Jensen Speaker Series

Jensen Speaker Series

Elizabeth E. Bruch is Associate Professor of Sociology & Complex Systems, University of Michigan; External Faculty Member, Santa Fe Institute

Undergraduate Careers and the Structure of Academic Curriculums

“The aim of this talk is to develop the idea of undergraduate careers as a strategic link between structural features of a university curriculum and the educational outcomes of college students. The culmination of a university education is the degree one receives at graduation, but the building blocks of academic progress are the courses students take in each term. To the extent that a sequence of courses is common to a group of students, it denotes a potential academic career path. I will first review how sociologists have treated careers in an occupational setting and extend those ideas to the context of higher education. I will then present several different ways of thinking about and studying features of the undergraduate curriculum in which these careers unfold. I apply these concepts and models to data from a large public university to reveal how students of varying backgrounds, including historically underrepresented groups, enter and exit fields of study.”