Career plans and experiences of June 1961, college graduates

This study was administered by the National Opinion Research Center and sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, the United States Office of Education, and the Carnegie Commission of Higher Education. The study consists of two datasets with four waves in the first and five in the second. College students receiving a degree at the end of the June 1961, term from an eligible institution of higher learning were interviewed about their future career plans (Wave I of Dataset I). For the next three years (1962-1964) the same respondents were reinterviewed to compare experiences with previous plans (Waves II-IV). The second dataset includes the same four waves as the first with a fifth wave conducted in 1968 to study the attitudes of the respondents after they had been out of college for seven years. Wave I probed areas of career desire versus areas the respondent would actually be involved in. The differences in their views from freshman year to senior year were questioned. Other issues investigated were financial desires for the future, peer group influence, and college activities. Waves II through IV asked what the respondent was doing at t