Follow-up of Undergraduate Majors in Psychology
Questionnaires were mailed to all 104 persons who had been granted the B.S. degree in psychology at Iowa State University during the period 1949 to 1958. After one follow-up letter, 82 (79%) returns had been received, these coming from about twice as many males as fema1es.l Respondents were in 28 different states, the District of Columbia, and Ontario. Iowa accounted for almost one-fourth, with Iowa and bordering states accounting for about one-half. The questionnaire called for information concerning advanced training and education, vocational experiences, extent of use of psychological training, membership in professional organizations, professional and/or trade publications read regularly, and relative value of the psychology courses taken. Additional comments were invited on the psychology program and the total undergraduate curriculum at Iowa State. Forty-five per cent (mostly males) had taken, or were taking, graduate work in psychology. This agrees with Gustav's (1952) findings but differs from Dole's ( 1955) sample in which only one-tenth had done graduate work in psychology. From Iowa State, an additional 17% had gone on to advanced work in fields other than psychology. The same percentage (25%) of males and females were working toward, or had completed, the master's degree in psychology, but in graduate training beyond the master's level the males far exceeded the number of females. Although the undergraduate major in psychology at Iowa State is designated as industrial psychology, training is broad. Nevertheless, the largest number of respondents (about one-fourth) were employed in business and industry, which may reflect the kinds of agencies seeking employees from a school of science and technology. Other employment, in descending order, was in academic teaching or research, 'government work, hospital or clinic, and military. About one-third were not employed for compensation, they being either students or housewives. Two-thirds of the respondents judged their present work to be psychological, divided almost equally among personnel, teaching, clinical, research, testing, and enrolled as students. Asked to judge the application they had been able to make of their undergraduate psychology, over one-half judged "often," 30% said "sometimes," and less than 15% judged "no use." This agrees generally with Dole's (1955) sample in which four out of five former students felt 'Tables with greater detail than incorporated in the text of this paper may be obtained from the author upon request.