On March 6th, 2017, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness sent an email to Faculty and Staff concerning employment and continuing education data for the class of 2015 graduates. The Q staff, finding this information relevant to the current student body, received permission to publish the email.
Dear Faculty and Staff:
For years, the value of a college degree has been measured by significant outcomes of a college education. One of the most evident outcomes is the job and graduate school placement of bachelor degree recipients. Goucher has been systematically tracking and reporting our career outcomes data. This issue of the data brief focuses on employment and continuing education information for the Class of 2015 graduates.
Methodology
The Class of 2015 outcome data was collected from multiple sources. First, we administered the Graduate Follow-up Survey to the Class of 2015 graduates one year after graduation. Survey reminders were sent to non-respondents. A total of 128 out of 308 graduates responded to this survey, yielding a survey response rate of 42 percent. Second, in order to increase our knowledge rate, we collaborated with HEPdata, a reputable national company that offers student career tracking to enhance outcomes reporting. Third, we tracked post-graduation data, via the National Student Clearinghouse. Fourth, we solicited information from student affairs directors who had remained in contact with these students after graduation. Data collected through these four sources were merged together to form a final follow-up data file for the Class of 2015 graduates. Information for a total of 267 out of 308 graduates was included in the file, yielding an overall knowledge rate of 87 percent.
Results
We are delighted to share the excellent news of our graduates with you: within one year of graduation, 93 percent of the Class of 2015 were employed; 31 percent were pursuing graduate education, and 99 percent were employed and/or pursuing graduate education. In addition, for the first time with this survey, we asked the recent graduates when they obtained their first job after graduation, and how satisfied they were with Goucher’s role in their career preparation. The survey results indicated that 93 percent of respondents found their first job within six months of graduation and 91 percent of graduates reported that Goucher prepared them for their first job. These results speak volumes about the quality of a Goucher education and the effectiveness of all the work you do each day helping our students pursue lives of meaning and purpose. At Goucher, we change lives—one student at a time.
In addition, the results suggest that Goucher’s extraordinary liberal arts education has led to professional opportunities in a variety of fields. Here is an overall breakdown of employment by industry
Further, each graduate’s major was retrieved and merged with its respective academic center, allowing us to summarize the employers and graduate schools by this new affiliation.
A special thank you to each one of you who helped solicit these data. We are extremely grateful for your efforts. We are also beginning to collect data for the Class of 2016. You can continue to help us by sharing the post-graduation status of Goucher students who have finalized their plans for employment and/or graduate school.
If you have any questions or suggestion about career outcome information, please feel free to contact any of our Career Outcome group members: Harry Bielas, Bill Leimbach, Shuang Liu (co-chair), Traci Martin (co-chair), Janet Shope, or Corky Surbeck.
Sincerely,
Shuang Liu, Ph.D.
Senior Director of Institutional Effectiveness
Traci Martin, Director of Career Development
