PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

NYU study evaluates the influence of college experiences on career outcomes

2015-04-18
(Press-News.org) Meaningful college experiences, including internships and studying abroad, may not matter as much as your major and what school you attend when it comes to job satisfaction and earnings, according to research by NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

"Our study adds important nuance to our understanding of the influence specific college experiences have on economic and attitudinal job outcomes in the years following college graduation," said Gregory Wolniak, director of the Center for Research on Higher Education Outcomes at NYU Steinhardt and the study's author. Wolniak presents his findings on April 18 with co-author Mark E. Engberg of Loyola University Chicago at the American Education Research Association's annual meeting.

Researchers have long been trying to answer the elusive question: Is college worth it? Previous studies have focused on the relationship between college education and earnings upon graduation, but much less is known about college's effect on non-monetary, attitudinal career outcomes.

A 2007 report from the Association of American Colleges & Universities highlighted a set of "high-impact" practices - such as internships, community-based learning, studying abroad, and research outside of the classroom - that cultivate the kinds of learning and development students need for success. Employers even seek college graduates with these experiences, finding that they are better prepared for the workplace.

Wolniak and Engberg's study explores the connection between high-impact college experiences and career outcomes in the years immediately following college graduation, using 2012 follow up data from the Education Longitudinal Study, the most current and nationally representative data on students' transitions from college to the labor market.

The researchers analyzed a set of high-impact college experiences - internships, research outside of class, studying abroad, community-based projects, and senior capstones - in relationship to career outcomes immediately following graduation. While earlier research focused on earnings, this study looked at both earnings and non-monetary measures: graduates' attitudes toward their jobs (including a supportive work environment, job satisfaction, and job commitment) and continued learning and challenge in their jobs. The results suggest that high-impact experiences have a relatively small and inconsistent influence on career outcomes in the years right after college graduation, and specific experiences seem to only predict certain outcomes.

For instance, internships and community-based projects appear to lead students into jobs that offer new challenges, serve a social purpose, and provide opportunities for continued learning. There was also a positive relationship between participating in a senior capstone experience and being employed in a supportive work environment. However, studying abroad was not related to any career outcomes, and none of the high-impact experiences measured affected job satisfaction or commitment.

Consistent with past studies, the researchers found that attending a selective institution, rather than a moderate or inclusive institution, substantially improves earnings in the years immediately following college, with graduates of selective institutions reporting on average 16 to 18 percent higher earnings. However, a college's standing had no effect on attitudinal outcomes.

The researchers also found that college majors exert the largest effect on attitudinal measures, and also significantly influence early career earnings. While business majors enjoy comparable earnings to STEM majors, the former reported significantly lower levels of learning, satisfaction, and challenge on the job; in contrast, education majors earn substantially less than STEM majors but are more satisfied and committed to their jobs. In general, students working in jobs closely related to their majors reported more than 15 percent higher earnings.

"We had anticipated finding more consistent and stronger evidence that high-impact practices have a positive influence on earnings and other aspects of career success," Wolniak said. "Our findings suggest that to earn more and enjoy the attitudinal outcomes we examined, students would benefit from support in securing jobs related to their majors."

The researchers said that these results should not be used to call into question the importance of high-impact college experiences in terms of student learning and development, but do recommend using caution before suggesting that the positive influence high-impact experiences have on learning will translate to career gains.

INFORMATION:

About the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development (@nyusteinhardt) Located in the heart of Greenwich Village, NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development prepares students for careers in the arts, education, health, media, and psychology. Since its founding in 1890, the Steinhardt School's mission has been to expand human capacity through public service, global collaboration, research, scholarship, and practice. To learn more about NYU Steinhardt, visit steinhardt.nyu.edu.



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Study reveals a cause of poorer outcomes for African-American patients with breast cancer

2015-04-18
PHILADELPHIA --Poorer outcomes for African-American women with estrogen-receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer, compared with European-American patients, appears to be due, in part, to a strong survival mechanism within the cancer cells, according to a study being presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2015. Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center investigators report that breast tumors from African-American patients show reduced sensitivity to tamoxifen, a leading treatment for ER+ breast cancer, caused by increased activation ...

Potential migraine therapy to be presented April 22 by Achelios Therapeutics

2015-04-18
Chapel Hill, N.C., April 17, 2015 - Achelios Therapeutics will announce results from a Phase IIa placebo-controlled clinical trial in moderate and severe migraine sufferers treated with TOPOFEN (TM), the company's proprietary topical anti-migraine therapy. The data to be presented demonstrate that the simple application of a well-known non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), using the company's proprietary formulation on the skin, over the trigeminal nerve branches, can be a safe and effective alternative treatment for patients suffering from acute migraine. William ...

New research shows how to tackle obesity

2015-04-18
Study shows there are six different types of obese people Treating individuals according to which 'type' could be more effective Targeted strategies would also mean a more efficient use of NHS services One size does not fit all when it comes to tackling obesity, according to a new study by the University of Sheffield. Researchers looking at how to tackle the country's obesity issue - which costs the NHS £6billion pounds every year* - found that currently individuals are often treated the same regardless of how healthy they are, where they live or their ...

New Notre Dame paper opens the door to the study of a new class of materials

2015-04-17
A new paper by a team of researchers led by Karel Matous, College of Engineering Associate Professor of Computational Mechanics in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, describes how an accurate statistical description of heterogeneous particulate materials, which is used within statistical micromechanics theories, governs the overall thermo-mechanical properties. This detailed statistical description was computed using a novel adaptive interpolation/integration scheme on the nation's largest parallel supercomputers. Quantifying ...

