Sims who graduate college will not only have access to 4 other careers, but be able to start the older careers at a higher level since they’ve had time to develop their skills. I think the specific level a Sim is able to start at depends on the skill level of relevant skills. For example, if a sim has level 2 creativity, 3 mechanical, and 2 charisma after graduating, they can start at the 4th level of the Musician career. They’ll need to increase some skills in order to be promoted. It’s probably also dependent on the number of friends he/she has.
My problem recently was: How do I start at the very beginning level of the graduate-level careers, when I’ve had to build up the skills in college and I’m likely to skip over the first level? I have recorded the hours and skills needed for each career, and needed to get the first few levels of the Show Business and Paranormal careers. But most of my graduated students already had a few skill points of charisma and body. I’ve also recorded which skills are needed for each college major, so I picked one that only requires one charisma. When the time came, I never got the charisma skill point, and luckily it wasn’t a requirement the next semester! So I now know the hours of the 1st level of Show Business, and I still need to get the Paranormal. See the list of all Sims 2 Career Levels (up to FreeTime), along with their hours and skills here:Â http://www.leakybagel.com/products/all_careers.php
Don’t quote me on it (it honestly has been a while since I’ve gone thru college since I had to restart my neighborhood a while back, and have just recently gotten to playing sims after rebuilding everything, and even then, only a couple of the families that come with the neighborhood/business district), but I always thought it was that the career level you start at after graduation is based on the degree’s relation to that career. In the booklet that came with University it has a thing with each degree, including which careers it’s a major and minor for. So if your sim is a poli sci major, and goes into politics, that would give them the biggest boost, since that’s the career it’s a major for, whereas military career it’s a minor, thus you’d get a little less of a boost in starting career level (at a guess, halfway and a quarter way up respectively). Get a job with nothing to do with your degree, and I figured you’d start at the bottom. But again, don’t quote me on that, as I also have sims get degrees in the field they’re going to get a job in later, so I’ve never tried anything other than majoring in a degree.