Note on a Gallup-Purdue University Study and Related Articles: Useful Internships Improve University Graduates Chances of Full-Time Work

Romie Frederick Littrell

doi:10.46697/001c.16918

Abstract

This article summarizes and reviews several articles by Sean Seymour and Julie Ray from Gallup-Purdue University (Gallup, Inc., 2014), based upon the Gallup-Purdue Index, a joint-research effort with Purdue University and Lumina Foundation, to study the relationship between the university experience and graduates’ lives. The Gallup-Purdue Index is a comprehensive, nationally representative study of U.S. college graduates with Internet access, conducted February 4–March 7, 2014.

Highlights

The “employment benefit” for graduates who strongly agreed they had applied internships or jobs in college exists for all those who have earned their degrees in the past four years—regardless of gender, race, type of institution they graduated from, or whether they are the first in their families to attend university. Ray and Kafka (2014a) report from the Gallup-Purdue Index that what students do while in university, influenced by the opportunities their institutions afford them, can be more important than a number of other popularly proposed influential factors, including the type of school they attend
A Gallup-Purdue University study of college graduates finds 71% of the most recent graduates who strongly agreed that they had these types of jobs or internship opportunities as undergrads are working full time for an employer, compared with 56% of those who strongly disagreed
Recent graduates who strongly agree they had an internship or job where they could apply what they were learning in college are more likely to have full-time employment, they are more likely to be satisfactorily engaged at work

Summary

Introduction

The “employment benefit” for graduates who strongly agreed they had applied internships or jobs in college exists for all those who have earned their degrees in the past four years—regardless of gender, race, type of institution they graduated from, or whether they are the first in their families to attend university. Ray and Kafka (2014a) report from the Gallup-Purdue Index that what students do while in university, influenced by the opportunities their institutions afford them, can be more important than a number of other popularly proposed influential factors, including the type of school they attend. Graduates’ Odds of Being Employed Higher with Internships Graduates’ Odds of Being Engaged at Work Higher with Internships

Results

Conclusion