North Carolina State University
Fall 1998 Survey of Baccalaureate Alumni
And
Fall 1998 Employer Survey:
Executive Summary
Research Methods
- Alumni who received bachelor's degrees from NC State between December 1993 and August 1996 were surveyed in the fall of 1998 (i.e., between two and four and one-half years after graduation).
- A random sample was drawn for the six largest academic departments. All alumni from the other departments were included in the survey sample. Alumni for whom the Office of University Advancement did not have accurate address information were excluded. 8,333 of 10,684 graduates were in the final sample. A total of 3,141 completed surveys were returned for a 37.7 percent response rate (3,141 of 8,333), and a margin of error of 1.2 percent.
- As part of the survey, employed alumni were asked for permission to contact their supervisor, and for contact information. 570 of 2,850 employed respondents (20%) did so. Two full mailings to supervisors yielded 416 completed surveys. This represents a response rate of 73.0 percent for those employers with contact information, or 14.6 percent for all employed alumni respondents. The margin of error is 4.2 percent.
Undergraduate Goals
- Respondents rated preparing for a career as their most important goal (mean rating=4.71 on a 5-point scale). Goals rated lowest were being involved in public and community affairs (3.64), understanding the present as it relates to historical events and processes (3.60), and advancing my appreciation of the arts, music and literature (3.44).
- Respondents were most satisfied with NC State's contribution to the goals of acquiring a broad education (mean=4.29), increasing my ability to think critically (4.19), and instilling the belief that learning is a lifelong process (4.13). Lowest ratings went to promoting student involvement in public and community affairs (3.54), and advancing my appreciation of the arts, music, and literature (3.56).
- Women and African Americans gave consistently higher ratings than men and whites, respectively, to the importance of and satisfaction with each of the undergraduate goals that were asked about.
- Respondents consistently gave higher ratings to the importance of a goal than to their satisfaction with the extent to which NC State contributed to their development of the goal. However, goals ranked relatively high in importance were usually also ranked relatively high in satisfaction, and goals ranked relatively low in importance were ranked relatively low in satisfaction. Two important exceptions to this pattern are preparing for a career and understanding my own abilities and interests, which were ranked much higher in importance than in satisfaction.
General Education Goals
- A majority of respondents agreed that NC State prepared them to be competitive with graduates from other institutions (57.3%) and to keep in touch with current events through newspapers and magazines. They were most likely to "tend to disagree" (11.6%) or "disagree" (8.6%) that their social science courses provided useful knowledge and insight.
NC State Work Experience
- Men were twice as likely as women to have participated in a co-op education program (18.0% vs 9.5%), while women were more likely than men to have participated in an internship program (31.0% vs 21.1%). African American respondents were also more likely than whites to have participated in an internship program (35.3% vs 25.0%). Non-African American minority respondents were more likely than others to have participated in a co-op education program (21.5%) or in undergraduate research (21.5%). NC State work experience also varied by college. College of Engineering alumni were more likely than others to have participated in a co-op education program (32.0%). Alumni from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Physical and Math Sciences were more likely than others to have had undergraduate research experience (35.7% and 31.6% respectively). And, over sixty percent (60.6%) of College of Forest Resources graduates had had an internship while at NC State. More than three-fourths (76.3%) of all respondents who participated in one of these programs while at NC State said that experience was helpful in obtaining their current position.
Further Education
- About 30 percent of alumni respondents had either completed graduate/professional school, were currently enrolled, or had been accepted. Women were slightly more likely than men to have ever applied to graduate/professional school (38.8% vs 32.0% respectively). Alumni respondents from the College of Physical and Math Sciences (48.6%), Education and Psychology (44.3%), and Agriculture and Life Sciences (43.8%) were more likely than those from other colleges to have ever applied to graduate school. One-third of all those who had not applied to graduate/professional school said they had a "high interest" in doing so at some time in the future. While similar numbers of white and African American respondents had applied to or attended graduate/professional school, African Americans who had not done so were more likely than whites to say they were "not interested" in post-baccalaureate courses (48.7% vs 31.6%).
