Asignificant and unavoidable part of going to university is that, at some point, students need to work out what to do next.
For universities, supporting this process is important. Not only is it the right thing to do, it also feeds our bottom line. Whether it’s metrics, frameworks, or league tables, career outcomes are being measured. To help ensure students are on track toward good outcomes, recent innovations such as Careers’ Registration (the inclusion of employability-related questions in student registration) try to understand and identify current students in need. We now have much more information about students’ career “decidedness” – the extent to which they have a clear plan – but not so much about the journey they go through.
In a recent study funded by the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU), we asked 663 graduating students what their career interests were when they started university versus now. The majority (61 per cent) indicated that their aspirations had changed during their studies.
