Professional, career and status expectations of a non-capital university’s students

The article presents data from two panel mass questionnaire surveys of 1st and 4th year undergraduate students conducted in monitoring mode at the University of Tyumen in 2022-2023. Using the theoretical provisions of the sociology of life, a comparative analysis of the characteristics of students' expectations regarding their future professional, career and status positions in the regional labor market is given. The importance of taking into account the temporal parameters of a student's movement along his personal educational trajectory, differentiating work attitudes and expectations for choosing and building career trajectories between first-year and final-year students of the university, is emphasized. Final-year students have a noticeably lower level of both identification with their future profession and the long-term perspective of their professional trajectory within the framework of professional education received at the university, while dealing with a higher level of anxiety about their professional future and career. Despite the fact that final-year students are less likely than first-year students to express a desire for international migration, every third young man and student majoring in natural sciences declares such intentions. At the same time, stable characteristics of students' life have been found, which are inherent in both 1st- and 4th-year students. These include ideas about an ideal career and status expectations; preference for some form of employment and work schedule; commitment to material values. The results of the conducted research can be used to adjust regional and intra-organizational social policy in order to increase the attractiveness of organizations and enterprises of the Tyumen region for the possible employment of young specialists with higher.