This study of the nature and characteristics of thinking examined how university students without full-time work experience and university graduates with work experience think when posed with an indeterminate situation. The focus was on such characteristics as expression tendencies, approaches to responding, thinking movements, and learning enhancers. Subjects included 26 methods-course students in a teacher certification program, 17 university graduates with 5 years of full-time work experience (typically business), and 16 university graduates with 10 years of full-time work experience. Each subject performed two thinking operations out loud during a focused interview. Salient characteristics clusters resulting from the research are listed as "rough starts" of generalizations used to highlight a relationship of the clustered characteristics. These are provided as bases for the reader's own hypotheses for further study. Samples of these characteristics include: the more full-time work experience, the more succinct the responses; and the more inductive thinking, and the more critical thinking, and the less work experience, the more probable fallacies in thinking. Examples of key idea stimulants and insights from the research are provided as an approach to trigger further hypothesis development. (JDD)