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Danielle Goldberg ’07 was a member of the women’s soccer team her first two years on campus. But when she stopped playing at the end of her sophomore year, she began noticing changes in those around her.
“The beginning of my junior year marked my transition from a student-athlete to a non-athlete, and I started to notice the differences in personality and character between my athlete and non-athlete friends,” explains Goldberg, who graduated May 19 with an A.B. with majors in economics & business and psychology.
“When I began to search for internships and full-time jobs, I recognized that employers were more interested in my experiences as a college athlete rather than what I had learned during previous internships. In fact, most of my interviews were spent talking about what it was like to be a soccer player in college. As a result, I became interested in quantifying the future impact of participation in intercollegiate athletics in terms of career success.”
Her curiosity surrounding the differences between college students and college student-athletes became the basis for her honors thesis. Titled “The Impact of College Athletics on Career Success,” Goldberg looked beyond classroom performance.
“A novel feature of this thesis is exploring the long-term outcomes as opposed to outcomes while in school, such as grades or graduation rates,” she says. “It investigated whether participation in intercollegiate athletics impedes upon or leads to greater career success relative to those students who choose not to participate.”
To measure this, Goldberg used an econometric model that quantifies the future impact of a college athlete’s experiences. The model is estimated using a rich longitudinal data set that includes a base-year survey and four follow-up surveys taken from a nationally representative sample from 1988 through 2000. In addition, the main explanatory variable of interest is whether each participant plays college athletics. Other variables are taken into account in the model such as high school athletic participation, drive, social adjustment indicators, goal progress, family life, job satisfaction, sex, and socioeconomic status. The measures of long-term success – the dependent variable – are the annual earnings and level of job satisfaction in the year 2000.
“Using a very large national sample, she found that five years after graduation, college athletes earn about ten percent more than non-athletes, even after controlling for a host of other factors that also influence earnings differences,” explains Mark Crain, Simon Professor of Political Economy, who served as Goldberg’s honors thesis adviser. “She also finds other measures of career success to be higher for college athletes than for non-athletes.”
Goldberg says Lafayette’s dedicated professors provide a great environment for undergraduate research, and they are dedicated to helping their students succeed. She believes she benefited greatly from Crain’s guidance.
“He not only challenged me to work to my fullest potential, but also motivated me when things became stressful,” she says. “Writing a thesis is an experience unlike any other, and Dr. Crain’s assistance helped to turn it into an intellectually stimulating and exciting endeavor.”
Crain was impressed by Goldberg’s aptitude and commitment to the project.
“Danielle is an intelligent person, and she has taken full advantage of the curriculum and training Lafayette can offer students who want to develop their quantitative and analytical skills,” he says. “Developing these types of skills is not easy and certainly not right for all students. However, Danielle likes a challenge, and has the maturity to realize that mental skills, like physical skills, require practice and hard work.”
In July, Goldberg will begin working as a human capital management consultant for IBM. She will use systems, applications, and products to help other companies improve the quality and strategic value of their human resources services. This will involve enhancing their organizational structure, data warehousing, and developing customer relations by implementing enterprise resource planning systems.
Crain explains that Goldberg’s experience with her honors thesis will help her as she begins her professional career. For instance, the analytical tools she used in her thesis have unlimited applications in the workplace.
“The ability to write clearly and concisely is a rare and highly-valued skill by many employers,” he says. “The thesis required her to assess constantly the significance of her findings, how these findings related to existing work, and whether she was, in fact, making an original contribution to our knowledge. What findings are new and how are they important? These are skills that only come with practice, and Danielle has spent the better part of the past year practicing them.”
Goldberg was the manager of the women’s soccer team this past season. She also was a member of entrepreneurship club CIRCLE and Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. She volunteered with the Equilibrium and Kids in the Community programs through the LandisCommunityOutreachCenter. She also was this year’s recipient of the Robert F. Hunsicker Educational Prize, which is awarded to a student who has done meritorious work in the area of small-business studies.
Honors theses are among several major programs that have made Lafayette a national leader in undergraduate research. The College sends one of the largest contingents to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research each year; 21 students were accepted to present their research at this year’s conference.