Researchers make key malarial drug-resistence finding

2015-04-17
According to the World Health Organization's 2014 World Malaria Report, there are an estimated 198 million cases of malaria worldwide with 3.3 billion people at risk for contracting the infection. Although the impact of malaria is still significant, the statistics reflect a considerable reduction in the global malaria burden. Since 2010, disease transmission has been reduced by 30 percent and mortality due to malaria has decreased by almost half. Artemisinins are powerful drugs that have the most rapid action of all current drugs against Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite ...

Kids with ADHD must squirm to learn, study says

2015-04-17
For decades, frustrated parents and teachers have barked at fidgety children with ADHD to "Sit still and concentrate!" But new research shows that if you want ADHD kids to learn, you have to let them squirm. The foot-tapping, leg-swinging and chair-scooting movements of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder are actually vital to how they remember information and work out complex cognitive tasks, according to a study published in an early online release of the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. The findings show the longtime prevailing methods for ...

Unprecedented microbial diversity reported in remote Amazonian tribe

Unprecedented microbial diversity reported in remote Amazonian tribe
2015-04-17
April 17, 2015 - A multicenter team of U.S. and Venezuelan scientists, led by researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center, have discovered the most diverse collection of bodily bacteria yet in humans among an isolated tribe of Yanomami Indians in the remote Amazonian jungles of southern Venezuela. By comparison, the microbiome of people living in industrialized countries is about 40 percent less diverse, the scientists estimate. The team reports its findings today in the journal Science Advances. The results, the researchers say, suggest a link between modern antibiotics ...

Telling the time of day by color

2015-04-17
Research by scientists at The University of Manchester has revealed that the colour of light has a major impact on how the brain clock measures time of day and on how the animals' physiology and behavior adjust accordingly. The study, for the first time, provides a neuronal mechanism for how our internal clock can measure changes in light colour that accompany dawn and dusk. In research publishing on April 17th in the Open Access journal PLOS Biology, the researchers looked at the change in light around dawn and dusk to analyze whether colour could be used to determine ...

Mount Sinai scientists find unprecedented microbial diversity in isolated Amazonian tribe

2015-04-17
Scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine, collaborating with a multicenter team of U.S. and Venezuelan researchers, have discovered the most diverse collection of bacteria yet in humans among an isolated tribe of Yanomami Amerindians in the remote Amazonian jungles of Venezuela. Bacterial diversity in the Yanomami, previously unexposed to antibiotics or industrialized diets, was found to be nearly double that of people living in industrialized countries, and was also significantly higher than in other remote populations moderately exposed to modern practices. The team ...

Tel Aviv University says violent anti-Semitic attacks spiked in 2014

2015-04-17
An annual report from Tel Aviv University researchers reveals that anti-Semitic incidents rose dramatically worldwide in 2014, with violent attacks on Jews ranging from armed assaults to vandalism against synagogues, schools, and cemeteries. The report, released on April 15 by TAU's Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, recorded 766 incidents, mostly in Western Europe, compared to 554 in 2013 -- a surge of nearly 40 percent. The report called 2014 the worst year for anti-Semitic attacks since 2009. The authors of the report characterized such attacks ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Modesty and boastfulness – perception depends on usual performance

Do sweeteners increase your appetite? New evidence from randomised controlled trial says no 

Women with obesity do not need to gain weight during pregnancy, new study suggests

Individuals with multiple sclerosis face substantially greater risk of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19, despite high rates of vaccination

Study shows obesity in childhood associated with a more than doubling of risk of developing multiple sclerosis in early adulthood

Rice Emerging Scholars Program receives $2.5M NSF grant to boost STEM education

Virtual rehabilitation provides benefits for stroke recovery

Generative AI develops potential new drugs for antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Biofuels could help island nations survive a global catastrophe, study suggests

NJIT research team discovering how fluids behave in nanopores with NSF grant

New study shows association of historical housing discrimination and shortfalls in colon cancer treatment

Social media use may help to empower plastic surgery patients

Q&A: How to train AI when you don't have enough data

Wayne State University researchers uncover potential treatment targets for Zika virus-related eye abnormalities

Discovering Van Gogh in the wild: scientists unveil a new gecko species

Small birds spice up the already diverse diet of spotted hyenas in Namibia

Imaging detects transient “hypoxic pockets” in the mouse brain

Dissolved organic matter could be used to track and improve the health of freshwaters

Indoor air quality standards in public buildings would boost health and economy, say international experts

Positive associations between premenstrual disorders and perinatal depression

New imaging method illuminates oxygen's journey in the brain

Researchers discover key gene for toxic alkaloid in barley

New approach to monitoring freshwater quality can identify sources of pollution, and predict their effects

Bidirectional link between premenstrual disorders and perinatal depression

Cell division quality control ‘stopwatch’ uncovered

Vaccine protects cattle from bovine tuberculosis, may eliminate disease

Andrew Siemion to receive the SETI Institute’s 2024 Drake Award

New study shows how the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus enters our cells

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy proves effective for locally advanced penile squamous cell carcinoma

Study flips treatment paradigm in bilateral Wilms tumor, shows resistance to chemotherapy may point toward favorable outcomes

[Press-News.org] NYU study evaluates the influence of college experiences on career outcomes