Constructing career identity of university students in Hong Kong

: An exploratory study on the influences of the overseas internship experience for recent graduates

Abstract

Since the education reform in the 2000s in Hong Kong, echoing the promotion of Life Planning Education (LPE) in secondary schools, local universities have offered numerous career trainings and overseas work attachments to students to facilitate their career planning and enhance their employability. Although tremendous resources have been provided for career education by the government and universities, less is known about the subjective experience of career identity constructions and related influences on the career trajectories of university graduates in Hong Kong. A qualitative research was conducted to explore the career identity construction process of 15 university graduates, who had completed the US internship in the past years, along their career pathways. They were invited to share their career stories via Zoom interviews. This study adopted a retrospective approach to uncovering the ‘black box’ of career constructions of individuals by following their career stories over a long period of time, from the time before they were admitted to university until the post-graduation employment stage. The Systems Theory Framework (STF) was used to analyse the career identity formation of university graduates under the three key systems, namely intrapersonal, social and environmental-societal. It was found that the most impactful aspects were early career aspirations, academic study, career explorations, overseas internship experience and ‘timely life benefactors’ (‘Gui Ren’ in Chinese). It is believed that these aspects play a vital role in career identity constructions and finding their future directions. Three patterns of career construction processes of the students were observed, which led to further actions on career preparations. The participants also reported the significant impact of overseas internship experience on both career and personal developments. Through critical self-reflection, the less self-directed participants described that the overseas internship experience was particularly crucial for them to explore their interests and directions. Lastly, the paper presents both theoretical and practical implications on career constructions of students and career education in Hong Kong.

Date of Award	1 Oct 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Lisa Lucas (Supervisor) & Esmé Sung (Supervisor)