Career Change: Are there options after failing at the first attempt?

Abstract

For university students, the choice of a career represents a fundamental step in what will be their professional and personal life once they graduate. Before the beginning of a school cycle, the student faces one of the most important processes of analysis and choice in his life, which, if not done conscientiously, will lead to disappointment, frustration and low morale, asking himself if the career he has chosen was really the best option or if he had a last chance to change his plans. Studying an academic career implies that after finishing it, the student is faced with the possibility of improving his knowledge by studying a postgraduate degree that will improve his skills and raise his self-esteem. Higher education institutions present in their entrance schemes a series of educational programs, but if the student for some reason cannot advance from the beginning, he/she has a last option to change careers. Therefore, the present research is carried out in a university in the southeast of Mexico. Its purpose is to show the statistics of career alternatives that the student would have as a second opportunity in the case that in the career that was his first option he has not satisfactorily covered the academic requirements. A statistical methodology is applied that would help the school services area to recommend a second opportunity.