Shaping Students’ Career Attitudes toward Professional Success: Examining the Role of Student-Faculty Interactions

This study examined the relationship between student-faculty interaction in college and students’ fourth-year career attitudes toward professional success. Results suggest that some interactions with faculty, such as frequency of student-faculty interaction, are positively associated with students’ fourth-year career attitudes toward professional success. Other interactions, such as personal discussions with faculty and research with a faculty member, are negatively associated with certain attitudes about professional success such as students’ desire to make a lot of money. These mixed findings suggest that faculty may have a role to play in shaping students’ career attitudes, but that interactions with faculty, depending on the type and context of the interaction, may encourage or discourage students’ attitudes regarding professional success.