PREFERENCES OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS TO PURSUE POSTGRADUATE STUDIES: CASE STUDY
Diana Arango Botero1*, Salim Chalela Naffah2, Alejandro Valencia Arias3
1 Prof. Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano, COLOMBIA, dianaarangob@itm.edu.co
2Ms. Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana, COLOMBIA, salim.chalela@unaula.edu.co
3 Prof. Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano, COLOMBIA, jhoanyvalencia@itm.edu.co
*Corresponding author
Abstract
The end of a professional career represents for college students making decisions about their career prospects. This process is vital to their lives as they are facing the option of working, keep studying or choose both option. This decision is generally taken in uncertainty and is based primarily on the preferences and beliefs of students. Given this situation, it becomes increasingly important for academic institutions that offer postgraduate programs know the motivations leading students to continue offered studies on the market, because it functions as a simple model of buyer – seller relationship, where universities are companies that want to sell a product and students are potential customers, which require certain parameters to consume the product (Linares & Rojas, 2001). Therefore, the aim of this research is to identify the motivations and preferences that lead to Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano and Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana college students to pursue a postgraduate program; for which an exploratory method is used by applying self-administered surveys to students from seventh semester onwards. Strategies formulation to implement promotional policies and disclosure by the university to contextualize students with offers of postgraduate programs are expected results. It is also expected to contribute in a more direct way with the training process and the determination of the future task by college students due to their unfamiliarity about job options, income level and entrepreneurship. In addition, this paper seeks to propose strategies to encourage college students to pursue postgraduate studies. This will be done through the articulation of motivational campaigns, accessibility to graduate courses before finishing their professional careers and implementation of formative research programs.
Keywords: Student’s motivations, postgraduate program, university students.