Students’ Perceptions of Career Choices

Abstract

This article explores college students’ perceptions of career choices using the data obtained in the cross-regional sociological monitoring study Contradictions and Paradoxes of Student Socialization in the Context of Transitivity of the Modern Russian Society (2016) and comparing its findings with those of similar studies conducted in 2006 and 2011. Perception of career as a means of personal development has been found to be the strongest career motivation for modern students, which improves their learning outcomes. However, students have little idea of the labor market situation and sector-specific demand, which results in job-education mismatch, oversupply in high-profile careers, shortages in other economic sectors, and graduate employment issues. Significant differences are revealed in perceived motivations for career choices between students and professors. Professional educators tend to underestimate the role of students’ interest in their prospective career and overestimate the role of external factors (parental influence, desire to obtain a diploma of higher education in no matter which field, etc.). Modern students, unlike their counterparts in the 1990s, seem to realize the correlation between their learning outcomes and their career success.