- Respondents were more likely to pursue further education at NC State than other institutions. One third of the alumni having attended or planning to attend graduate/professional school were at NC State or had received their graduate degree there.
- About two-thirds of those going on to graduate/professional school had received or were working on a Master's degree (65.7%), while 22.5 percent had received or were working on a doctorate.
- The advanced degrees most frequently sought by alumni were in engineering (18.8%), the humanities and social sciences (15.7%), and management (14.9%). 7.3 percent had obtained or were working on medical degrees, and 6.2 percent on law degrees.
- Almost 85 percent of those with post-baccalaureate education said that NC State had provided "good" (45.4%) or "excellent" preparation (39.0%) for graduate/professional school. White respondents were more likely than African Americans to say they had "excellent preparation" for graduate/professional school (39.9% vs 24.4%)
Employment
- More than 90 percent of respondents were currently employed full- or part-time (87.6% and 5.6% respectively). Only 2.0 percent were unemployed and looking for work. Women were about twice as likely as men to be unemployed and not seeking work (6.3% vs 3.4%) or working part-time (8.2% vs 3.6%). African Americans were also more likely than white respondents to be working part-time (9.3% vs 5.5%).
- Almost three-fourths of those currently enrolled in graduate or professional school were also working either full- (52.0%) or part-time (21.4%).
- While almost half (46.6%) of all respondents had a permanent full-time position by graduation, this was more likely for men (52.1%), whites (47.2%), and non-African American minority students (51.7%) than for women (39.4%) and African Americans (33.2%).
- More than half (54.8%) of employed respondents were working in a position "directly related" to their degree from NC State. Over three-fourths (78.2%) of the 16.2 percent working in jobs unrelated to their degree were doing so by choice. African Americans, however, were slightly more likely than white respondents to be working in a position unrelated to their degree (21.2% vs 16.0%), and less likely than whites to be doing so by choice (62.1% vs 79.9% of those working in unrelated areas).
- About three-quarters of respondents said they had "excellent" (25.4%) or "good" preparation (46.5%) at NC State for their post-baccalaureate work.
- A majority (56.8%) of respondents who are employed full-time said they earned between $25,000 and $45,000. Women were twice as likely than men to have reported full-time earnings less than $25,000 (18.1% vs 8.3%), while men were two and one-half times more likely than women to have incomes over $60,000 (12.3% vs 4.9%). African Americans employed full-time were more likely than whites to have incomes under $25,000 (18.6% vs 12.1%). However, similar proportions of African Americans and whites reported incomes over $60,000 (10.4% vs 8.9%).
Professional Preparation
- Communication skills overall
was the skill most likely to be rated as "very important" for respondents' jobs or post-baccalaureate education (74.7%). Two-thirds or more of respondents rated the following skills as "very important":
- Conducting work activities in an ethical manner
(68.2%)
- Willingness to accept new responsibilities
(67.8%)
- Being dependable and punctual
(67.0%)
- Confidence in my ability to perform well
(66.9%)
- Using knowledge to solve problems overall
(66.7%)
- Professionalism
(66.5%)
- Working under pressure
(66.4%)
- A majority of respondents (85.6%) said foreign language skills were at best "moderately important" to their current position. About one-fourth or more respondents rated the following skills as moderately or less important:
- Skills gained through research, internship or teaching experience
(29.9%)
- Public speaking and presentation skills
(26.9%)
- Reading skills
(25.7%)
- Ability to work with persons from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds
(24.9%)
- Overall technical knowledge
(23.8%)
- One-third or more respondents rated the contribution NC State made to their development of the following skills as "excellent":
- Ability to work independently
(38.0%)
- Working under pressure
(37.2%)
- Ability to learn independently
(36.1%)
- Skills gained through research, internship, or teaching experience
(35.3%)
- Twenty percent or more rated their preparation for the following skills as "fair" or "poor":
- Technical computer skills
(36.3%)
- Foreign language skills
(32.1%)
- Overall computer skills
(21.0%)
- Leadership and management skills
(20.5%)
- Basic computer skills
(20.2%)
- Men tended to rate skills related to technical knowledge as more important than women did. Women generally gave notably higher importance ratings than men to the other skills asked about. Although the differences in preparation ratings were not as great as those for importance ratings, women's ratings for skill preparation were also generally higher than those given by men. African American respondents tended to give slightly higher importance ratings than did whites.
