Brandon Bute, Career Center Ball State University KEY CAREERS Creating Career Clarity Fall 2012 CDPI Conference

Key Careers Goals for Freshmen BSU Students: Choose a major earlier in college career Decrease change in major choice Begin career exploration process Connect with BSU resources Education about the labor market

Why is this Project Important? Decrease expense and time for students Increase retention Increase opportunities for experiential learning BSU students more marketable in tough economy State funding

National Statistics: Did You know? 50% students change major 53% of students take 6 years to graduate college 13% have a major related job at graduation 75% are malemployed 83% go back home to live with parents $26,000 average debt

Key Careers Based upon…. Research using the My Vocational Situation University of Missouri-Columbia freshmen Normative data

My Vocational Situation Developed by John Holland Measures clarity and stability of major/career Pre and post-test measure Average score for freshmen 9.5 (U of Missouri) Significantly predicted change in major less than.05

My Vocational Situation (MVS) VI score found by adding number false responses Hi VI = 13 to 18 Average VI = 6 to 12 Low VI = 0 to 5

Methodology Students completed initial survey at orientation s were sent to students in the low and average range encouraging them to complete self- assessments in Sigi3 and Type Focus All freshmen students received invitation to participate in KEY Careers workshop during the month of November All freshmen students were invited by in December to complete the MVS a second time

Participation Numbers 3659 – Students who complete the initial MVS survey 1604 – Students who participated in a KEY Careers Workshop 1021 – Student who completed the second MVS survey

Program Delivery Priorities Introduce the Stages of Career Development Provide resources available to implement career development process Make intentional decisions towards creating and implementing a career development action plan

Stages of Career Development STAGE 1: Conduct self assessment STAGE 2: Explore and research options STAGE 3: Make a decision STAGE 4: Implement decision STAGE 5: Re-evaluate

Your action plan

Results of the Project 625 Low VI score students who completed the initial MVS survey 712 Average VI score students who completed the initial MVS survey 2322 High VI score students who completed the initial MVS survey

Results: BSU Freshmen Scores: VI average score 9.5 pre-test Reflects average score in research VI scores changed significantly in the low and average VI groups

Results: Vocational Identity (VI): Mean VI scoreNStd. Deviation Low VI Pre Low VI Post Avg. VI Pre Avg. VI Post Hi VI Pre Hi VI Post

Significant Change in Clarity and Stability of Major and Career choice Low VI had less than.0001 significance Average VI had less than.001 significance Regression analysis showed that Key Career Seminars significantly accounted for the change in VI scores

Discussion: What Did We Learn? We can make a significant impact on students’ career exploration process As early as the first semester freshmen year Intentional interventions can increase students’ clarity and stability of career goals More than one-third of BSU freshmen students needed career exploration

Questions