Assistant Director for Survey Research, Hannah McQueen, and Survey Research Analyst, Sierra Satterfield, presented “The Impact of COVID-19 on the School-to-Work Transition: Evidence from Graduating College Seniors” at the 76th Annual Conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) on May 11, 2021. Their session included other researchers from US universities and nonprofit organizations who used big data and/or survey data in combination with data science methodologies to analyze public opinions and sentiments. 

 

The research utilizes data from the Future Plans Survey, administered at NC State every semester since 2010, revised to include a question for students to elaborate on how the pandemic affected their plans. Using computational text analysis methods, the results of an initial snapshot of May 2020 graduates at the start of the pandemic, a followup with those graduates in September 2020, along with more recent December 2020 and May 2021 graduates to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on future plans of graduating seniors, specifically those on the job market. 

 

While the hardships elucidated in the results may seem discouraging, students also indicated optimism at the opportunity for remote work or work with antibody testing at research labs, which speaks to our students’ abilities to adapt under pressure and to find meaningful work that helps others. 

 

For more information about this research, please contact Hannah McQueen, hmmquee@ncsu.edu.