In FirstGen Ahead’s January newsletter, three of five themes were reported from our qualitative summer research study, which offers insights into the experiences of students who graduated from college during the 2009 Great Recession and their subsequent career paths over the past decade. These first three themes were “Temporarily Swallowing Your Pride,” “Networking: Not Just What, but Who,” and “Hustling Required. Not Optional.” This article highlights the two remaining themes.
Is Career Uncertainty a Privilege?
Career uncertainty was not one of the initial themes motivating this research. It was only in examining
the data that we observed that some students expressed career uncertainty whereas others did not. Upon closer inspection, there was a clear pattern based on class and race. Specifically, seven out of 14 continuing-generation, White (CG/W) alums voiced career uncertainty, and only one out of 18 first-generation, People of Color (FG/PoC) alums spoke about career uncertainty.
There are times when career uncertainly can be healthy, such as discovering that a given career path is
not a good fit. But the discovery that career uncertainty was far more common among continuing-gen,
White alums was unexpected and may point to it also being a privilege compared to Alums of Color who
are first-gen and for whom career uncertainty may be a luxury that is not readily available.
There are at least three possible explanations for these differences. First, choice of major can matter.
That is, some majors are more aligned to specific career paths. Second, socialization in developing a
professional identity, such as through an internship, can serve to clarify career direction. Third, a sense
of personal agency mitigates career uncertainty both because it provides a sense of responsibility and
because it’s action-oriented.
Research by social scientist Sam Trejo shows first-generation college students tend to be more risk-averse than otherwise similar continuing-generation students, selecting majors with well-defined career paths, high expected wages, and low unemployment rates. As one FG/PoC who majored in actuarial science said during the interview, I was “kind of guaranteed a job. That’s what I was sold when I got into it.”
Of the seven CG/W alums who voiced career uncertainty, six of them selected majors that did not lead to well-defined career paths, such as psychology and English. One example is “Vanessa” (not her real name), who majored in painting. She was “good but not personally competitive” in painting. Instead of pursuing a career as an artist, she knew she wanted to help people but didn’t know how. Eventually, her experiences outside the classroom as an undergraduate, after some trial and error, helped her to develop her professional identity.
The lack of socialization through formal internships might help explain career uncertainty. In our study,
only three of eight alums who expressed career uncertainty had a formal, college-level internship. Those without internships missed out on an opportunity to explore a potential professional identity. Interestingly, with two of the alums who spoke about their internships, both of the experiences actually led to their career uncertainty since they revealed what they didn’t want to do.
The third potential reason for differences by class and race on career uncertainty is person agency. Five of the seven CG/W alums who voiced uncertainty attended a private university. “We were so well
taken care of that we didn’t feel prepared for that type of failure…that’s after four years of literal silver
platter goodness on campus” is how one alum described his only negative experience there. Our data suggest that being CG/W and attending a private institution comes with the privilege of being well taken care of in their lives, whether it be while they were growing up at home, attending the university, or both. As such, they may not have had the developmental need or opportunity to develop personal agency. In contrast, the FG/PoC alums, in general, were exposed to more uncertainty and obstacles. Many more of them spoke about the importance of working hard, hustling, and paying the bills compared to their White counterparts. Our CG/W alums who may have had the privilege of being well taken care of may have also been at a disadvantage when it came to anticipating and projecting their career path as many were filled with uncertainty when starting their career journey after college.
Authenticity or Assimilation
In our study, we interviewed seven Women of Color. Of these women, four of them spoke of the importance of organizational culture in their decision-making process. For example, one alum, “Erin” had a position where she had to deal with “catty” coworkers. She said, “Don’t stay in a company if the work culture doesn’t suit you.” Another alum, “Lisa”, said she made conscious decisions to avoid work environments in which she didn’t see herself “fitting.” Research by Pace, Giscombe & Mattis, and others, show Women of Color are often more likely to perceive a corporate work environment as difficult for them to succeed because of the challenges of “double-marginalization.” Our research supports these earlier findings.
These same Women of Color in the study also highlighted the importance of being authentic in the workplace. They emphasized not assimilating, speaking up for oneself, and establishing healthy boundaries at work. It is important to note these issues did not come up with any of the men in our study.
For first-generation Women of Color, in particular, the combination of race, gender, and first-generation status force hard choices around being their authentic selves versus assimilating into what is often a predominantly White culture. Changing organizational culture is hard even for those in positions of privilege and power, let alone for individuals entering the workplace with multiple minority identities. As a result, the alums we interviewed urged finding a complementary culture as key to long-term success.
All five themes from the qualitative summer research project – temporarily swallowing your pride if underemployed; networking, not just what but who; hustling required, not optional; is career uncertainty a privilege; and authenticity or assimilation – are important to consider in light of who was invited to and then of those invited, who decided to voluntarily participate in the study. There may be experiential differences between those invited and not invited as well as those invited who chose to participate and those invited who chose not to participate. As such our sample might not be representative of others in the 2009 cohort from the three universities. Therefore, caution is recommended in extending our findings beyond the experience of the 33 alums who were interviewed. We invite further research with different and larger samples. The five themes can represent a point of departure to see how broadly they apply among first-gen and continuing-gen students across race and class.
