Experiências de estudantes de graduação diante do término do curso: um olhar fenomenológico-existencial

Abstract

Higher education institutions such as the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, form, each year, about three thousand students, and sometimes much more than that. The time of completion of the degree course and the impending exit to the world of work seems to be a period of doubts, uncertainties, questions, fears and reflexions about the engagement possibilities in the chosen profession or, on the other hand, about the restrictions of opportunities, among other scenarios that can be configured to recent graduates. How has it been for graduating students to experience this exit from the university due to the end of their course? In view of this, this work aimed, from a phenomenological-existential perspective, to understand the meanings attributed to the experience of being a concluding student of the undergraduate courses at UFRN. To this end, a thematic group was held entitled “Career Decisions” which included the participation of six graduating students from different presential courses offered in the university. This group had five meetings with two hours duration each, in the period of realization from august to september 2019. The narratives and attitudes of the participants were interpreted in the light of Heidegger's hermeneutics, providing thus a phenomenological basic methodology. Concerns about the political and budgetary issues that public universities are facing in the country and the fear of unemployment added to the difficulties of insertion in the labor market have proved as mobilizing themes for the participants, as well their narratives showed affectations face social pressures perceived for professional success. In this context, the students reported taking their steps without certainty, which seems to be configured in a daily fight for what is believed in face of the inaccurate panorama of reality. Based on the experience of this study, it is suggested to create a permanent meeting space for the attention to this theme within the university in order to offer listening to the discourses of uncertainty, which is also configured as a possibility for welcoming the existential restlessness understood in the period in question, thus affirming how much more institutional attitudes are needed to offer this support.