University guidance services and support in the transition from education to work

Given that the transition from education to employment has become
increasingly difficult, long and uncertain, legislators have been forced to consider
new means of access to the job market. Guidance appears to be the most adequate
tool to help young people (the most vulnerable in this process) take charge of their
destinies and to sustain frequent periods of transition from school to work or from
one job to another. The the aim of the present article is to understand whether and
how Italian university services are able to support students by providing a range of
guidance services that foster professional development and effective decisionmaking. Following a brief overview of the Italian guidance system, the paper
presents some findings from an empirical pilot-study carried out in Rome
(Università La Sapienza) on a small sample of cases (ten in-depth interviews).
What emerges is a high level of disorientation among students, the inefficiency of
guidance as the mere provision of information desk services, and individuals’
difficulty in developing a realistic life project during the course of their studies. A
double-dimension approach is suggested, based on a time axis and the creation of
an individual life project, which identifies four types of attitudes towards transition
(transition as destiny; transition as an arena, transition as performance, transition as
discontinuity) found among university students.