Careers During COVID: Fashion Students’ Confidence in the Face of a Pandemic
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has had serious economic and health impacts on college students’ decisions. Especially, many Fashion Merchandising students are employed in the retail industry where workers are experiencing an increase in abuse related to customer service changes and uncertainty over continued employment. Thus, this study was to examine the current situation of Fashion Merchandising students at a large Hispanic Serving Institution related to their employment outlook considering the COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey was conducted on Fashion Merchandising majors or minors. Students were randomly assigned to read a positive or negative headline about the impact of COVID-19 on the fashion industry. While a negative headline has a significant impact on the students’ estimation of the future size of the industry, it did not change the perception of students about the difficulty of their career path or create significantly higher levels of regret over their major choice.
Keywords: : COVID-19, Career confidence, Stress, Fashion students
How to Cite:
Cho, H., Bedford, S. C., Hustvedt, G. & Liang, Y., (2022) “Careers During COVID: Fashion Students’ Confidence in the Face of a Pandemic”, International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings 78(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/itaa.13689