DOI: 10.7910/dvn/eye6mc
title: Replication Data for Discoveries from Recent College Graduates: Documenting Lived Experiences from School to Work during a Period of Economic Downturn.

description: This phenomenological study explored how recent college graduates navigated from school to work during a recent economic downturn. More specifically, the study endeavored to understand the lived experiences of recent college graduates in a period of transition. Schlossberg’s (1984) transition theory and Arnett’s (2000) emerging adult theory framed the study. The conceptual underpinnings of both theories provided a foundation to understand the role of higher educational attainment in graduates’ time spent in the labor market to secure employment in dismal employment conditions. The heuristic value of each of the theories advanced understanding of the factors shaping the experiences of recent college graduates. 
This study sought an in-depth understanding of how recent college graduates handled disappointments and the types of coping resources that helped them reconcile old and new identities, exchange old tasks for new tasks, move into new responsibilities while they continued to carry on responsibilities leading to graduation and challenges associated with seeking employment. Participants’ emic stories provided expansion of the school-to-work phenomenon typically relegated to statistical reporting in terms of quantifiable unemployment and underemployment rates.
This study contributes to a body of work that highlights how recent emerging adult college graduates compete for jobs post-graduation within an anemic labor market. By expanding the breadth of specialized knowledge, the information captures what is essential to empower emerging adult college graduates entering a labor market influenced by record unemployment and suggests ways to further career development. This study documented the shift in the roles and responsibilities in the school-to-work phase, and the employment issues of a cadre of recent emerging adult college graduates who were influenced by the economic recession of 2007 and its impact on the present. 
Interview data from nine participants were transcribed and coded to determine emerging themes. Themes were aligned with the concepts within transition theory and emerging adult theory to increase understanding of issues facing recent college graduates in transition to employment. The analysis of participants’ lived experiences expanded the educational leadership knowledge base to impact praxis by mitigating the unexpected effects of economic downturn, as students move out of school and into the labor market. The phenomenon has expanded the knowledge base by identifying how to organize resources of academic or student affairs and career centers to maximize how to offer services relevant to today’s emerging adult college graduates.
The study discovered that although emerging adulthood is defined as age-based, a new category isolating the breadth of understanding for emerging adults college graduates is crucial to document the impact of dismal employment trends. Economic downturn affects the ability for young adults to reconcile identities. Study participants reported a lack of knowledge about how to mitigate their student orientation to career socialization. This study exposed a need for integration of student development theory, historically germane to traditional-aged collegians, and career development theory to guide emerging adult college graduates toward their career goals. The disconnect between the mass production of degrees and skills essential to the labor market (Bivens, 2014 ), have an impact on emerging adults who are one of four generations competing for skilled jobs at competitive rates of pay.