MYTHS IN THE ACADEME – PRE-ENROLLMENT PROFILES AND ACADEMIC EDUCATION AS KEY TO POST-GRADUATION EMPLOYMENT AND SATISFACTION

Academic education is considered a key to gaining employment and satisfaction. This scientific research attempts to explain the association between the demographic and pre-enrollment profiles of graduates of one academic institution, and their retrospectively reported satisfaction with their academic studies, and with their career. The study, based on a case study of the Ariel University Center of Samaria, Israel, integrates Holland's classic congruence theory and Seligman's innovative theory of positive psychology, specifically the hypothesis concerning everyday deployment of individual character strengths. Findings of the study demonstrate that deployment of character strengths was a significant predictor of graduates' work satisfaction. The interesting finding in this exploratory study is the failure of graduates' pre-enrollment admission profiles to distinguish among graduates based on their post-graduate employment status or job satisfaction. This finding is especially interesting and scientifically significant in the context of the accepted myth in the academe, according to which admission profiles are key predictors of future success.