Author(s): Abera Getachew, Adisu Defar
The study's main goal was to look into peer and institutional influence as determinants of public university students' career choices. Institution-based cross-sectional study design was employed. A self-administered questionnaire with the Likert scale type was used. Stratified sampling techniques and simple random sampling were used in order to select 605 students. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were utilized. The majority of respondents, 347 (57.4%), were male students, while 258 (42.6%) were female students. The result of the study indicated that only 29.3% of the students joined department of their own choice. The remaining students were forced to choose departments. The study found that institutional influence (M=30.4, SD=7.5) is the most reported factor followed by peer influence (M=15.3, SD=5.1) to affect students’ career choices. Regression analysis results also revealed that peer influence and institutional influence were significant predictors of students’ career choice. The government should assess students' career choices whilst restricting peer or institution pressure. Career development centres must be well-established and well-equipped at all levels of the education system.