Higher education career development professionals are charged with more than understanding the challenges and needs of a diverse student body, and they must also prepare students for career fields in life after higher education. This empirical study explored the graduate degree choices and career aspirations of 14 college athletes who competed in…

The authors surveyed 186 first-year university students and assessed their level of career compromise associated with making the transition to university. Compromise was operationalized as the discrepancy between the job characteristics of ideal and expected occupations. The authors also assessed career well-being (satisfaction, distress), action…

In this article, the authors offer a general perspective of vocational identity development as central to child and adolescent career development. A review of the pertinent literatures suggests that identity development is the product of three development strands--career exploration, commitment, and reconsideration--that appear to begin during…

This practiced-based handbook describes postmodern career counseling models and methods designed to meet clients' diverse needs in today's challenging work environment. Readers will gain a solid understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of postmodern career counseling and learn practical approaches to counseling clients of various ages and…

Many students in higher education institutions present themselves as undeclared majors and over time these students become high risks for academic failure. Research has shown that the first step in any major career decision-making process is self-knowledge. The major focus of this study was improved self-knowledge for our undeclared students which…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the contributions of socioeconomic status (SES) in predicting social cognitive career theory (SCCT) factors. Data were collected from 738 college students in Taiwan. The results of the partial least squares (PLS) analyses indicated that SES significantly predicted career decision self-efficacy (CDSE);…

The impact of first-generation status and family cohesion on the career thoughts of college students was investigated. While prior research had examined the differences between first-generation and non-first-generation college students, few studies have focused on the career decision-making of first-generation college students. No research to date…

This exploratory study examined the effect of an agriculturally-based experiential and work-based learning program, Science With Practice (SWP), on the vocational identity, career decision self-efficacy, and career maturity of undergraduate agriculture and life sciences students. The SWP experience helped clarify students' career interests and…

One of the most critical labor shortages facing the U.S. involves the number of young adults entering careers in what's now commonly referred to as STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Equally troubling is that the participation of blacks and Hispanics in STEM careers continues to lag that of whites and Asians. High school is…

Purpose: To describe a project that introduces middle school and high school students living in Pennsylvania's rural geographic regions to nursing careers through outreach extended to students regardless of gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. Method: The authors employed many strategies to inform students about careers in nursing. The…

A sense of calling in career is supposed to have positive implications for individuals and organizations but current theoretical development is plagued with incongruent conceptualizations of what does or does not constitute a calling. The present study used cluster analysis to identify essential and optional components of a presence of calling…

Vocational identity is one core component of identity construction in adolescence. The current study investigated whether vocational interest structure in terms of differentiation, coherence, elevation, and interest-aspiration congruence would differentiate among students in vocational identity achievement, foreclosure, moratorium, and diffusion.…

Discussion of nonfaculty careers for graduate students so easily disintegrates into dueling anecdotes. The author describes a story about someone who had to drop his Ph.D. from his resume in order to get a job at all. Stories cluster around both of those poles in the comments section whenever the author has written about nonprofessorial career…

SPIRIT is a three year project designed to increase high school students' interests in and their desire to pursue IT careers. This paper examines the results of the project during its second year of implementation. All student participants, and in particular female students, experienced a positive change in perception of gender stereotypes in IT…

This Doctor of Ministry project builds upon the Church's catechetical commission to form adult Christian disciples, capable of revealing the kingdom of God. It is rooted in the Vatican II teaching found in "Lumen gentium," chapter five: all the baptized are called to partake in the Church's mission by virtue of their universal call to holiness.…