Date of Award
2025
Degree Type
Open Access Dissertation
Degree Name
Education, PhD
Program
School of Educational Studies
Advisor/Supervisor/Committee Chair
June Hilton
Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member
Mark Figueroa
Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member
Carol Lundberg
Terms of Use & License Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Rights Information
© 2025 Barnaby Peake
Keywords
alumni, career competencies, career preparedness
Subject Categories
Educational Leadership
Abstract
Obtaining a college degree is more than the culmination of an educational experience today; studies indicate that two-thirds of jobs require a postsecondary education or specialized training beyond high school. College graduates expect their studies to provide the necessary training to enable them to be successful in the workforce. However, employers report that college students are underprepared in many important career competencies. This study aimed to determine if college is delivering on the promise of career preparedness and to uncover what experiences help students develop career competencies by asking recent alumni to reflect on their collegiate experience and identify what they found to be the most helpful in their training for the workforce. The questionnaire was based on another national study, Project CEO, which asked current college students to rank their preparedness on twelve career competencies that were identified by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) through their annual survey of employers. The Project CEO study was modified to address a sample population of alumni from a mid-size state university in California. Over 2,000 alumni responded to the study and 91% reported they were proficient in their abilities in the twelve competencies. The alumni were then asked to identify which experiences in college, such as internships, cocurricular activities, leadership roles, and college employment were most responsible for the development of the career skills. Overall, the findings indicate academic classes were the most influential in developing career skills, however through crosstabulation analyses, the findings showed that those who were significantly involved in cocurricular activities and off-campus employment reported those experiences were highly impactful in the development of career skills, even more than academic classes. The findings also indicated the more time students spent in these activities and being employed helped to develop skills and boosted students’ self-confidence in the workplace. The findings suggest the time students spend outside of the classroom in meaningful experiences can contribute significantly to the development of essential career skills and compliment what they learn in the classroom. Furthermore, if out-of-class experiences could be intentionally connected with classroom learning to incorporate the practical application of skills through jobs and cocurricular activities, the overall learning experience could be enhanced to the benefit of all the students in the class. This study clearly shows that engagement outside of class is not just an “extra”-curricular activity, they have the potential to increase skill development and broaden students’ preparedness for the workforce.
ISBN
9798290967394
Recommended Citation
Peake, Barnaby F.. (2025). Employment Preparedness Through the Collegiate Experience. CGU Theses & Dissertations, 1004. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/1004.
