Getting a good first job out of college can be hugely important, but understanding how best to achieve that can be difficult. New research from the University at Buffalo identifies four practices that give students a 70% chance of finding a full-time job after graduating with a bachelor’s degree.
Each of the four practices, including internships, study abroad, and community service, was found to boost the job prospects of the graduates by 17%. The researchers hope that their findings can be especially helpful to international students and therefore close any opportunity gaps that may exist today.
The authors highlight that international students are more likely to be economically disadvantaged today, while also being less likely to take advantage of the various high-impact activities, which therefore harms their job prospects upon graduation.
Closing the gap
This is despite international students doing exceptionally well at school, with high graduation rates and advancement to graduate school. This doesn’t translate into similarly high levels of full-time employment, however, where they lag behind U.S.-born students.
Unfortunately, the authors argue that strict immigration policies can often limit the opportunities for international students to engage in things like internships, which thus exacerbates any challenges they have in finding employment.
“Disadvantaged students are often neglected and stereotyped as not being capable of obtaining success when it is the environments that are at fault,” they say. “Transforming one’s self-trajectory at the individual level is an unfair burden on students whose every day is already fraught with multi-systemic barriers. Intentional, committed action at the institutional level is vital to students’ college readiness and success.”
“It is important that higher education institutions do not merely state they value inclusion, but provide support services that address key issues such as language difficulties, adjusting to cultural norms, financial concerns and discrimination,” they continue.
