The Role of Career Awareness and Guidance Programmes for First-Year University Students

The choice of career is a delicate matter that demands serious attention. Many people have become victims of circumstances of incorrect career choice due to the lack of proper career guidance and information. However, there is a debate among academic researchers in the field of career counselling and guidance that students in urban areas have more advantage in understanding career choice compared to their rural counterparts. Hence, this research examined and compared the extent to which communication influenced students' career choice in rural and urban tertiary institutions. This was a quantitative research using a survey method while employing a simple random technique. The study indicated that friends, the Internet, and universities' open day were the major channels of communication by which career services were provided to potential university students. The study also revealed that first-year students from Durban University of Technology (DUT) were well-equipped with knowledge of career choice than the first-year students of the University of Zululand (UNIZULU). Students from the two universities have similar views that parents, admission requirements and matriculation results were the major factors influencing their choice of study.