University-to-Work Transition Project

Research on university graduates University-to-Work transition (UWT) is sharply polarized between two discourses: the smooth transition narrative and the crisis narrative. Proponents of the smooth transition narrative such as universities are reporting high-rates of student satisfaction, skill transferability as well as early-career earnings consistent with those of 1970s and 1980ss graduates. At the same, the crisis narrative is pointing at rampant underemployment, a loose School-to-Work transition structure and a blunt lack of high-skilled technical labour. While voices in the middle are calling for an overall more sustained engagement from all stakeholders, it is surprising how little we have actually learned about the transition itself, namely university graduates own early experience in a dynamic and unsettled economic landscape (BCBC 2016). C2Careers has staked out this middle position and it has issued a call for gaining a clearer picture of how university graduates experience and navigate the first critical months of their school-to-work transition in order to create an informed space where university trained grads can work closely with companies who hire and C2Careers can learn about what businesses find lacking in grads and train them accordingly. TO BE CONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

Timothy Cheek

Student:

Francois Lachapelle

Partner:

C2Careers

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Education

University:

University of British Columbia