The purpose of this document is to provide accurate and current information about the transition of Memorial University graduates into the labour market. The report includes information on the graduates from both the Marine Institute of Memorial and Memorial University. The document describes graduates’ experiences at the program level based on programs that were in operation in 1996. Most of these programs are still in operation today, however, some programs that used to be offered by the Marine Institute are now administered by the College of the North Atlantic’s Ridge Road Campus. We believe this document will be a valuable career planning resource for high school teachers, guidance counsellors, postsecondary administrators and instructors and, most importantly, high school and postsecondary students.

The information in this report was derived from the Department of Education’s telephone follow-up survey of 1996 postsecondary graduates. While the majority of these students graduated in the spring of 1996, all students graduating in the spring and fall of 1996 were included in the survey which was conducted during the late summer of 1997. Interviewers attempted to contact all of the graduates living in and out of the Province. They were instructed to pursue graduates with up to ten calls, if necessary, at the listed telephone number or at numbers provided by parents, roommates or other people contacted in the process. This method ensured the best possible representation of the experience of 1996 graduates at the program level.

The response rates for the graduates of Memorial University and Marine Institute, listed on the following pages, were very high in all categories (55.6% to 80.8%) with one exception. The response rate for Ph.D. graduates was less than 50%. For this reason, detailed analysis of the graduates of this category was excluded from this report. However, two-page profiles for the other programs are included in the report for all programs for which there were five or more respondents. The only exception is the program profile for the Marine Institute diploma program in Marine Systems Design, which was printed even though there were only four respondents out of the six graduates.

In cases of similar programs with low numbers of responses, the respondent data for such programs have been pooled in order to produce greater than five respondents. Details on which programs were pooled, the numbers of graduates and the response rates are presented in Appendix A. Appendix B includes details about programs that were not included in the study due to a low numbers of responses.

Memorial University and Marine Institute offer programs yielding different levels of educational attainment. The recent publication Postsecondary Indicators ’98 and previous graduate follow-up reports pointed out that programs with different educational attainment levels provide different graduate outcomes in the nine indicators listed in this report. These indicators include employment rates, student loan levels and graduate satisfaction levels with time and financial investment in education. Postsecondary Indicators ’98, using graduate follow-up data from graduates of 93-94 and 94-95, showed that employment outcomes and earnings differ between graduates from Master’s degrees, Bachelor’s degrees, Memorial diploma programs and Marine programs. In the initial Key Findings section, these unique educational attainment levels are compared using the nine indicators in the report. The section provides a description of graduate outcomes and sets the framework for the main section of the report.

The report also includes an introductory Users’ Guide. This section is designed to assist readers in interpreting each of the nine indicators of graduate experience in the two-page program profiles. The section also indicates if there are methodological issues such as response rates that should be considered when reviewing the information.

The main section of the report consists of two-page Program Profiles that summarize and compare graduate results from each Memorial and Marine program to the results from the combined pool of graduates from programs of a similar educational attainment. This comparison between the program and other programs of a similar educational attainment is described for all of the nine indicators of graduate outcomes and earnings. For example, graduate results from the Diploma in Naval Architecture from Marine Institute are compared to graduate results from all diploma programs at Marine Institute and similarly graduates from all Bachelor of Music programs are compared to all graduates with general bachelors degrees at Memorial.