Parent’s Influence on Career Aspirations in College Freshmen

From a young age, children are molded by their parents and their environments. By the time they move into adolescence and begin to consider their futures, oftentimes they look to their parents, either as role models or for career guidance. Studies have shown that children value their parents’ opinions, and only believe in their own career decision-making abilities to the degree to which they think their parents believe in them. Whether subconsciously or consciously, parents become one of the main influences on adolescent’s career aspirations. This convergent mixed-methods study seeks to explore how parental behaviors influence career development in college freshmen in the United States. Data were collected from participants through an online survey, with follow-up interviews to further understand how participant’s perceptions of their parental involvement, support, engagement, and interference affected their own career aspirations. We hypothesize that parent’s career-related behaviors will have a significant impact on adolescents\u27 career development and choice. These potential findings have a high latency of becoming a guide of support in navigating how to steer children in their career aspirations.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2021/1058/thumbnail.jp