Academic profile and career choice of fresh undergraduates of library and information science in a Nigerian University of Education

Abstract

The choice of a career is very essential in learner's academic endeavour. This study investigated the academic profile and career choice of fresh undergraduates of LIS(Library and Information Science) in a Nigerian University of Education. The study sought to find out the academic profile and the preferred course chosen by the undergraduates, as well as the perception of the undergraduates about LIS. A total of 120 newly admitted undergraduates in the Department of LIS, Tai Solarin University of Education, (TASUED) Nigeria were purposively chosen. Data was gathered using an instrument tagged Perception of New Entrants about LIS/Profession(PERNELIS). All questionnaires administered were returned and found useful for the study. The entry academic profile indicated that 113(94.3%) and 109(93.4%) of the undergraduates had at least a credit or more in the mandatory subjects i.e., English and mathematics. Also, the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination(UTME) score revealed that most of the undergraduates had above 200 i.e. 88(72.5%) over a total score of 400 while the Post-UTME results indicated that majority or 70(58.3%) of the undergraduates had between 13-25 on an overall scale of 100. Furthermore, the study found out that undergraduates were influenced to study LIS based on their interest(55.0%) hence 40(33.3%) and 55(45.8%) undergraduates choose the course LIS as their first and second  choices respectively. The study therefore recommends sustained and continuous awareness about LIS in order to ascertain that LIS schools are not dumping ground for low intelligent quotient (IQ) undergraduates.