Exploring the Academic Paths and Professional Aspirations of GenZ STEM Students in the Canary Islands

Abstract

Characterized as the generation most comfortable with technology and social media, Generation Z (Gen-Z), people born from the mid to late 1990s into the early 2010s, are the most recent entrants to the workforce and to date their perceptions towards continuing education, their employability and future job prospects are still under research. To address this aspect, we gathered a corpus (N = 124) of Gen-Z bachelor students in the Canary Islands (Spain) and used a questionnaire to interrogate them. An educational system that best prepares students for current market needs not only benefits industry but also students’ perception of their own employability. The motivation for this work then, lies in the extensive research identifying a potential gap between graduates’ skills set and the requirements of various industries. Our findings underscore the significance of fostering students’ employability skills poorly addressed by traditional teaching methods. Additionally, our data indicates that good social networks notably improve students’ resilience and increase levels of optimism concerning their future career opportunities. These findings have far-reaching implications for the development of educational strategies and recruitment approaches that will more effectively integrate graduates into the evolving workforce.