To determine the influence of high school vocational agriculture on college achievement and subsequent employment of agricultural engineering majors, data were collected from 419 graduates of Iowa State University representing the period from 1942 to 1964. The 112 graduates who had taken at least 3 or more semesters of high school vocational agriculture were compared with 112 graduates who had no vocational agriculture. A higher percentage of the vocational agriculture group: (1) had lived on farms, (2) had listed "own idea" as the reason for college attendance, (3) had learned of the agricultural engineering profession earlier, (4) earned a higher percentage of their college expenses, (5) took their first job in Iowa, (6) were involved in supervision, administration, and management in their 1964 employment, and (7) reported income advancing more rapidly. The study indicated that vocational agriculture can be a real asset to agricultural engineers in their later employment and in further preparing them to meet the challenges of the agricultural engineering field. This is an abstract of a thesis submitted to the Iowa State University of Science and Technology. (DM)