A student’s experience is derived from the decision to enrol in university, which ultimately many high school leavers have to make at the end of their schooling. However, this isn’t necessarily the case for everyone, as not everyone decides to enrol in university, rather peruse other career options such as TAFE or do a trade. I decided to explore this particular topic as I am interested in reflecting back on my own experiences as an undergraduate and am excited by the prospect of hearing what my peers have to say about the topic. I also felt that this was a universal concern that many university students face in regards to what career path they want to take, and the feelings of uncertainty and insecurity many university students experience in regards to this. 

I conducted my research through analysing primary and secondary data, whilst also undertaking an online survey receiving a total of 22 responses. Overall, this was a small-scale research project, as 22 responses isn’t a significant amount of people in the scheme of things. In the future, a larger-scale research project on this topic would further be beneficial as I feel there is still much more to be explored on a broader level. Next time I will try to promote my survey more consistently on twitter. Throughout the course of my research, I further promoted the importance of understanding the ethical responsibilities of creating research surveys. Without understanding how crucial consent is and the vital responsibilities I needed to understand in terms of this, all participants information remained anonymous and safe. Maybe next time, at the end of the survey, I would ask for their email in case they wanted to change a response or felt uncomfortable, to create more peace of mind for the respondents.  

Lastly, overall reflecting on this project, I learnt about how to ethically and effectively conduct research and gain results. However, there are a few things I’d do differently next time, for instance, ask more in-depth questions about their motivations and if these change overtime and lead to pressure of having a successful career. Another thing I would consider is to interview participants one on one, as I didn’t get to do this due to reasons out of my control, but feel this would also help me gain a better understanding on people’s opinions and perceptions surrounding the topic. Overall though, I found this a very interesting topic to explore and was happy with the final results.