1. Practical Application The study results may come as a relief to some as freshmen can be assured that they do not need to be involved in everything in order to have a good college experience. Instead of seeking to be a part of a social organization, student government, multiple honors societies, and other university supported clubs all at the same time, freshmen should look to find the right balance for their own experiential needs. Auburn University should be advised to focus student services beyond promotion of high student involvement because our test shows that satisfaction in students’ college experiences may be made up of a more complex source such as facility conditions, ease of access to academic help, and the feeling of “home”. College Experience Satisfaction and Student Extracurricular Involvement Skylar Albritton, Kaylee Burgan, Katelin deLatour, Morgan Schultz, Lexie Segrest HRMT, ANTH, AMDP, HDFS, HDFS College is a period of increased self-reflection, during which students have the opportunity to explore and be trained for career opportunities. Specifically, career and developmental extracurricular activities increase student involvement within a major of choice and provide the chance to further investigate their identities. According to Stringer and Kerpelman (2011), an individual who assimilates his or her choice of career before exploring the job market is more likely to reach identity achievement, which can lead to greater life satisfaction. The more career related experiences an individual has, the more likely to have greater career identity. Hirschi and Hermann (2012) found that college students who sought career identity instead of a career calling reported the greatest levels of happiness. Moreover, a student’s satisfaction in college can stem from involvement in various activities including career-related training (Komarraju, Swanson, & Nadler, 2014). Last, concrete training in a career before graduation is a practical way of predicting self-efficacy, which is an individual’s effectiveness and responsibility when committing to an activity (Stringer & Kerpelman, 2011). Therefore, the hypothesis of the current study is that there is a difference in students’ satisfaction with their college experience based on involvement in career and developmental extracurricular activities. Introduction Methods Procedure Participants responded through an online survey program called Qualtrics. The responses were confidential. The questions for this research were randomly placed and compiled with 18 other research studies. The participants experienced one level of degree of involvement. Materials Participants were given two questions for this research. The first, ‘How would you rate your overall college experience at Auburn University?’ was rated on a seven point scale (1 = regretful to 7 = absolutely delightful). The second question, ‘How many hours in a typical week do you spend on career and developmental extracurricular activities?’ the participants were given two options to choose from, where 1 represented low involvement (less than 4 hours of career and developmental extracurricular activities a week) and 2 represented high involvement (more than 4 hours of career and developmental extracurricular activities a week). Results The research hypothesis stated that there is a difference between students’ satisfaction with their college experience based on involvement in career and developmental extracurricular activities. An independent samples t-test was used, as the study was a between- groups design. The results indicated that there is no difference in Auburn University students’ satisfaction with their college experience based on involvement in career and developmental extracurricular activities, t(69) = -0.79, p = 0.43; d = -0.19; 95% CI [-0.82, 0.35]. It is expected that on average any individual Auburn student with low involvement in career and developmental extracurricular activities (M = 5.57; SD = 1.33) will have a satisfaction score that is 0.19 of a standard deviation less than that of a student with high involvement (M = 5.81; SD = 1.14). This is a small effect. There is also a 95% of chance that the population mean difference for students with low involvement will be either 0.82 satisfaction scores less or 0.35 more than students with high involvement. Discussion Comparison of Student Involvement in Career and Developmental Extracurricular Activities and Overall Satisfaction with the College Experience [RB1] How many participants? Also how many were categorized as low and high involvement?[RB1] Participants The 72 participants for this research were chosen from two statistics courses at Auburn University, a southeastern university in the United States of America. The participants responded for course credit. The participants were 84% female. Their class standings varied (32% seniors, 29% juniors, 26% sophomores, and 13% freshmen). The majority of the participants were from the College of Human Sciences which made up 57% of the study. The College of Liberal Arts comprised 29%, and 12% of participants were from other colleges. From the responses, 35 participants classified as low involvement (less than 4 hours of career and developmental extracurricular activities per week) and 35 participants classified as high involvement (more than 4 hours of career and developmental extracurricular activities per week). Two participants did not respond. Participants The 72 participants for this research were chosen from two statistics courses at Auburn University, a southeastern university in the United States of America. The participants responded for course credit. The participants were 84% female. Their