Spotlight: Academic Research Fellowships 2019/20
Elaine Moriarty was awarded a TRiSS Academic Research Fellowship. She had this to say about her project on Graduate Careers and Social Capital:
Young people today face the challenge of successfully completing education and transitioning to the workforce in highly competitive national and global contexts (Cairns 2015). Young people are expected to be reflexive in their decision making in moving towards better educational and occupational outcomes with institutionally mediated mobility (Van Mol 2013) and individually motivated mobility (Moriarty 2015) increasingly practiced. There are assumptions that in a knowledge society, credentialed qualifications are not wholly sufficient. The Graduate Careers and Social Capital research project seeks to understand graduate experiences in the transition from college to work. Drawing from a survey of Social Sciences and Philosophy graduates (1950-2016), the aim of the project is to examine and understand the career trajectories of Trinity graduates. In particular, it will identify the most significant factors that have facilitated graduate careers, focusing on a number of dimensions:
•The skillsets and credentialised capital necessary to be competitive in different industries/ fields
•The networks and supports necessary to achieve goals
• The experiences and personal competencies that distinguish graduates