Precocity in making decision about college career

Abstract

This article aims to problematize the process of professional choice among students of different age groups. We use social constructionist psychology and Pierre Bourdieu notions (habitus, space of possibilities, social space). We interviewed 14 Psychology students from a Spanish public university, as different ages, with different types of access to university, graduates of high school (bachilleratos). We used the narrative interview, we organized the data with the help of the Atlas-ti program; we use thematic categorical analysis. We identified three types of academic trajectories (precocious, intermediate, late), which we discuss from six categories. We conclude that the challenges of the process of professional choice are independent of the age group - although there are particularities in each type of trajectory - and excessive disciplinary training from high school to higher education and not a personal and intrinsic difficulty the subjects' age.