Professional benchmarking of degrees at the University of Padua

The transition from the university to the working world has grown in importance over the past few years. However, mere inclusion in the labour market is not sufficient to understand the practical value of a title of study on the employment market, since the rapidity of employment must be combined with the graduate's level of satisfaction with the quality of the employment found. Studying the professions performed by graduates from different courses and educational background is therefore crucial to describe the transition to the working world. By June 2000, the University of Padua has activated a research concerning its graduates. The survey, of a longitudinal (perspective) type, consists in observing, for a total of seven occasions during a three-year period, a sample of around 2700 graduates of given graduating sessions of 2000 and 2001. The data regarding the first contingent of graduates, interviewed six months and one year after graduation, are used to benchmark the 13 faculties on the basis of the access to work, but also with respect to objective and subjective characteristics of the jobs, as the income, sector of activity, size of the enterprise etc. on the one side, and different aspects of satisfaction about job and the usefulness of the university career for it on the other side.