- Respondents consistently rated skills higher in importance than preparation. However, in general skills ranked high in importance were usually ranked relatively high in preparation as well. Those skills ranked relatively high in importance but low in preparation were:
- Overall communication skills
- Leadership and management skills
- Adjusting to new work demands
- Ability to grow on the job
- Listening skills
- Professionalism
Alumni Services
- About half of respondents said they valued career planning and placement assistance (54.0%), alumni seminars and short courses (50.9%), and hearing about NC State events (50.9%). Only 20.3 percent said they valued reunions. African American respondents were more likely than whites to value career planning and placement assistance (68.3% vs 53.1%), and reunions (30.5% vs 19.6%), while whites were more likely than African Americans to value hearing about NC State events (51.4% vs 40.7%). Women were also more likely than men to have said they value career planning and placement assistance (57.0% vs 51.5%).
Employer Survey
- Slightly over one-third (38.1%) of the alumni whose supervisors responded to the survey work in industry. About 20 percent each work in academics, government, or professional service positions.
- The majority (85.2%) of responding supervisors reported that they have hired NC State graduates in addition to the alumnus about whom they were being surveyed.
- 16.9 percent of supervisors said their NC State alumnus is working in a position requiring less than a bachelor's degree.
- More than 70 percent of supervisors (71.6%) said they have daily contact with their NC State alumnus employee. A slight majority (55.9%) rated this employee as either "much better" (18.8%) or "somewhat better" (37.0%) prepared compared to other employees.
Supervisor Ratings of Alumni's Professional Skills
- Supervisors were most likely to say the following skills were "very important" to the job held by the NC State alumnus:
- Communication skills overall
(74.4%)
- Conducting work activities ethically
(72.4%)
- Attitude towards work
(71.0%)
- Work attitudes and skills overall
(69.8%)
- Listening skills
(67.8%)
- Professionalism
(67.7%)
- Almost two-thirds of supervisors rated their NC State alumnus's ability to conduct work in an ethical manner as "excellent" (64.0%). More than half of supervisors rated their employee's performance of the following skills as "excellent":
- Being dependable and punctual
(58.2%)
- Attitude towards work
(54.5%)
- Willingness to accept new responsibilities
(52.8%)
- Professionalism
(52.7%)
Supervisors rarely rated NC State alumni's performance as only "fair" or "poor". The skill most likely to be given a low performance rating was foreign language skills (37.3%). This skill was also rated as relatively unimportant to the employee's job (79% rated it "of limited importance" or "not important"). Other skills on which 30 percent or more of the supervisors responding rated their employee as having "average" performance or worse were:
- Technical computer skills
(42.3%; this skill was rated as relatively unimportant by 39% of supervisors)
- Leadership and management skills
(35.6%)
- Understanding how organizational systems interact
(32.9%)
- Public speaking and presentation skills
(30.6%)
- Overall, alumni received relatively high performance ratings on skills considered important to their jobs, and relatively lower performance ratings on those skills considered less important. Skills considered important by supervisors on which NC State graduates' performance was rated relatively low were:
- Overall communication skills
- Solving problems
- Public speaking and presentation skills
- Conceptual ability overall
- Bringing information and ideas together from different areas
For more information on the Fall 1998 Survey of Baccalaureate Alumni and Fall 1998 Employer Survey contact:
Dr. Nancy Whelchel, Associate Director for Survey Research
Office of Institutional Planning and Research
Box 7002
NCSU
Phone: (919) 515-4184
Email: Nancy_Whelchel@ncsu.edu
Posted: September, 2000
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