Who and What Influences College Students’ Career Aspirations?
In a recent national survey, the most cited reason for what motivates college students to get their degrees is career success. This makes sense - college is a time for exploring possible career options, and for learning knowledge and skills that you hope to use in a future job. However, this explanation is only part of the career preparation picture - it lays out the when (your college years) and the where (your college campus), but it doesn’t explain the who and what. In other words, who are the people and what are the factors that are influencing college students as they contemplate their career path?
A different national survey asked this question of nearly 3,000 college students, providing a comprehensive look at who and what influences students as they figure out their careers. One interesting thing about this survey on career influences is that they divided their sample into first-generation students versus continuing-generation students. This makes sense because research has shown that the perspectives, goals, and overall experience of higher education can be quite different for students who are the first in their families to earn a bachelor’s degree (i.e. first-generation students) compared to other students (i.e. continuing-generation students). It’s reasonable to expect that that career influences may look different as well. Let’s see what the data says, starting with…
Career Influences for Continuing-Generation Students
Continuing-generation students were asked to name up to three factors that have influenced them the most in terms of thinking about their future professions after graduating. The following percentages represent the share of students who named each influence, starting from the most influential to the least influential:
Parent(s) (49%)
Personal Strengths and Weaknesses (25%)
Professor(s) (24%)
Peer(s) (20%)
Academic Abilities (19%)
Friend(s) of Parent(s) (15%)
Relative(s) Other Than a Parent (15%)
Salaries Linked to Specific Careers (13%)
Internships (12%)
Teacher(s) Before College (11%)
Community Member(s) (10%)
My Sense of the Job Market / Job Availability (10%)
At first glance, this list makes sense to me, particularly the top 5 influences. And guess what? Despite their eye rolls to the contrary, college students really do value their parents’ thoughts when it comes to careers. It also makes sense that the two categories of people who they spend the most time with in college are also high on the list (professors and peers). Furthermore, a sense of self is a crucial element to factor into the career choice process, so seeing personal strengths and weakness as well as academic abilities in the top 5 doesn’t surprise me at all.
Here’s where I am a little surprised: internships were only listed as a top career influence by 12% of respondents. Isn’t that interesting? The number of voices talking up the importance of internships during college has only steadily increased over time, and the National Association of Colleges and Employers has found that work-based experiences like internships can lead to increased skills, professional networks, and social capital. Perhaps more importantly, they’ve found that paid college interns average 1.61 job offers, compared to 0.94 job offers for unpaid college interns, and 0.77 offers for non-interns. I don’t want to get too side-tracked from the main topic here, but the discrepancy between the influence of internships on careers versus the benefits of internships merits some more thought.
But I digress. I should also mention here that there were also some additional choices that the survey presented that fewer than 10% of respondents selected as major career influences, such as social media, career center staff, alumni and admissions representatives, and job supervisors. I’m keeping a close eye on social media - I suspect its role in influencing careers is growing, and will continue to grow into the future. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that LinkedIn functioned primarily as a resume-in-a-profile while you were job hunting; it’s only been recently that people have started posting on it and treating it like other social media platforms.
So now that we’ve taken a look at continuing-generation college students and their career influences, let’s take a look at first-generation college students and how they might be similar or different…
Career Influences for First-Generation Students
Just as a reminder: these students were asked to name up to three factors that have influenced them the most in terms of thinking about their future professions after graduating. The following percentages represent the share of first-gen students who named each influence, starting from the most influential to the least influential:
Parent(s) (34%)
Personal Strengths and Weaknesses (25%)
Professor(s) (20%)
Peer(s) (20%)
Academic Abilities (19%)
Salaries Linked to Specific Careers (15%)
Friend(s) of Parent(s) (14%)
Relative(s) Other Than a Parent (13%)
Teacher(s) Before College (12%)
My Sense of the Job Market / Job Availability (11%)
Community Member(s) (10%)
Internships (7%)
So on first glance, these percentages look fairly similar to the percentages for continuing-generation students. However, the 2 biggest differences are these: first-gen students were less likely than continuing-gen students to rank their parents or internships as top career influences.
Let’s tackle the parental difference first. Don’t get me wrong - parents still came out on top as most influential, but 34% of first-generation students named their parents as a top influence, compared to 49% of continuing-generation students. Why the difference? First-generation students not only lack the advantage of parents who have navigated the college experience themselves and can help them navigate it, but they also don’t have the advantage of guidance from parents who have navigated the careers available to people with college degrees. So it makes sense that first-gen students are less likely to rank their parents as top career influences.
It’s also true that first-gen students are less likely to obtain an internship during college, which may explain why they are less likely to choose internships as a top career influence.
I think that these two career influence differences between first-gen and continuing-gen students are good illustrations of how first-gen students face unique obstacles, and lack some of the support that continuing-gen students can take for granted. How to narrow that gap is a much larger conversation, but if you’d like to learn more about how we can help first-gen students thrive, take a look at the Center for First-generation Student Success.
Why Looking at Career Influences is Important
Back to looking at this topic as a whole (e.g. college students’ career influences), I hope this information is helpful. If you’re a college student, these lists can help you be more intentional in your career choice process. Take a look at the list of factors, and come up with your own list to help organize your thoughts about your personal career influences. You can also compare and contrast your list with the survey results to see if there’s an important influence that you haven’t considered yet, but might be helpful to think about.
If you’re a parent, and particularly if you’re nervous about how your child is deciding on a future career, these lists may de-mystify their decision making process a bit. It also provides you more concrete conversation points around the topic - you can ask about individual factors, such as “what have you learned from your peers that have influenced your career decision making process?”, for example.
What Influenced Your Career Choice?
Now that I’ve looked at the national data on college student career influences, I have a sense of the big picture, but I’d like to hear more individual stories to help me develop a deeper and richer understanding of how these factors influence career choice. I’d like to hear from you about what factors influenced your career choice! Feel free to leave a comment below.
