Journal of College Student Development

Today higher education student affairs professionals are charged with not only understanding the challenges and needs of a diverse student body, they must also prepare students for careers in life after college. For this empirical study I explored the undergraduate major choices and career aspirations of 29 senior student-athletes at a large, highly selective Division I/Research I university to further understand how life experiences influence undergraduate major choice and the subsequent alignment of chosen major and future career aspirations. Framed from a constructivist epistemology, findings of this phenomenological study were guided by Savickas’s (2002) career construction theory (CCT). Personal narratives for 29 student-athletes were collected via semistructured individual interviews and analyzed by employing pattern and process coding techniques. Findings suggest 3 overarching life experiences influence undergraduate major choice as well as the alignment of participants’ undergraduate majors and future career aspirations. This article presents implications and recommendations for contemporary student affairs practitioners who work with student-athletes as they engage in processes of career exploration and major choice.