class standings varied (32% seniors, 29% juniors, 26% sophomores, and 13% freshmen). The majority of the participants were from the College of Human Sciences which made up 57% of the study. The College of Liberal Arts comprised 29%, and 12% of participants were from other colleges. From the responses, 35 participants classified as low involvement (less than 4 hours of career and developmental extracurricular activities per week) and 35 participants classified as high involvement (more than 4 hours of career and developmental extracurricular activities per week). Two participants did not respond. There is no difference in students’ satisfaction in their college experience at Auburn between students who are classified as high involvement and those classified as low involvement. This may be because students rank their satisfaction based on factors other than university sponsored social interaction. These varying factors may include grades, condition of campus facilities, distance from students’ homes, value ratios between cost and benefit, etc. For example, some students who are focused solely on the academic function of college may not be highly involved in extracurricular activities, however their satisfaction at Auburn may be measured by their academic success such as that, if their grades are being maintained at a satisfactory level, they feel satisfied with their college experience. Limitations This study was originally designed to link social interaction related to Auburn and school satisfaction. Because not all social interaction takes place within the confines of student organizations, we cannot say that all students with low involvement also have low social interaction. For example, a student who may not be very involved in any campus clubs may have a very tight-knit study group that provides the student with plenty of social interaction that fuels him or her and increases the likelihood of self-reporting satisfaction in their college experience. By measuring social interaction as a whole, the calculated results may have favored the research question. The wording of the question used to assess involvement may have caused the results to be inaccurate. The survey question included the phrase “career and developmental extracurricular activities” to gauge involvement. This might have caused students to exclude their involvement in social extracurricular groups such as a sororities and fraternities because they felt it may not fit within the phrase “career and developmental.” Greek life provides students not only with social features but also with opportunities to grow in leadership and activism. Exclusion of this phrase would have increased the number of hours spent interacting socially with other Auburn students reported by participants which might have led to a different result in the test. Future studies can avoid such limitations by wording their questions to more clearly include the total involvement of students such as the phrase “and social organizations.” If the original research questions included this phrase, a different relationship between involvement and satisfaction may have been discovered. There is no difference in students’ satisfaction in their college experience at Auburn between students who are classified as high involvement and those classified as low involvement. This may be because students rank their satisfaction based on factors other than university sponsored social interaction. These varying factors may include grades, condition of campus facilities, distance from students’ homes, value ratios between cost and benefit, etc. For example, some students who are focused solely on the academic function of college may not be highly involved in extracurricular activities, however their satisfaction at Auburn may be measured by their academic success such as that, if their grades are being maintained at a satisfactory level, they feel satisfied with their college experience. Limitations This study was originally designed to link social interaction related to Auburn and school satisfaction. Because not all social interaction takes place within the confines of student organizations, we cannot say that all students with low involvement also have low social interaction. For example, a student who may not be very involved in any campus clubs may have a very tight-knit study group that provides the student with plenty of social interaction that fuels him or her and increases the likelihood of self-reporting satisfaction in their college experience. By measuring social interaction as a whole, the calculated results may have favored the research question. The wording of the question used to assess involvement may have caused the results to be inaccurate. The survey question included the phrase “career and developmental extracurricular activities” to gauge involvement. This might have caused students to exclude their involvement in social extracurricular groups such as a sororities and fraternities because they felt it may not fit within the phrase “career and developmental.” Greek life provides students not only with social features but also with opportunities to grow in leadership and activism. Exclusion of this phrase would have increased the number of hours spent interacting socially with other Auburn students reported by participants which might have led to a different result in the test. Future studies can avoid such limitations by wording their questions to more clearly include the total involvement of students such as the phrase “and social organizations.” If the original research questions included this phrase, a different relationship between involvement and satisfaction may have been discovered.