some funds, knowledge, and market information, said Liu.

But most grads were not well prepared. "Some can't even tell wheat from rice," Liu explained.

Not all the students feel that they wasted their time.

Wang Lina, 26, a village committee chairperson's assistant in Pinggu district, ran a strawberry planting project and made the villagers about two million yuan.

"You need to learn socializing with the local people," said Wang. "It was easy to carry out a plan when you had their support."

Wang would go to the villagers' homes to chat with them or help their children with their homework.

"You have to be active in offering help. Don't just sit around the office waiting," she emphasized. "That's the difference between urban office work and rural work."

Wang's also preparing for the civil service exam. She admitted that she couldn't tell whether she'd continue the rural work, but one thing's for sure: "The experience will be my treasure."

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