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EDT 180A
Mr. Lewallen
We decided to research a topic that many college students have found themselves
struggling with: do you choose a career based on the salary or based on your passion? First, we
asked the basic questions, such as what the students grade level is, what their gender is, and
Group 4: Major vs. Salary
what college they are enrolled in. Then, we asked which was the most important out of the three
options for the student when looking at a career: job outlook, money, or passion? After that, we
asked the student how much debt they anticipate to be in after graduating because the amount of
debt they have certainly might affect the career they choose because if they will have more debt
than normal, they might think of having a career with a good financial outlook in order to be able
to pay off the debt more quickly. Lastly, we asked the student how much of a concern it is to
them that their major of choice might not support them as an adult and if they were considering
changing their major. Undoubtedly, these questions lead us to answer the main question: which is
more important to students when choosing a career, their passion for it or how much it pays? We
used Google Forms to collect the data and received 125 responses.
To begin, this chart shows the difference between what the males and females chose in
terms of what is more important to them. There is a significant difference between how many
women said they believe passion is more important to them than money than men. More than
75% of the females surveyed said they would pick passion over money, while only under 25% of
males did. However, many more females took the survey. The unequal number of females and
males who took the survey makes it somewhat more difficult to conclude that females care more
about passion than males. In addition, those who chose salary were equal. An equal number of
males and females picked money over passion. On the other hand, more males chose job outlook
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In this next chart, grade level is the focus. About 50% of the freshmen who took the
survey chose passion over money and job outlook. The number of sophomores and juniors who
chose passion is almost equal. In addition, freshmen, sophomores, and juniors all said that salary
is important to them equally. We believe that so many freshmen chose passion over money and
job outlook because freshmen just got into college and they are still very young; therefore, they
would place their dreams and desires over how much money they will be making. Students who
are older might think more about their finances and how much their salary will affect them in the
future.
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Furthermore, this chart shows how many students from each grade took the survey. Many
more freshmen took it than any other grade level. About an equal number of sophomores and
juniors took the survey. Lastly, very few seniors took it and that is most likely because there are
not that many seniors in EDT. Students usually take the class during their first two years of
college. Therefore, it makes sense as to why not that many seniors took the survey.
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Moreover, the difference in gender is apparent in this chart. It shows that many more
females took the survey than males. 94 females took the survey, while only 31 males did. This
could be due to the fact that there are more females in the teachers college than males. In
addition, most people who take EDT 180 are in the teachers college. Therefore, it makes sense
as to why more females would take it than males. This also changes how the answers to the
questions are affected, especially the answer to the main question. Because more females picked
passion than males, and more females took the survey to begin with, this shows that the answer
Additionally, this chart shows the colleges that the students are enrolled in. As you can
see from the first bar on the chart, most students who took the survey are enrolled in the teachers
college. As we stated before, most students who take EDT 180 are in the teachers college.
Therefore, it makes sense as to why most students who took the survey stated they are in it. This
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also affects the main question we have because people who usually go for a teaching degree do
not do it for the money. Therefore, passion would most likely be the most chosen answer to the
question. Other colleges that most students who took the survey said they are enrolled in were
the public service college and the interdisciplinary college. Not a lot of students who took the
survey are in the other colleges. Ultimately, this chart shows that most of the students who took
The last chart is the most important; it shows the answer to our topic. As we have
mentioned before because of the information we have gathered from the other charts, most
students who took the survey were freshmen, female, and enrolled in the teachers college. All of
these factors contribute to why passion would be the most chosen answer. Almost 100 students
chose passion to be the most important compared to money and job outlook. Only about 10
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chose salary and 15 chose job outlook. This certainly shows that salary and job outlook is not as
When looking at all of the charts, the conclusion we have come to in the end is that when
students decided what career they wanted to pursue and what major to choose to get to that
career, they did not have money and the job outlook of the career in mind as much as they had
whether they are passionate about it or not. This is understandable because many would argue
that pursuing a career solely for the financial aspects of it might lead to a life of misery because
you would be studying for a career you do not truly enjoy studying for, and then working in it
without having an interest in it. This might lead the student to have a life filled with unhappiness.
Other questions we might have asked in the survey are whether the students family had any
influence on the students choice of major and what passion might mean to them because like
Mr. Lewallen stated, some students might be passionate about money. Therefore, choosing
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passion over money when answering the question on the survey would not really make sense. If
we did this again, we would change it by keeping that in mind. We would maybe change the
word passion to interest in order to eliminate the confusion between being passionate about a
career and being passionate about the money that a career brings. Undoubtedly, this research
project showed us what we wanted to know: students care more about their passion when it