Seminar Seeks to Define Typical California Collegian

College students fall into one of four groups--careerists, intellectuals, strivers and the unconnected--a Stanford professor said at a seminar of university instructors Wednesday at Cal State Fullerton.

Backed by extensive research, the seminar’s three-member panel sought to define the typical California college student in a discussion of the undergraduate’s goals and motivations for attending a university. By knowing what types of students embark on a college education--and what students desire from that education--universities can tailor their programs to overcome students’ shortcomings, the panel said Wednesday.

Herant A. Katchadourian, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, told an audience of 300 that most college students fall into one of those four groups.

Basing his remarks on his four-year study of 400 randomly chosen students, Katchadourian said careerist students attend college to gain job training, while their intellectual counterparts enroll to satisfy a thirst for knowledge.

Strivers, however, make up the largest group, more than 30% of today’s students, Katchadourian said. This type of student “wants the best of both worlds,” he said. In their quest for both a liberal arts education and vocational training, these students often “spread themselves too thin,” he said.

Unconnected students are the opposite of strivers, Katchadourian said. Although they received the highest verbal scores on Scholastic Aptitude Tests of the four groups, unconnected students exist on the periphery of the university community.

“Most of their life is geared to spending time with their friends,” Katchadourian said.

The diversity of California students was a recurring theme in the speakers’ presentations Wednesday. Harold L. Hodgkinson, senior fellow at the American Council on Education in Washington, presented a barrage of demographic statistics to draw a picture of the typical California college student of the future.

California has the highest Latino population and the second-highest black population of any state, Hodgkinson said. Two-thirds of the world’s immigration is to the United States, with California gaining a lion’s share of the immigrants, he said.

“Almost one-third of the world comes to California,” Hodgkinson said.

If demographic trends continue, college campuses will experience an influx of middle-class minority students, many of whom speak English as a second language, he said.

“Here’s the future,” Hodgkinson said. “It’s what’s coming to California.”