Requisite Metamorphoses

Emerging adults who are at the intersection of college and work face a complex and challenging transition. In addition to finding employment, graduates seek to define and explore long-term career paths, form personal and professional identities, develop new support systems, and learn the mores and culture of the new environment of work. They approach these challenges while also moving through emerging adulthood, a development phase that precedes the feeling of being fully adult. In short, a successful college-to-work transition requires graduates to move through a series of metamorphoses. This chapter explores these metamorphoses and the experiences of graduates who are experiencing them. It also suggests ways colleges and universities can support the needs of their students and graduates and things emerging adults can do themselves to foster their successful metamorphoses.

China’s College Expansion and the Timing of the College-to-Work Transition: A Natural Experiment

This article examines the effect of China’s 1999 acceleration of higher education expansion on when college graduates find their first skilled job. We use a natural experiment to test our hypotheses and exploit the unique education and work history data of a nationally representative survey, as well as estimate a causal inference model. We find that the 1999 education expansion caused a delay in the landing of a skilled job among graduates from technical colleges, while graduates from four-year colleges were not affected in job acquisition. We also find that family origins and individual social positions are significant determinants of who entered college both before and after the education expansion. These findings shed new light on the workings of early adulthood and on social inequality in China.

Strategies for Coping With Career Indecision During the College-to-Work Transition: Concurrent and Predictive Validity

The goal of the present research was to test a model of strategies for coping with career indecision during the college-to-work transition and its accompanied measure (the Strategies for Coping with Career Indecision–College-to-Work Transition Questionnaire [SCCI-CWTQ]), as predictors of career choice-related outcomes. Study 1 ( N = 522) supported the psychometric properties of the SCCI-CWTQ in a sample of college seniors and confirmed the model’s hierarchical structure with three coping styles: productive, support-seeking, and nonproductive styles. Study 2 ( N = 659) tested the concurrent and incremental predictive validity of the SCCI-CWTQ. The results showed that productive coping style was positively associated with a sense of coping efficacy, career decision status, and career choice satisfaction 1 year following graduation, whereas using a nonproductive coping style was negatively related to those outcomes and positively associated with career decisional distress. Theoretical as well as practical implications pertaining to career decision-making during the college-to-work transition are suggested.

“Chasing a passion”: first-generation college graduates at work

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the college-to-work transition as experienced by first-generation college (FGC) graduates. First-generation graduates are often adjusting to workplaces that are significantly different from parents’ work environments. Design/methodology/approach – This phenomenological study explored the early-career learning experiences of six FGC graduates from the USA. All participants were working full-time and had graduated two to six years earlier. Findings – Three themes were identified: starting the job, being in the job, and releasing the past. Participants highlighted unanticipated aspects of their college-to-work transition, including dealing with workplace politics and family dynamics. They also described ambivalence between their current work and the desire to pursue a more compelling career or vocational passion. Research limitations/implications – All participants were white and from similar (rural) settings in one region of the USA. The qualitative nature of the study restricts generalization. Practical implications – This study suggests, given the distinction between first-generation students’ post-college work environments and that of their parents, that educators’ efforts to assist FGC students might appropriately extend to topics beyond graduation. FGC graduates should be alerted to the impact of shifts in social and cultural norms, and informed about changing family dynamics that may continue after leaving school. Originality/value – Previous research has highlighted the challenges facing FGC students. This is one of few studies that explores the experiences of FGC graduates in the workplace following graduation.