Major-based undergraduate curriculum as an obstacle to graduate employability development

ABSTRACTTo tackle the problem of graduate employability (GE), higher education researchers and practitioners are suggesting the inclusion of employability modules in university curricula. However, the orthodoxy of the major-based undergraduate curriculum (MBUC) has rarely been challenged in the GE literature. Drawing on Clarke’s (2018) [Clarke, M. (2018). Rethinking graduate employability: The role of capital, individual attributes and context. Studies in Higher Education, 43(11), 1923–1937. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2017.1294152] integrated employability model, this paper explores how MBUC affects undergraduate students’ GE development. The data were 27 interviews with undergraduates majoring in Portuguese at six Chinese universities. Findings show that the MBUC weakens students’ perceived employability by cultivating a single rather than compound skill set, limiting their social circles and, therefore, horizons for action and delaying their career self-management. More directly, it affects GE in some cases by overproducing a homogeneously skilled workforce. We argue that in many fields of the current world of work, the MBUC may have contradicted its original, and once achieved, goal of enhancing GE for a particular profession; rather, in practice, it has become an obstacle to GE development.KEYWORDS: Undergraduate curriculumcollege majorgraduate employabilityhuman capitalgraduate attribute AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to sincerely thank the participants for their generous support and express their gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable insights and feedback.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Chinese universities are primarily categorised according to their strongest academic disciplines, with many institutions possessing expertise and robust research programmes in particular industries.2 In recent years, some Chinese short-form video hosting services have become popular overseas, including in Portuguese-speaking countries. They need employees who speak these languages to review videos, provide overseas customer service, and market development.