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National Survey of Student Engagement: CU-Boulder 2000

Other Findings - by college

College/cluster specific findings for: advising, degree completion and after graduation plans, and working for pay

Source of advising. Most students obtain advising from college or departmental advisors. Other sources - friends and family, catalogs and publications, online registration, and university instructors and staff - are less likely to be the primary source of advising. However, there is one exception: freshmen in Architecture & Planning rely on all four of these sources more than on their college and departmental advisors.

Primary obstacle to degree completion. Money is the primary obstacle to degree completion, followed to a lesser degree by students' own motivation. Very few students report that family obligations will interfere with degree completion. Freshmen in social science majors and Music are somewhat more likely than seniors to report that difficulty getting courses could interfere; on the other hand, seniors in Architecture & Planning are more likely than freshmen to see this as a problem. Lack of good advising is cited by somewhat more seniors than these other two potential obstacles, though freshmen in all colleges except for business and humanities are less likely to see advising as a problem.

Expected time to degree completion. Most students at CU-Boulder expect to graduate within four, or at most five, years. Virtually no seniors expect to transfer away from CU for their degrees, and almost none expect that they will not earn their degree.

In social science, Journalism, and Business, seniors expect to earn their degrees at CU-Boulder within four years. (Among freshmen, natural science majors expect the same.) Only a few groups-Music and Engineering seniors and Architecture & Planning and Engineering freshmen-are more likely to expect to finish in five years.

Plans after graduation. Seniors in Business, Engineering, and Journalism expect to be employed after graduation. Though a few plan to go on to graduate school, their numbers are quite low. This represents a difference from freshmen, among whom expectations of graduate school are substantially higher. Almost no Business or Engineering students report being unsure of their post-college plans or planning to take time off after school.

Freshmen in Music are the least likely to expect to work full-time after college; their plans include graduate school, or working while attending graduate school. They also report being unsure what they will do after college. Music seniors similarly report plans to attend graduate school or to attend school and work, and are fairly likely to report being unsure of post-graduate plans.

Arts & Sciences majors, on average, are much less likely than Business or Engineering majors to expect to be employed and more likely to expect to attend graduate school. Arts & Sciences majors are slightly more likely than Business and Engineering majors to report being unsure what they will do after college - this is especially true for freshmen. Arts & Sciences students are also more likely than those Business and Engineering to plan to take time off.

Primary reason for working for pay. Most students' primary reason for working for pay is to earn money to cover basic expenses. Among Arts & Sciences majors and Business majors, the second reason is to earn extra spending money. Among Engineering majors, the second reason is to gain knowledge and skills. Music students are especially likely to work to cover basic expenses and especially unlikely to work for extra money. Overall, it appears that students in all colleges except for Business work primarily for extra money as freshmen, but by senior year are working primarily to cover expenses.

Very few students work solely for "something to do," and almost none report that they do not work for pay.

NSSE 2000 Table of Contents

Last revision 04/26/02

jo - l:\ir\survey\nsse\00\report\nonordered_col.doc, last updated 6/11/01